Kanye West baking cookies. Tyler the Creator grocery shopping on crutches. Ice Cube fishing while wearing a life vest. Lupe Fiasco checking his smartphone while riding the subway alone. These are just a few of the normal, every day things rappers do in the “Rappers Doing Normal Shit (RDNS)” Tumblr.
RDNS began in October of last year as “a product of an overactive imagination,” wrote creator Rory Wilson in an email to the Daily Dot.
“Before I knew it, I was signed up and had published a couple posts. Then, a little OCD probably kicked in, and I couldn’t just leave it. That was four months ago” wrote Wilson.
To date, Wilson’s Tumblr is followed by roughly 10,000 people, which is “ten thousand times more than I ever thought I would get,” Wilson said. The majority of pictures are found via “a LOT” of random Google searches. But lately Wilson has been getting submissions, too, which “is cool to see.”
Wilson estimates he spends roughly an hour or two a day on the Tumblr, divided evenly throughout the morning and evening.
The novelty of the Tumblr is of course in its namesake. Celebrities, by their very nature, are placed on a pedestal. On the other hand, society is constantly reminding us that celebrities are just like normal people too.
I think celebrity glorification has created a malicious backlash, where people are more interested in seeing the popular stars burned at the stake. That’s kind of a bummer, and it’s not what my Tumblr is about.
Celebrities take their image way too seriously. And because of that, I think there is a human tendency to want to see that image fracture a little bit. Everyone knows, in addition to selling millions of records or starring in blockbuster movies, celebrities and rappers are doing normal shit like taking their kids to Disneyland, coaching Pop Warner football, or playing connect four…and “the rest of us” find that compelling.