On Sunday, a 17-year-old high school senior named Danny Diaz sent a tweet from a Chance the Rapper parody account that went viral, scoring over 260,000 retweets and 690,000 likes. The tweet told the world to “encourage” and “respect self improvement.”
canceling plans to read is ok. skipping a party for the gym is ok. staying home to cook is ok. lets encourage it & respect self improvement.
— Chance The Rapper (@ChanceFrom79th) September 3, 2017
This is, first of all, shitty advice: Cancelling plans with someone to read a book is genuinely a dick move, and deciding between working out and indulging in the after-hour leisure of a party is a bizarre scheduling conflict to have. But clearly it resonated.
Some people may have legitimately thought, “Hey, maybe I should bail on that Interpol show my friend bought tickets to to catch up on Thomas Pynchon.” Others probably confused this account with Chance the Rapper’s real account. This is an easy mistake for two reasons. For one, @ChanceFrom79th, the parody, is easy to mix with Chance’s Twitter display name, Lil Chano From 79th, and both use the same profile image.
But also people, clearly thought this was the real Chance the Rapper, which probably says something about the man himself. After all, gleamingly positive can-doisms are his brand. Late this afternoon, Chance not only acknowledged the insanely popular tweet but also endorsed it, which, at least, might make the people who were duped feel a little bit better, as they sit home tonight reading a book.
I hereby Formally endorse this fake page. https://t.co/3hDnxobuB8
— Lil Chano From 79th (@chancetherapper) September 8, 2017
