Old-timey gangster rapper Machine Gun Kelly, inspired by a recent rash of dubiously named “flash mobs,” organized his own promotional uprising yesterday in the food court of a Strongsville, Ohio mall. Of course, like most Twitter-assembled “flash mobs,” it ended up being less of a surprise, subversive artistic expression than a bunch of bored suburbanites freaking out, in much the same way that Kelly’s after-the-fact avowing that the resulting mini-riot was “a statement” is a lot like calling Tiffany’s mall tours in the late ’80s a “movement.” Though maybe not "a REAL movement," which is what happened, apparently.
Still, even though Kelly’s plans to have all of his fans wear “funny disguises” and then “RAGE HARD” to one of his songs under the authoritarian gaze of the local Sbarro were stymied by mall authorities “kicking out ppl w costumes,” and a squealing teenage fan base that failed to remain “anonymous as fuck,” the commotion and the resulting arrest of Kelly and two other members of his entourage did make a couple of statements. One, it boldly announced that there is a rapper named Machine Gun Kelly who is signed to Diddy's Bad Boy Records, and now people outside of suburban Ohio know that. And two, it affirmed to those same people that this Machine Gun Kelly is definitely not a guy who will back down when a mall security guard orders him not to stand on a food court table. No, he will stand right up on that food court table, because that is what it takes to start movements.