Last week, Kai Carlo Cenat III and a fellow social media “influencer” informed their millions (!) of followers that they would be giving away free PlayStation 5 consoles in Manhattan’s Union Square Park on Friday at 4 p.m. They did this without bothering to obtain a permit for what was likely to be a massive event. By 3 p.m. the crowd at the park, made up almost exclusively of young black men and teens, began to spill onto the nearby streets, blocking pedestrians and cars. As PlayStation giveaway time approached, many in the crowd began to throw rocks, bottles and other objects at each another. Some set off fireworks. Members of the mob stormed a construction site; others attacked cars, storefronts and food carts for no discernible reason. Eventually the event turned into a fully-blown riot. Police arrested 65 people, about half of whom are juveniles.
Here is the message from Kai that attracted the crowd:
“We’re making sure to have good like protection and shit. You already know, we’re trying to chill and shit. All my New York niggers, I fucking love you niggers to death. ‘But ya’ll niggers are wild. Ya’ll niggers are animals, bro. Let’s be real, bro. When you niggers get too lit, when there’s too much going on, like, niggers start violating shit. That shit might end really quick depending on how rowdy you get and shit like that. Now, look – it is a public area. So anything can happen, bro. Anything can happen. Make sure you pull up with somebody. Just make sure you pull up with a friend to make sure ya’ll are good and shit like that. New York is fucking insane, nigger. But I need all my New York niggers out there. We’re gonna go crazy, bro.”
Kai Carlo Cenat III was arrested an charged with inciting a riot.
Ethics Observations:
1. A culture that responds so positively to an “influencer” who expresses himself like that has deep, dangerous and and unaddressed pathologies. This is persuasive evidence that the African-American community is in denial, and that the rest of the American public is functioning as enablers by accepting the false narrative that racism is the reason for all the black community’s problems.
2. Commenter “Other Bill,” who brought this story to my attention, notes that the message above should be cited by the next academic who is facing discipline for “offending” a student by uttering the word “nigger” in a non-disparaging context. Indeed, it should be a complete defense.
3. I’ve reviews many videos and photos. If there were any white or Asian rioters, I didn’t see them. Again, this episode is evidence of dysfunctional culture at very least in New York City, and very likely urban America generally and the nation as a whole. It demonstrates a failure to teach values and democratic principles to the young, and if this failure is disproportionately affecting young black citizens, families and their communities, it is urgently necessarily for those who believe that “black lives matter” to stop pretending the problem doesn’t exist.
4. This isn’t going to be fixed by anti-white discrimination, affirmative action, critical race theory or knee-jerk “diversity/equity/inclusion” policies.
5. In 2018, New York State raised the age for a person to be held criminally liable under the law. Albany District Attorney David Soares is calling for Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state legislature to repeal the “Raise the Age” law because it is creating a population of young adults, especially black young adults, who have reached majority without learning that anti-social conduct has consequences. Soars says the law has“normalized” violence in urban minority communities across the state. Last week’s riot certainly seems to support his position.
6. It seems clear that Kai Carlo Cenat III did not intend for his PlayStaion giveaway to turn into a riot. However, the theory is at least consistent with that of Donald trump critics, who argue that he “incited” the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol.
2.
Ethics Alarms 
I’ve translated his exhortation:
6) He may not have intended it to become a riot – but his own language clearly nods in the direction that he doesn’t expect the event to be calm or polite – he spends his time talking up how rowdy he knows they can be, almost with excitement. He sort of asks them not to. Then tells them he plans on being crazy also.
There is a lot of slang in that statement that has different meanings based on context. When he says he plans to get crazy, I believe he is referring to giving stuff away. To be fair, it isn’t entirely clear due to the mixed usage of slang terms. I read it several times, and I think he is asking the crowd not to cause trouble so he can “go crazy” giving stuff away.
Being incoherent in communication is unethical.
I don’t know if it is unethical, but it is counterproductive and annoying. I would presume that the target audience would be able to decode the slang, but given their failure to follow instructions that presumption might be erroneous.
I wonder if the possession of certain skills becomes an ethical *obligation* for individuals who rise to the level that many people rely on them for guidance – such as Cenat and this crowd. And the lack of that skill (in this case, clear, thoughtful communication) is unethical by Cenat, whereas it may not be unethical for, say, a 3 year old?
“Instructions unclear; vandalized a convenience store.”
I amend my translation of his gibberish then from this:
“However, I wish my concluding remarks to those of you in the Big Apple with whom I identify on the deepest level possible to be be these: “We intend to release ourselves from proper societal inhibitions anyway, brethren!””
to this:
“However, I wish my concluding remarks to those of you in the Big Apple with whom I identify on the deepest level possible to be be these: “Brethren, we plan to distribute the gifts with wild aplomb!””
Yo! Null! Wanna buy a bridge?
Today’s word is “enabling.” Can you say “enabling” children? Of course you can.
I am not currently in the market for a bridge, but I’ll let you know if that changes.
I’m just translating, not endorsing. The resulting behavior is obviously a problem.
