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It was all supposed to be funny.

A relic of aughts pop culture, bolstered by his preternatural understanding of his own brand, kicks off a semi-scammy second act. The tabloids and newspapers cover the sudden reemergence in a “Remember him?” tone, stuffing stories of increasingly unhinged rants deep into the entertainment section. A few people connect with the formerly mega-famous huckster’s argument loudly proclaiming that a reevaluation of his talents, brains and impact is in order.

DeAndre Way has spent the last decade as a simultaneous icon and punchline. The Atlanta rapper and viral hitmaker better known as Soulja Boy made a mint on dance-floor-filling tracks in the late ‘00s. Songs like “Crank Dat (Soulja Boy)” and “Turn My Swag On” rocketed to fame through an ahead-of-the-curve adoption of then-nascent social media and video sharing platforms. Their insubstantial lyrics and production were easily translated into hyper-compressed MIDI ringtones, finding a way to spread among cool-signifying teens in a pre-smartphone era. These dance-along numbers invited online audience participation well before TikTok made viral dance routines a key plank in any pop album rollout.

Soulja Boy’s fame fizzled as mainstream rap tastes moved toward harder, bleaker sounds in the next decade, but he never really went away. He tried to launch a fashion brand and his own cheap video game console. He told anyone who would listen about his supposedly momentous impact on rap music. His proclivity for outlandish statements and grudge-holding made him a solid interview for rap radio and podcasts.

All of this came to a head in a feud with Blueface, a Los Angeles pop-rapper whose off-the-beat radio hits were about four stylistic permutations removed from Soulja Boy’s chintzy dance tracks. What began as a bit of bragging and boasting quickly escalated via a series of Instagram call-outs. Backed into a corner, Way went nuclear.

"All that Internet s**t, playing back and forth," Soulja said on Instagram in 2024. “Let’s meet up and die."

The situation, where two rappers were arguing over who had the better discography, had clearly overheated. After a few more cross-country threats aided and egged on by social media, the pair ended the feud amiably. Pop fans could laugh it off, knowing that stars don’t have access to non-metaphorical armies.

Though he walked a similar path to Soulja Boy on his way to the Oval Office, that’s not the case with President Donald Trump. The one-time reality TV host, whose racist ranting was reported in the entertainment section, was running a lark of a campaign, until he wasn’t. His conspiracy-addled supporters were a big goof, until they broke into the Capitol. His whining that he never got the respect he deserved was pitiful, until he rode it to a second term.

This hot-headed grudge-holder who never quite got over decades-old snubs from magazine editors and Manhattan movers and shakers has started another feud, with someone who isn’t willing to humor him. He’s done the unthinkable and attacked Iran, hoping for a quick concession. With none coming, he issued the most unhinged declaration from a president in memory. Trump gave into his hurt pride, announcing his intention to commit a war crime on social media.

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” he wrote on Truth Social. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will… WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World.”

Time has made much of Trump’s previous bluster feel silly in retrospect. His constant whining about being treated unfairly by literally everyone (especially, of course, by “nasty” women) can be treated as buffoonish, except in those instances where he did something irrevocable. His anti-immigrant rhetoric is no longer a cynical ploy to gain support from racist rubes. His Big Lie stopped being sour grapes once zip-tie-wielding lunatics stormed D,C. Here’s hoping that his latest threat can go in the trivia folder, and not into the history books.

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