No-Tory-ous: Tory Lanez’s Instagram Saga

Champaign, III. – Quarantine has given rise to several new online sensations, from rapidly changing TikTok challenges to Joe Exotic and the wild documentary starring him, Tiger King.

One such sensation, Tory Lanez’s Quarantine Radio has gained notoriety of its own, so much so that Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri had to suspend the viral radio show last week. The content itself was deemed inappropriate, which, given some of the content (which shall not be mentioned here, but can be found all over Twitter and YouTube) is totally fair.

“Quarantine Radio is great, so shout out to Tory Lanez for that,” Mosseri said in an Instagram Live interview with The Shade Room. “The lives have been great, the lives with the fans have been great. But you can’t have nudity on Instagram.”

Under normal circumstances, perhaps the social media site would be more lenient on its content restrictions. But the sometimes raunchy entertainment that made Quarantine Radio so viral was becoming impossible to address, especially when an influx of people are on their phones and using the app. At the peak of it’s popularity (which is still arguably now), Quarantine Radio was bringing in views at record numbers.

Of course this didn’t stop Lanez at all. Like every social media user, the instant his account got suspended he just made a new one, and pulled in over 27,000 new followers in just one minute. As of today, the account @thequarantineradio has over 164,000 followers.

Lanez’s Quarantine Radio has included guest appearances from a number of celebrities and artists such as Timbaland, Chris Brown, Drake, DMX and more. After his lengthy calls he engages the fans (sort of) and allows them to join his call for the “twerking segment”.

Mosseri said that while he was a fan of Lanez and didn’t particularly have any problem with the “radio show” and its content, there were two separate occasions where the app’s developers had to shut the stream down.

Rapper Royce Da 5’9″ and host of The Breakfast Club Charlamagne Tha God spoke out against the ban, and not long after new fans of the show went ballistic with the hashtag #FreeTory going viral on Twitter.

“There’s a short period of time where you can’t go live again. We have to stick to the rules otherwise why do we have them? But generally, big fan of Tory Lanez, big fan of Quarantine Radio, but no nudity! We can’t have that.”

The ban would not last long however, as the account has been reactivated since last Friday. When he returned, Lanez said that executives lifted his ban early because new mixtape New Toronto 3 was “so good”.

Nevertheless, the goal of Quarantine Radio, which was to promote the mixtape in the first place, has definitely been achieved. On Sunday the rapper took to his Instagram to thank his fans for 60,000 unit sales and counting, and has put out Quarantine Radio merchandise on his personal website.

 

 

The Unofficial Show

I always make it a point to stay consistent with any running gags I have. Last year during our show on Unofficial Weekend, I remember wearing a green tie covered in Shamrocks, so I literally scoured my closet and even went back home one weekend to find it. Because it’s all about consistency!

But that’s besides the point. Last year’s show I was still a relative newcomer anchoring alongside one of our anchors who graduated last year, Addi Ippensen. There’s a segment I did where I was interacting with some of the rescued wildlife on campus (a turtle and a hawk if I remember it correctly), but in that segment, which was for the most part unscripted, I really felt frozen, entirely cautious to how I’d present myself to our audience.

Needless to say, one year, and birthday later, I felt like we put together the best show we’ve ever had on GMI. I fully expect to continue this trend of getting better and better as a whole each show, and over the last full episodes I’ve seen more than enough evidence of that.

This was the first episode of our season where we’ll be seeing a host of new and old faces getting their first shine in the anchor’s seat. I remember how nerve-racking it was for my first time. Luckily for my co-anchor last week, Blake Landa, it wasn’t his first rodeo being on air, even though myself and UI7 News Correspondent Jose Zepeda jumped at any gaffe for a quick “rookie mistake!” joke.

The best part about GMI is our ability to have fun during the show, and I think last episode is another big example of just that. Now that our ‘new’ crew has finally gotten accustomed to each other, our expectations and have developed some real chemistry, it felt like we just didn’t miss a beat.

Also, last but not least, I can’t help but say I was really impressed with how the show turned out because one of our producers, Liam Dwyer, actually produced the entire 30-minute UI7 News Broadcast the night prior. As somebody who’s not had to produce back-to-back shows with such a quick turnover, and considering how seamless the show actually looked, major props!

 

My First UI7 Newsdesk

 Good Morning Illini is a show where I’m sitting in the anchor seat most of the time. It’s something I love doing of course, being in front of that camera with all smiles for a 30 minutes.

            But last week, instead of 30 minutes, I just had about three, give or take. Whether it was Orri Benatar, Erica Finke or Jose Zepeda, every time in our A-Block, it comes the time for me to throw it over to our UI7 News Correspondent. However last week, instead of throwing it over to one of them, my fellow anchors threw it to me for my first UI7 Newsdesk.

            Newsdesk is different from GMI, and after doing it I really have an appreciation for the type of hours I recall seeing each of them spending producing their own segment. While it was a new experience for me on GMI, I was at least familiar with the elements that go into it, thanks to previously providing content for UI7 Newsbreaks and news updates.

            What was probably the hardest thing to do was actually producing this content for me.  It’s not the best kept secret that my editing/behind the scenes skills aren’t the sharpest (I’m striving to be like you Maddie Rice!) but I feel like I was able to work through the stress it was causing me the night before the show. But, getting fully immersed back into everything that was going on around the Champaign area was a refreshing experience!

            In the segment I talk about a growing issue in the Illini Student Government over the passing of a resolution demanding that the University divests its business with three companies involved with the defense spending of Israel. The Students for Justice in Palestine, who’ve been pushing for such a resolution for years, were disappointed when the Student Body President Connor Josellis vetoed the resolution. However, the whole resolution may be nullified this Wednesday by the Student Judiciary Branch because of reported voting issues during the resolution that student senators had with their iClickers.

            It was a politically charged Newsdesk, and my next story dealt with the announcement that the University’s chapter of Turning Point USA will be hosting Ann Coulter to speak at Greg Hall’s auditorium, the home to all media students and anyone who takes Journalism 200. Along with the speech Coulter will have a meet and greet with the attending students.

            I wrapped up my story with a bill introduced to the Illinois State Government, banning the use of Native Americans or their likeness as a mascot until they meet specific, layered, school-wide mandatory education and training on indigenous culture and traditions, as well as written consent from a Native Tribe and the State Government to renew the right to use said mascot every calendar year.

            Doing Newsdesk was a nice change of pace. Since on GMI my major focus is letting my personality come to the forefront, but for news desk I got to go back to talking about hard news, which is something I don’t really get to do as in depth when I’m doing a normal GMI segment.