Tory Lanez song trending on TikTok draws major backlash

TikTok users are facing backlash for the site's latest trend that involves the use of an unreleased Tory Lanez song. Why is it controversial? Lanez is the rapper who was convicted on three felony charges for shooting Megan Thee Stallion in the feet in July of 2020. Now an unreleased track of his, Hurts Me, is trending on TikTok because of a new popular filter on the app — and users may not even be aware they're supporting the convicted rapper by using it in their videos.

TikTok's new filter, “striking face,” enlarges users' eyes and mouths and gives them a five o'clock shadow beard. In itself, the filter is as inane, pointless and occasionally amusing as any other. The controversy started when creators started attaching the same song and lyrics over and over again to videos using the filter: “Do you not realize that it hurts me, when I see you go out? ‘Cuz you have the time of your life, only when I’m not around.”

Those are lines from the unreleased track Hurts Me by Tory Lanez. That fact may elude some users when choosing the song, because they don't realize that Lanez's real name is Daystar Peterson. So far, the audio has been used in over 125,000 TikToks under the “striking face” trend. More troubling still is that separate from the trend, the song is also gaining momentum as a trending song on TikTok.

As explained in the Problematic on TikTok blog, “when unreleased songs by well-known artists trend on TikTok, those artists usually release the song to widespread commercial success.”

While some TikTok users are making comments supporting the right to use Tory Lanez's song despite his conviction, others are expressing outrage at unknowingly using the work of Megan Thee Stallion‘s attacker. The controversy over whether the work of an artist can be viewed independently from his or her personal character has been debated for centuries — but now it has a new, updated TikTok twist.