In Honor Of National Donut Day, The Trollgaze Index Sizes Up Krispy Kreme (The Rapper, That Is)

Yesterday the Alabama rapper Krispy Kreme—think a 21-year-old Paul Wall lookalike who sounds like a Yelawolf impersonator whose tricks are performing with a mouth full of marbles and rhyming “back” with “back,” streamed over a super-slow Internet connection”—released the song “Best Friends,” a charming little ditty about his best friend (of course) being hooded and hustled into a van as he’s kidnapped by a 17-year-old drug dealer. It’s dedicated to Tupac; it features clothing fashioned by the popular-slash-loathed MC Mac Miller. All of this, of course, means that it’s time to break out The Trollgaze Index, in which we gauge the media-manipulation skills of today’s musical artists.

THE ARTIST (10 points): What better place to source this dude’s biography than from his KnowYourMeme.com entry:

Krispy Kreme is an amateur rapper known for his hyperbolic lyrics and absurd YouTube videos. He gained much of his notoriety after releasing his first music video in April of 2012.

That he has a page on the I Can Haz Cheeseburger-powered guide to LOL Culture is enough to give him a perfect score. But there’s more: He’s also had his work honored by the horrific memes-run-amok Comedy Central program Tosh.0, a show about the Internet hosted by a smarmy jerk that somehow continues to thrive, and that is yet another item on the “Reasons I Should Have Been A Little Less Optimistic About The Digital Revolution Back In The Day” list. (10/10)

THE SONG (5 points): A minor-key string loop (think a scrubbed-down Wu-Tang track) with a nasal young dude wheezing out a heroic tale of friendship. I can’t tell if his Southern accent is real or not, but I am keenly aware of just how much dude loves rhyming “back” with back.” (4/5)

DIVISIVENESS (5 points): There is a video response to the song (one of many! Did you know that live-vlogging is a thing??) that currently has one like and 29 dislikes.

YouTube: Holy shit there is a lot of it. (2/5)

VIRALITY POTENTIAL (10 points): It’s been a slow news week, so many blogs are jumping on the chance to cover a song by someone they could call “Rebecca Black’s boyfriend,” even though Black is not even 15 yet. (Save yourself, Rebecca!) (9/10)

“FUCK THE HATERS” QUOTIENT (10 points): May I direct you to “Haters Wanna Be Me,” a track “for the club” in which he obliquely quotes Jay-Z and Kanye’s “Paris,” brags about committing crimes and going on scary roller coasters, and threatens those who “talk crap” with egging and flaming bags of shit.

The best thing about this song is that it has a pre-roll ad. Get that paper, boy. (10/10)

BACKLASH POTENTIAL (5 points): When the three people who genuinely like Krispy Kreme’s output realize the error of their ways, watch out! (1/5)

THAT EXTRA JE NE SAIS QUOI (5 points): What if this is all just viral marketing for Mac Miller’s clothing line? We’ll all feel so stupid! Oh, wait. (5/5)

TOTAL: 41/50: Trollgaze! Now let me never have to hear his music again, because it’s not even, like, fun bad.