By all means. Translate away:
ya’ll niggers are wild
Ya’ll niggers are animals
niggers get too lit
niggers start violating shit.
how rowdy you get and shit.
anything can happen. Anything can happen.
Make sure you pull up with somebody. Just make sure you pull up with a friend to make sure ya’ll are good
We’re gonna go crazy
Cousins, ye art consumed by untamed devils!
Ye, most intimate, art beasts of nature!
My most esteemed! Ye art prone to excess merriment when enjoying the brewer’s craft!
O, deep companions of mine! What riotous conduct by which your names are known!
What ruffians ye play when your mindsets are beset such!
For only the fates can see what perchance mayst occur. For only the fates can see what perchance mayst occur.
Arm yourselves with companions most trusted! Keep countenance upon your fellows’ constitution and your health be spared!
As for me and my compatriots! We shall be enlivened as we were at the gates Harfleur!!!
Hah! I was just commenting to Jack these videos of people (largely of color) running amok remind me of real time, live action Breughel peasant paintings.
And yea, Michael, verily, thou hast drunk too deeply and sweetly of the elixir of inimitable (darest I say imitable?) Elizabethan poesy.
As long as it amused someone in addition to myself, then I consider it a triumph.
Highfreakin’larious, from where I was sittin’, MW!
Perhaps a few more basketball courts to expend some of that youthful energy might help??
Perhaps a few more of the po-po to bust a few more black asses would be better. Hit da bricks! Yeah weeya detectives, and weeya heeya to bust yo’ black ass.
On the serious topic though, in regards to drawing analogies between this and Donald Trump: it seems to me, we have to delineate between plainspoken English on one end of the spectrum and extremely loose ‘poetic’ use of English, in this case, slang, further encumbered by casual or absent grammatical markers.
The use of language like that, to me, seems the ultimate in a user’s ability to Motte and Bailey themselves an excuse.
Everything worked out ok? Yeah, see how awesome my poetic use of language was well-received?
Oh, wait, I’m in trouble? No way, that’s not even remotely what I meant in my slang, I can’t help what my hearers heard!
And sure, the use and abuse of the English Language falls on a continuum like this. But, while Donald Trump’s use of language on January 6 is much closer to the “plainspoken” end of the continuum and Cenat’s use of the language is much closer to the “whatever the ‘in crowd’ knows it to mean but no body else can parse” or the “whatever you want it to mean” end of the spectrum, are they close enough to each other for the comparison in #6 to be made? Or is the gulf so wide that they are only similar in theory, but not in any useful way to draw conclusions and make judgments about the rightness or wrongness of either’s use of language?
And to think we (or maybe just “I”) bought the idea that most urban riots were directly linked to the frustration and anger brought on by watershed events in the black and minority communities: Martin Luther King, Rodney King, Trump presidency, etc., etc., ad nauseum.
So now let’s just enlarge and adjust this rationalization to: “Where the heck are my PlayStations??? You promised!”
Joke all you like about Kai Cenat’s language and exhortations, but I think this is too significant to simply joke about what an asshole he is. The fact that young people once again turned on themselves when they didn’t have another outlet shows me that this country has only regressed since the occasional mayhem that helped define the years of change in the last century (60s and 70s.) Not that today’s youth know squat about that history.
And ignoring the make-up of the crowd, what better illustrates the appalling dehumanization that technology has wrought? Say what you will about the players here. But this incident should keep should keep sane people up at night.
Yet this does not seem to be a case where something was promised, it wasn’t available, and angry people lashed out, like in “Contagion” when a crowd waiting for food during a pandemic is told there isn’t any more.In teh vieos I’ve seen, the participants are smiling and laughing as they throw things and kick cars.
That’s even worse.
Key takeaways:
“…shit…shit…real…shit…shit…shit…so…shit”
Just realized it’s actually a secret code for some sort of fraternity.
… .- .. .- .
EAIAE
Minor correction, just to be fair: he’s usually reported as being a “Twitch streamer” rather than an influencer. Twitch streamers play video games live for an audience and comment over them, which (to me) puts them in the realm of legitimate entertainers, if just barely. Similar to a radio DJ, but without the business interests of a radio station behind them.
I don’t think that should change your estimations necessarily, but I do think it makes the size of his audience and what he was thinking slightly less baffling; radio promotions gone wrong have a long history (I remember years ago when a woman died in a stunt to win a Nintendo Wii through WHFS in DC) and this is the same genre but without the benefit of a corporate legal team having looked it over.
He probably would have been better off dropping them out of a helicopter.
That’s a distinction that is beyond me. Several sources described him as an influencer, others as a streamer, some as both. I’d say that if an individual can make thousands of people descend on a local just by telling them to, he qualifies as an influencer. No?
“He probably would have been better off dropping them out of a helicopter.”
…along with some Thanksgiving turkeys?
–Dwayne
Let’s see how old the readership here is: Who doesn’t know that reference? It’s from 1978!
