Life: The Biggest Troll

Happy Atlanta Night

Life: The Biggest Troll by Childish Gambino

(Not an official video, obviously - music starts at like 0:23)

Life: The Biggest Troll is a track from Childish Gambino's Grammy-nominated album, Because the Internet (2013) (x). The title for the album comes from a line in this song: Because the Internet, mistakes are forever.

Explaining the album title, Donald Glover said:

Because the internet I'm here, because of the internet we're all here. It's the language of earth. Everyone keeps saying by this or that year, Mandarin or Spanish will be the most dominant language, but the internet is already a language we are all connected to; even my dad can understand the meme format. But the thing is, there are no rules, which is also the awesome thing. (source)

I appreciate this insight and agree with it.

Childish Gambino has no chill with the Internet theme, even using an animated .GIF as the cover of his album. The physical version uses lenticular printing (that thing where the image changes when you look it from a different angle) to mimic the effect (x).

Life: The Biggest Troll takes a look at Internet culture with the same level of depth.

Musically, the track is easy to listen to. Childish Gambino raps free-flowing lines with a mellow voice. The background noise sounds like something Tame Impala would put out.

Lyrically, the track is - as CMJ calls it - "self-awarely annoying."

But, hey, I don't think it's possible to write about the Internet without accruing some second-hand embarrassment.

In addition to mentioning serious topics like gun control and the racist asshole hacker Andrew Aurnheimer, the track also references Rick Rolling and quotes Mean Girls. But, hey, that's the Internet for you.

Overview:

Genre:
Hip Hop / Rap

Favorite Lyrics:
Funny, the day you're born,
that's really your death sentence.

Verdict:
clever, very 2013