Culture
Eminem, Whose Entire Career Is Going Too Far, Worried He Went Too Far
By Bruno Von Falken, . BSN Network. Satire.
Eminem, the 52-year-old rapper best known for spending thirty years producing content that child psychologists cite in grant applications, has apparently discovered the concept of going too far.
The incident in question involves a diss track aimed at a fellow rapper, an art form Eminem has refined across multiple decades into something that functions less like music and more like a restraining order set to a beat. The track was released. It did what a diss track does. And then, by most accounts, Eminem looked at what he had made and experienced a sensation entirely new to him, which sources describe as mild regret.
'This might be too far,' he reportedly said, which is a sentence that has never previously appeared in any Eminem biography, court filing, or parole document.
For context, Eminem has over the course of his career released songs that threatened specific named individuals, songs that threatened unnamed individuals who were clearly identifiable by ZIP code, and at least one song that his own mother described as 'not entirely inaccurate but still hurtful.' His catalog includes a track called 'Kim,' which he has described in interviews as 'cathartic,' and which clinical psychologists have described in different terms entirely.
And yet here we are. A line, apparently, exists. It was simply located somewhat further out than anyone in the continental United States had previously mapped.
Tyler the Creator, who was reportedly the target of the diss, has not responded publicly, which is itself a form of response, and probably the most devastating one available. Being dissed by Eminem and declining to look up from your phone is the rap equivalent of a standing ovation delivered entirely through posture.
Industry observers have noted that Eminem expressing hesitation about a creative decision is roughly as surprising as a Formula One driver wondering if maybe he is going a little fast. Dr. Amara Osei, a cultural critic at a university that has tenure and therefore cannot be fired for saying this, told colleagues that the episode represents 'the philosophical collision of a man whose brand is boundlessness encountering, for the first time, a bound.'
Dr. Osei then clarified that she has never actually listened to an Eminem album and was working from Wikipedia, which she said 'gave me everything I needed and several things I did not ask for.'
What makes the moment genuinely worth examining is not the diss, which by all accounts is technically accomplished in the way that a controlled demolition is technically accomplished. It is the pause afterward. The small internal committee Eminem apparently convened, consisting entirely of Eminem, to assess whether Eminem had perhaps been unkind.
The committee met briefly. Its findings were inconclusive. The track remains available on all platforms.
Eminem has not commented further, which suggests the committee adjourned without reaching a majority.
The story we are making fun of: https://www.vice.com/en/article/that-time-eminem-dissed-another-rapper-and-almost-immediately-regretted-it-this-might-be-too-far/