FINALLY A LITERATURE REVIEW LIL CHUCKYYYYYY

 Alrigth guys, who ever is reading, 

I've finally accumulated a literature review that I used to analyze the social media phenomena LIL CHUCKY 

This will be a quick post, Im just going to insert my literature review below.

Lets do this...

Lil Chucky literature review

Similar Phenomena 

 

After stumbling onto Lil Chucky and watching the way he presents himself, ten toes down gangster who never snitches, who will take your girlfriend in an instant, and is willing to take on anyone that crosses his path, the demeanor and presentation reminded me that of Lil Tay. Lil Tay was a viral sensation around 2018 and deemed herself the “youngest flexer.” Lil Tay was usually seen flaunting wads of cash and shouting at the world that the rest of us were broke and needed to acquire more money. Like Lil Chucky her main platform was Instagram and the videos that she would post would gain huge amounts of traffic and interactions. One video reaching almost 13 million views on Instagram (Lil Tay’s Instagram). Seeing her antics and her social media behavior one would wonder why she would act the way she acts. She seemed well off and it didn't seem like she had an enemy or opponent that she needed to seem intimidating for. So why? Turns out she was being instructed by her older brother to act the way she’s acting, down to scripting exactly what she would say in videos (Levy, 2023). Being so popular and famous at the time it made her more susceptible to hackers leaking posts that weren’t meant to be posted. For instance, this video provided to us by Vlad TV in 2018 where it shows the brother literally coaching Lil Tay on how to act and word for word on what to say, seeing two different Lil Tays as they construct their viral content (Vlad Tv) Obviously, she was not what she presented herself to be. She had her moment of fame but eventually died down because her content was not sustainable. 

In more recent times, there is currently a popular artist who is 9 years old by the name of Lil Rt. Like Lil Tay and Lil Chucky, Lil Rt presents himself with this persona of a young gangster who is a force to not be reckoned with. Overall, he acts as if he is older than he makes himself out to be. In the beginning of one of his music videos, you can hear Lil Rt coughing right before the track begins, usually done among the rap community when implying that they've just smoked. In the same song he then goes on to talk about “Bitches,” and “bitches being on his dick,” and highspeed chases with the police. All the actions that we as viewers know Lil Rt is not committing as a nine-year-old https://youtu.be/q89MWsGPhFk?si=zEUPnVcXw1PU3Ane

Though Lil Rt makes music presenting himself as this tough little kid, as previously mentioned about Lil Tay, you can’t help but wonder if there is someone behind the scenes pulling the strings. Turns out like Lil Tay, Lil Rt has an older figure kind of manipulating his presentation for interaction and views. https://youtu.be/v-dnGNMOeQE?si=oG-2sLNR-g0yHZhi 

In this video featuring Lil Rt we are introduced to this manager figure much older than him who apparently saw a video of Lil Rt rapping on TikTok and figured this sort of thing would generate some sort of buzz, so he contacted Lil Rt’s mother and essentially said that he could make Lil Rt a star if he just portrayed himself in the type of demeanor that he is currently putting out (Starting at 2:05). If that doesn’t shout “exploitation ready to happen,” There is also many scam allegations towards the Lil Rt’s manager figure. Lil Rt presents himself as this cold-blooded gangster but as he spends more time on the internet, we see glimpses of his genuine childlike self. For example, in this very interview the host ask Lil Rt what his favorite food is and how any nine-year-old would respond he innocently says, “macaroni n cheese.” (0:49) He kind of catches himself break character and ask to cut that out of the interview and changes his answer to sushi. Proving that he’s portraying a character. Most likely influenced by his manager that profiting off his social media success. Currently Lil Rt has over 300,000 followers on insta and over 13 million views on his latest music video.  

Observably, based on these young social media phenomena it seems like there is some sort of formula that grants success on social media. The formula being a visibly young kid, acting in abrupt ways generating a form of shock that is almost irresistible not to click on or follow. Like Lil Tay and Lil Rt, Lil Chucky obtains these exact characteristics, abrupt gangster demeanor that you wouldn’t expect from someone who is visibly very young. He should not be speaking and acting the way he does. But unlike Lil Tay and Lil Rt that have someone older behind the scenes profiting from destroying their image, Lil Chucky seems to be solo on this rise to fame, and he’s in control of his own image, or so it seems at first.  

 

Theories of Analysis  

 

As we can see from the social media phenomenons above, there are glimpses of what these characters are actually like. In the Lil Rt interview we see the realistic childlike characteristics that make sense for a nine-year-old to act like (or this video of him playing with nerf guns). But he doesn’t want that side to be seen and presented, he wants to put out the tough image of a gangster. Which also happens to be the image that has given him the popularity that has brough him success, so of course he’s going to prefer to be seen as the tough gangster rather than an innocent nine-year-old. In the Lil Tay video where her brother is directing her on what to say and how to act, we see glimpses of the real her not the juvenile behavior that is all over the internet. She is smart and very much still a child, as we can see when she whines at her mom for messing up her video. Philosopher George Herbet Mead developed a theory of this idea. The perception of yourself you display in response to your environment and outside factors and then the actual you, the person you are when no one is watching and judging you. Your true self. The theory is called “The Me and the I,” The me refers to the “You,” that you are to everybody else the person you portray to others, Mead states that “...people learn to see who they are (man or woman, old or young, etc.) by observing the responses of others to themselves or their actions.” In Lil Rt’s scenario it's the large amount of positive interaction and success as the response, and his thug life character being what is being responded to. We see his “I,” when the child in him cracks to the surface like when he broke character and admitted he enjoys mac-n-cheese.  

Seein that both Lil Tay and Lil Rt have an older figure kind of pushing them to act a certain way, this made me wonder if Lil Chucky, clearly a minor, has someone else behind the scenes. During my research I was looking for a sign or a direction that could point me to a driving factor behind the concept of “Me,” for Lil Chucky. Essentially trying to figure out if the demeanor he presents is genuinely him or is there another source of scripting or direction.  

One last theory concept that I want to mention that helped me to identify Lil Chucky’s form of content and the general interest to Lil Chucky is the idea of “Virality VS. Spreadability.” Essentially “virality” is a form of content that you send to others without really thinking about. You are not educated to the actual content of the post that you are looking at and sharing. Usually, this type of content has no retention and is usually forgotten after a short period of time. “Spreadability” is the idea of a form of content where you care about the substance behind the post. You are educated with the content you are looking at, when sharing you’re hoping someone appreciates it as much as you. Spreadable content usually leads to you following the creator of the content and keeping up with future posts. It’s a more sustainable form of content.  

 

ANALYSIS COMING SOON