Rap Genius Founder's Comments On California Shooter Were So Bad, His Co-Founder Says He's Embarrassed
YouTube
Rap Genius co-founder Mahbod Moghadam took to the alleged UCSB shooter's memoir this afternoon and, using Rap Genius, annotated the publication with some very bizarre comments. Rap Genius is a heavily-funded startup, whose investors include Andreesen Horowitz.
The 141-page memoir written by Elliot Rodger - the 22-year-old man who went on a shooting spree late Friday night in Santa Barbara, California, killing 6 then turning the gun on himself - conveys themes of misogyny and entitlement, to name a few.
The publication has been making its way around the internet since the news of the shooting spree broke in the early hours of Saturday morning. You can read it in full here.
Valleywag's Nitasha Tiku points out that Moghadam leaves a trail of "weirdly gleeful annotations that ignore the memoir's context as a prelude to mass murder."
Take a look.
Moghadam points out that Rodger's writing is "beautiful" a number of times:
Rap Genius
Rap Genius
And concludes Rodger's sister is "smokin hot."
Rap Genius
I was fascinated by the fact that a text was associated with such a heartbreaking crime, especially since Elliot is talking about my neighborhood growing up
I got carried away with making the annotations and making any comment about his sister was in horrible taste, thankfully the rap genius community edits out my poor judgement, I am very sorry for writing it.
This isn't the first time Moghadam has found himself in hot water over his outspoken opinions. Last time he blamed a brain tumor.
But Ilan Zechory, another Rap Genius cofounder, doesn't seem to be tolerating Moghadam this time. In an email to Business Insider, Zechory writes:
Mahbod's annotations on the other hand are worse than weird, they're just bad. they are inconsiderate, uninteresting, and insensitive. it was horrible judgment to annotate in the way that mahbod did. thankfully the rap genius community is much more than one person, and when people put up stuff like this, it gets edited quickly. it's obviously embarrassing that it comes from a rap genius founder.
Disclosure: Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, is an investor in Business Insider.