Saturday, March 2, 2019

Give Us Our # Back!

Rapper J. Cole Makes #middlechild Trend on Twitter

     I was so psyched when I saw #middlechild popping up everywhere on Twitter recently. “All my hard work is paying off,” I thought. “Finally, we’re getting some attention.” So you can imagine how disappointed I was to learn that all the fuss wasn’t really about MidKids at all, but about the release of rapper J. Cole’s latest track titled “Middle Child.” Disappointed, but hardly surprised.
     According to Genius.com, “Cole envisions himself in the center of the old and new generations of hip-hop, making him the ‘Middle Child’ of rap.” The lyrics couldn’t be any clearer:

“I'm dead in the middle of two generations
I'm little bro and big bro all at once.”

     Tell me about it. It doesn’t get any more Middle Child than that. But once again, we’ve been reduced to a mere metaphor! And just to rub more salt in the wound, Cole only has an older brother and no younger siblings. Ugh. I mean, if you’re going to hijack our hashtag, couldn’t you at least be a real Middle Child?
     I don’t know, maybe it’s a good thing. The track is Cole’s biggest hit yet. It dropped on January 23, and by the week of February 9, it had already reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and #2 on Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. And the highly anticipated music video just dropped on Feb. 25, sparking a whole new #middlechild surge.



     So maybe I should be thanking Cole -- make him an honorary Middle Child or something. I mean, borrowed Middle Child buzz is better than no Middle Child buzz at all, right? But on the other hand-- can’t we even have our own hashtag!? We have to share that, too? #sounfair.
     Since J. Cole took our tag, I figured it was fair to rip off his rap for my “Middle Child” parody.

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Middle Children need to be heard!