Donald McKinley Glover Jr. was born on September 25, 1983 at Edwards Air Force Base, California, where his father was stationed, and was raised in Stone Mountain, Georgia. How Much Truth Is Behind ‘The Conjuring’ Franchise? The artist’s issues typically revolve around selling records, filling up venues and moving merchandise. Elsewhere, Drake, arguably the biggest act in all of music at the present time, is still loose enough with his Instagram account that he’ll post funny, insular photos—things that hardly any of his 7 million followers will understand—celebrating writers whom he’s a fan of. Social media is over. The video reached 12.9 million views in just 24 hours. Glover’s worldwide success isn’t a product of luck. Rumors suggested he’d wiped his accounts in solidarity with an organization called Blackout for Human Rights, which may or may not be true—Al Roker seemed to have not done that sort of homework, otherwise he’d have mentioned it specifically. 1,898,205 people follow this. “Everything you put on social media lasts forever, so even if I post it for a second, it’s going to be there,” he explained. There’s nothing in it for people who have anything to lose. Representing Race in Choreography: A Case Study, Cannes Lions 2019 Grand Prix Winner: This Is America by Childish Gambino, A Radical Proposal for Dealing with Trump Supporters After Biden Wins, Spotting The Micro Behaviors Of A Toxic Relationship, Elon Musk’s 2 Rules For Learning Anything Faster, Sixty Days of Chaos Will Follow Election Day, 26-Year-Old Programmer Built a $1 Billion App In 2 Years — After Following His Girlfriend’s Advice, Life Lessons Learned in My 40’s That I Wish I Could Tell My 20-Year Old Self. Other people who shared the video and raved about it online were essential to the success of “This Is America,” but none of that would have been possible if Glover hadn’t created a dialogue around some of the today’s contentious topics. Glover is a man with feelings and insecurities and problems, not a machine. However, the subject matter wasn’t the only thing stunning viewers. He’s been able to dominate so many different fields because — alongside being talented — he is smart and thoughtful, making his decision to step away from social media likely something that was given careful consideration. In a discussion with one of his colleagues, Glover explained why he removed himself from the maelstrom of the internet, “I felt like social media was making me less human, and I already didn’t feel that human.”. Specifically in the case of Glover, celebrities are often pressured into using their platform to make a difference. 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Glover stopped posting on social media during the Ferguson riots in 2014. “It’s the only place you can be anonymous,” he said. Time and time again, Glover’s voice shines through his work. And those are, primarily, not the artist’s issues. Forgot account? ‘The Lion King’: To Watch or Not To Watch. And it’s because, as Action Bronson suggests, everyone is looking for something to pounce on, something to float a headline off of, something to make into an issue, something to make into their issue. The honeymoon with social media has ended. It’s not Gambino’s job to save the entire world — those kinds of expectations aren’t fair for anyone. He disappeared from social media in 2014, a year after the release of his album, Because The Internet. 4 Spooky Halloween Reads for Not-So-Spooky Readers, Gabbi Calabrese, Arkansas Tech University. Glover joins a slew of other celebrities who’ve decided to embrace a digital detox. I don’t wanna just be posting up stuff about my dog all the time.”. Still, you have to wonder whether Glover would be achieving more if he were on social media. “You need to constantly feed news headlines and social media fucking hashtags and all this other bullshit, and everything is picked apart so crazily and made it into a big fucking deal.”. ‘Community’ Finally Has the Netflix Spotlight It Deserves, Donald Glover and Rihanna’s Film ‘Guava Island’ is Musical Paradise, In ‘This Is America,’ Childish Gambino Sensationally Tackles Third-Rail Politics, ‘Without You’ Cements Lauv as the King of Pop Melody, BookTube Is an Enriching YouTube Community for Book Lovers, Why Hand-Washing Your Laundry Is Better Than Using the Machine, ‘I May Destroy You’ Confronts Misrepresentations of Sexual Assault, Shedding Light on Kai, One of the Voices Behind EDM, The Continued Existence of the Wage Gap Is Still Critically Important, Rumored Reboot of the Batman Arkham Video Game Series Excites Fans, The Benefits of Doing the NY Times Daily Crossword, Free Writing Provides a Powerful Way To Escape Writer’s Block, 6 Ways To Slow the Spread of COVID-19 When You Get Back to Campus, 5 Perks of Virtual Learning, Even If You’re Not Looking Forward to It, Bullet Journaling Will Save Your Sanity During Quarantine, 5 Netflix Comedy Specials That’ll Help You Get Through Finals Week, Twitter Users Are Split on Kanye West’s Cameo in Childish Gambino’s Music Video, An Intriguing Photo of Rihanna Has Sparked Anticipation About Her Next Project, Donald Glover Has Been Accused of Plagiarizing ‘This is America’, The 2018 Grammys Marked Progress for People of Color, but Not Women, Why Donald Glover Will Make the Best Lando Calrissian, Why Donald Glover’s ‘Atlanta’ Is So Important, 8 Things You Need to Know About the New ‘Spider-Man’ Film, OnlyFans Is the Only Social Media Site Built Exclusively for Sharing Nudes, Shining a Light on Shein’s Unethical Labor Practices. Despite his lack of social media presence, Glover has become one of the most respected and admired artists today. Like, why am I doing this—why am I writing my thoughts [online]?”. He needed to close the book on things he’d once said, even if he deeply believed them, so that he could go ahead and have a career getting paid to say other things. This is understandable, as he has an album coming out, but one has to wonder if the internet outrage sparked in 2012, shepherded by a series of photos deemed offensive to the transgender community, and his flippant response to that outrage, may have had something to do with it. You can turn to pretty much any social platform and find it rife with vital campaigns and progressive movements, spurned by both famous and common-folk alike. Or, if it’s because he’s recently been dragged, unwillingly, into divisive online spats with artists like Azealia Banks. To wit, even someone as famous and outspoken as Kanye West is still using Twitter, of all things, to explain and validate his points. Last week, after he was famously dissed by Fern Mallis, the creator of fashion week, he didn’t line up an interview with his BFF Jimmy Kimmel, but rather, posted a series of tweets which respectfully explained where he was coming from. If social media is harmful to his mental health or distracts him from his work, it’s certainly not selfish to eliminate anything that isn’t conducive for the mental space he needs to be in to continue creating entertainment magic. Michaela Coel (creator, writer, and star of HBO’s I May Destroy You) and Donald Glover (creator, writer, and star of FX’s Atlanta) had a conversation for GQ, and it was as expansive and insightful as you’d expect it the piece to be. But still, it’s hard to ignore the winds of change in the air. I wanna make sure that when I put stuff up it’s for a reason. After just two seasons, “Atlanta” has already won multiple Golden Globes and Emmys. Instead, he waited for the perfect opportunity — when he both hosted and performed as the musical guest on “Saturday Night Live.” He knew how to reach an audience without turning to Twitter or Instagram to promote his work, which, of course, isn’t to say that social media wasn’t instrumental in the video’s popularity. More importantly, Glover is a black man with an expansive list of accomplishments, putting him in a unique position to effect change on behalf of other underrepresented voices.