It’s basically expected now that after attaining even a modicum of internet fame or notoriety, you will have to try and turn that into a career as an influencer. Hawk Tuah Girl is one very recent example, and now another is attempting to join her ranks: the man convicted of the murder of Pop Smoke.


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Wait, what?



The man, who goes by Blockstar and who was 15 at the time of shooting, made an appearance on the No Jumper podcast recently, and people aren’t thrilled about it, for obvious reasons.


The hosts asked Blockstar what he would say to those who think he got off too lightly, to which he said they were right. He also said that he wasn’t sorry about anything, which seems slightly contradictory. Or as he told the hosts, “It should’ve never happened, but I ain’t sorry. If I could go back, I’d go back. But I ain’t sorry. People die every day. [Pop Smoke] was rapping about it. All types of stuff. So, I ain’t sorry about it."


Commenters were far from impressed, with a top comment condemning host Adam22 reading, “Damn Adam went too low for this. Yall definitely did Popsmoke wrong for this. Ion see no podcast interviewing rappers killers smh. This is next level ish.”



Fellow podcaster DJ Akademiks called out No Jumper for hosting Blockstar, arguing that they were setting a “dangerous precedent,” and asking, “I wonder if he knows the repercussions of what he's doing. You interviewed Pop Smoke’s killer. You basically signal to the entire whole clout-chasing generation that if you murder someone, especially someone with a name, you have a platform to get another type of clout or career. I think that’s a dangerous precedent. Very dangerous.”


He’s not wrong — there’s a reason media outlets are discouraged from focusing too much on the personal lives and histories of school shooters, for example. The last thing anyone wants to do is make anyone think that shooting up a school will make you famous.


Blockstar was the youngest of the four men involved in Pop Smoke’s murder, and he was released from juvenile detention just last week after serving a four-year sentence for the February 2020 killing.