This sort of thing wouldn’t happen in Japan for cultural reasons, but I would not be surprised if white people behaved similarly. I’ve heard stories about sports riots. You put a human in an environment of peer pressure and a switch flips and all the wrath comes out. The main difference is that white people wouldn’t blame “Black supremacy” for the outcome.
I can’t recall a sports riot in the U.S. In South America, yes, but that’s another culture too.
Riots happen in the U.S. quite regularly after World Series, NBA and NFL championships are won. Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, features such riots quite often, as I recall. Cars get torched and overturned and store windows get broken. The excuse is usually that the winning team hasn’t won a championship in a long time.
Yeah, I was thinking only of stadium riots. A bunch of drunks, celebrating, but still doing damage. Sopt on.
Nanking and much of Southeast Asia c 1930s & 40s would tend to disagree that herd misbehavior is something the Japanese are immune to.
It’s a human malady. But it’s one humans can be raised to avoid. We just stopped raising humans to avoid it.
I meant present-day Japan. I’m also not sure that people in the United States’ past were raised to resist mob mentality. With everything else, I concur.
1) Herd mentality manifesting in the whole society moved to horrible conduct – very likely with central authority encouragement.
2) People “finally having enough” (justifiably or not) taking to the streets in anger.
3) Ill-disciplined (almost always youths) swept up in a moment of emotion.
Different flavors of this, all ultimately with the same root human flaws.
I don’t think the Japanese are immune. No one is immune. The best we can do is craft institutions and pursue methods of raising children that discourage individuals from behaving so, and encouraging them to recognize when it’s happening and to resist joining.
BUT
There has to also be a balance – go to far in the opposite direction and you have sheep incapable of any assertive, self initiated actions. And that might be where the modern Japanese are. Not necessarily a good thing.
“Members of the mob stormed a construction site; others attacked cars, storefronts and food carts for no discernible reason. Eventually the event turned into a fully-blown riot.”
Pardon, but accordingly to our amazing Mayor here in Chicago, you shouldn’t use terms like “mob” (as a journalist did to describe similar incident) because, and I’m quoting the f***ing moron, “this phrase dehumanized the teenage suspects.”!!! Yeah, you’re supposed to say large gatherings. After all, those poor kids are simply misunderstood and only acting that way because we didn’t give fair opportunities.
I’m pretty sure “riot” is bad too.
Disclaimer: this only applies to actions of groups that vote or are likely to vote Dem, especially BIPOCs, alphabets, and pro-abortion fanatics. Any gatherings of two or more people who vote or are likely to vote GOP (especially straight white males) is presumed to be a mob and most likely an insurrection. Carry on
And don’t you DARE call these children “thugs.”
One of the roots of the problem has long been known and understood. According to a 2021 report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 72 % of African American children are raised in a single parent household. Daniel Patrick Moynihan raised the alarm about this in 1965 when the percentage of African American children born to single mothers was 25%. He was accused by the Left as “blaming the victim,” a term coined specifically in criticism of Moynihan’s report that warned of the dire consequences should this situation continue. He was prescient.
The well-understood consequences for boys and young men (of any race) being raised without the positive influence of a loving father (or father figure) are now being displayed by the succeeding generations so deprived. The federal government with all its programs of “assistance” is not a satisfactory father.
I am not suggesting that this is the entirety of the problem, but it is a key factor.
Of course, we aren’t allowed to say that nowadays. The totalitarian Left and its allies are working hard to emasculate and denigrate men and eradicate the nuclear family altogether.
It is getting late, and I don’t feel particularly loquacious. I would note that there is precedent for people rioting over seemingly odd causes. The famous example is the Astor Place Riot, frequently referred to as the Shakespeare riot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astor_Place_Riot
At least this one didn’t kill anybody. I will concede that the language around the first was considerably more eloquent.
There is also the fact that people frequently act irrationally when offered the prospect of something free. Abie Hoffman dumping dollar bills on the floor of the NYSE, with traders running to gather them despite the fact that their work would earn them more money than they could hope to grab. Counterpoint, there was a certain logic in that, as they were only focused on getting stuff, and didn’t start randomly smashing.
Conclusion: Stupidity remains one of the great universals of human history.
Well, I guess no one can complain if I tell the sprinkler joke again. 😛🤣
Turley picked this up, and came out with the opinion that Cenat should be held financially liable, but not criminally liable and compared the incitement that happened here to Jan 6th.
I’m not sold, and I think there are a few missing pieces of material information in his discussion.
1) Part of Cenat’s rise to stardom, however we want to label it, was by making prank content. I’ve said for years that someone is going to die as a result of “it’s just a prank, bro” culture, and this came close. I’m not convinced this wasn’t a prank because..
2) There were no PS5s on site. Cenat drove up to the giveaway with a few gift cards with a fractional value to even one PS5. And…
3) He started streaming from the back seat of his vehicle, saying that the police were tear gassing people, although that wasn’t actually true.
I think that there’s a non-zero chance that Cenat might have gotten more people to show up than he expected, but the plan was for there to be a disturbance. I’ll wait for the investigation.