Introduction
WorldStarHipHop is a video site specialising in fights, girls, and pranks. The site gets over 200 million monthly visits and has over 9 million subscribers on its YouTube channel. It’s become so popular that even Drake was once featured on the site when he threw cake at someone during a concert (you know you’ve made it big when Drake throws cake at you). So what makes this site so popular? Is it just violence and women? Well…
It’s like TMZ, but for black people/hip hop/the hood.
WorldStarHipHop is a video website and social media platform that highlights black culture. It’s like TMZ, but for black people/hip hop/the hood.
The website was founded by Lee “Q” O’Denat in 2005 when he created a YouTube channel to post videos of fights and other street incidents. The site now has over 1 million subscribers on its main channel alone; the company also has other channels devoted to news, sports, music, entertainment and gaming.
It’s a bit exploitative.
More than any other video site on the internet, WorldStarHipHop is a fascinating cross between news, gossip and reality TV. But, of course, it can be all those things at once because it’s mostly about people being filmed in public places.
This makes the site slightly exploitative — like TMZ for black people. But that makes it no less entertaining for its tens of millions of daily visitors (and millions more who watch videos on YouTube).
The fights.
WorldStarHipHop is popular because it’s a place where people can go to watch fights. I mean, we all love watching fights, right? You know the ones I’m talking about: they start with two people arguing over some petty thing or something that didn’t need to be fought over in the first place, and then it escalates quickly. Usually, it ends with someone getting knocked out (or worse). The best part is that sometimes you don’t even know how one person could think they’re right when they’re wrong, or vice versa! It’s so fascinating how these things work out every time!
The girls….and the “pranks.”
You can’t say WorldStarHipHop does not have a particular formula. The website is built on a few key ingredients:
- Girls—usually scantily clad, usually shaking their moneymakers.
- Pranks—the majority of which are staged for the camera’s benefit and in which people get hurt or even killed.
- Sexual content—often violent, often involving rape or assault (or both), sometimes involving animals.
These three pillars are essential to the site’s popularity, but let’s take a closer look at each one in turn:
The music videos
But its biggest asset is the music videos. WSHH has an enormous library of music videos, and it’s not just mainstream pop or hip-hop. The site also features underground artists who get their start on WorldStar.
WSHH has helped some of today’s biggest names to rise in popularity because of their presence on the site (think Lil Yachty, Migos, and more). For new artists looking for exposure, a video on WSHH can be a great way to get some attention and build your fan base—but only if you do it right!
There are a lot of different videos on WSHH, and it occupies a pretty unique role in the landscape of the internet.
WorldStarHipHop is a website that combines news, music videos and pranks into a single package. The site was launched in 2005 by Lee O’Denat (aka Q), who wanted to create a place where people could share their videos without worrying about getting sued by someone else for copyright infringement. Since then, it has grown exponentially and now receives over 500 million page views every month, making it one of the most popular sites on the internet.
The site hosts various video types, including news stories, hip-hop music videos, sports highlights and pranks by celebrities like Kanye West and Drake. Fans can submit any footage they want if it fits within certain guidelines set by WSHH management, but there isn’t any vetting process beyond this. So you’ll find some questionable content on there, too (like when they posted convicted murderer Robert Durst’s confession tape).
Conclusion
I think it’s interesting that we have so many different platforms for content now, but most of them are still driven by the same old things: sex, violence and greed. WorldStarHipHop is one of the few sites still focused on those three things in a way that feels honest and raw. It may not be highbrow or even all that entertaining at times, but it has stayed true to its roots as an underground platform for hip-hop culture since its inception back in 2005 (and we all know how long ago 2005 was!).