From Silence to Propagation: Understanding the Relationship between “Stop Snitchin” and “YOLO”

Abstract

Beginning in the early twenty-first century, “Stop Snitchin”—a technique of not speaking to police—was at the forefront of urban hip-hop culture. With the exponential growth of social media, however, the idiom switched to “YOLO”—You Only Live Once. This phrase has glamorized American values of individualism and exceptionalism, thus contradicting “Stop Snitchin,” as people use social media as a platform to display their exploits and apply “YOLO” to dismiss criminal and deviant behavior. This article examines the intersections of social media, crime, and deviance as well as the influence of the prison industrial complex on social promotion of crime and deviant behavior. Using cultural criminology, this article seeks to identify how power is achieved through different forms of impression management, moving from silence to broadcasting in three ways: (1) chance, (2) announced, and (3) rehearsed performances.