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The Internet and Diddy's Downfall

-- By NilePierre - 18 Oct 2024

Who is Diddy?

Sean Combs (aka Diddy) is an award winning rapper, producer, record label executive, often referred to as a music mogul. Diddy, who has 100 civil cases and faces criminal charges from the US Attorney, is allegedly guilty of sexual assault, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice, among other charges.

Rumors Online and the Court of Public Opinion

As someone who grew up in Los Angeles, I’ve heard rumors of the dark side of Diddy’s white parties for years. However, social media has served as a platform to circulate these rumors past small talk in Los Angeles salons to twitter threads, videos, and forums. Certainly, the internet has become a highway for not just intellectual, but social and cultural information to spread. It has also become a passageway to critique, analyze, and dismantle reputations piece by piece.

Although the allegations against Diddy didn’t reach mainstream media coverage until Cassie filed a suit against him in November 2023, there have been online rumors about him online years before then. For example, in a 2022 reddit thread “What’s something in hiphop that’s unconfirmed, that you 100 percent believe?? https://www.reddit.com/r/hiphopheads/comments/uzx7tl/whats_something_in_hiphop_thats_unconfirmed_that/”, one user commented “People like Birdman, Diddy, etc. are grooming younger artists and probably doing more than that..” This got 478 upvotes. A reddit thread from 2019 is titled “P. Diddy is a woman beater and has verbally abused his own mother according to his former bodyguard, Gene Deal. Story starts around 25 min. Mark.” It got 1.2k upvotes. So although the formal news outlets might have been slow to catch on to Diddy’s behavior, it’s hard to believe that the pervasive narratives about him online didn’t contribute to or encourage individuals to come out against him.

Cancel culture plays a major part in turning online gossip into life-changing information. Some see cancel culture as a way of holding people accountable, and others see it as undue punishment. While many disagree on the role it plays, it’s undeniable that the internet/social media has made a huge cultural shift in the way we interact. “The number of people who can go online and call out others for their behavior or words is immense, and it’s never been easier to summon groups to join the public fray.” (https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/05/19/americans-and-cancel-culture-where-some-see-calls-for-accountability-others-see-censorship-punishment/). Social media has changed the way we see and interact with celebrities, giving the public once unimaginable levels of access and enabling fans to theorize and critique endlessly. It has also created an obligation for response from celebrities that we have never seen before.

The rumors have turned from whispers in salons and posts on forums into full fledged legal allegations. Now that there have been over 100 cases filed against Diddy, and a video tape of him physically assaulting Cassie widely disseminated across news networks and websites, cancel culture has fully engulfed Diddy’s existence. His once sterling reputation has now been irreversibly tarnished, whether or not he is found guilty in our courts. His legacy has transformed from a music legend to creator of violence. (https://www.vulture.com/article/diddy-allegations-lawsuit-analysis.html). While the courts have yet to make decisions in Diddy’s cases, the court of public opinion has made its decision.

Shifting Power Dynamics

Cancel culture as a whole speaks to the shifting power dynamics observed in internet culture. For a large segment of time, traditional media set the tone on public figure’s reputations. Newspapers, networks, press tours, and talk shows were the avenues in which the public could access information on celebrities. Critique of their actions was left to those that controlled these platforms. Now with social media, new voices can be heard and users are empowered to stimulate conversations. Furthermore, people whose opinions may not have mattered before - especially women, people of color, and other marginalized communities - have a platform.

In Diddy’s circumstances, this made all the difference. Looking at his victims, they are overwhelming women and people of color. Not only have victims who fit this description often disempowered by the music industry, they tend to institutionally be failed by the legal system. It is hard to believe that Diddy would have been held accountable on the level he has without the internet being a platform for people to speak out and critique his actions freely, which may not feel safe to do in the halls of record labels or police stations. Surely, the US Attorney's office wouldn't have taken such steep actions if it were not for the massive attention the Diddy case was getting in the media, which is driven by social media.

Does The Internet Give Us a Real Window?

While the internet has undoubtedly been a resource to give voice to the voiceless, and help rumors evolve from gossip to tools to tell the stories of victims, people have adapted to the potential intrusion it can provide. The internet, particularly through social media, can give a false sense of access and knowledge of another individual. In its inception, social media was a tool to share your life with people already existing in your real-world community. Now, it has evolved and redefined what a community means. Many individuals follow the life of celebrities like they would follow the lives of their families before the internet. While social media gives us a window to public figures, it’s important to know that this window is skillfully curated to fit a particular image.

This para-social monitoring has also led public figures who have an association with Diddy to curtail their online images. Seemingly in response to Diddy’s fall from grace, many celebrities have scrubbed their internet footprint. Usher, Megan Fox, Pink, and others have deleted their X and Instagram posts in the past few weeks. (https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/news/why-are-celebs-deleting-social-media-posts-and-what-does-it-have-to-do-with-the-diddy-tapes/ar-AA1r3cNW?ocid=BingNewsVerp). LeBron? ? James, Yung Miami, Steph Curry, and other have unfollowed Diddy on instagram following his criminal charges. (https://www.vibe.com/lists/celebrities-unfollowed-diddy-lebron-james-kim-kardashian-steph-curry/). With celebrities being mindful of their online presence, the impact of cancel culture through monitoring might be weakened.