Young Thug Sends Snakes to Music Mags and Media

[Ax01]

I wouldn't want any kind of animal being sent to me without my foreknowledge and consent.

oh i agree esp. when we don't want to give those critical of our hobby more ammo. i remember when the repeal on the Lacey Act ban of interstate travel of some big snakes in April of last year, anti-herper pundits freaked out and wrote articles like this: https://www.msn.com/en-in/lifestyle/...-us/ar-BBzDtGd

You Can Now Mail 20-Foot Pythons in U.S.

Gaby Del Valle 11-04-2017

Forget glitter bombs or dog poop. Now you can mail your enemy a huge, man-eating python.

A Washington, D.C., circuit court decided Friday that it is no longer a federal crime to ship both reticulated pythons and green anacondas within the 49 continental states.

Reticulated pythons are the world’s longest snakes and among the three heaviest. These snakes can grow to a length of more than 20 feet and reproduce through a creepy-ass process called “pathogenesis,” which basically means they don’t need to have sex and a bunch of baby snakes hatch from the female’s unfertilized egg.

The pythons paralyze their prey by wrapping themselves around them, squeezing like crazy, then swallowing them whole. They mostly eat prey that’s up to a quarter their own length—so, around five feet, or the height of your average fifth grader. Attacks on humans are “rare,” but just last week, a 23-foot reticulated pythonswallowed a man in Indonesia whole.

Now, let’s say you just want a pet. What do you do when your cute baby anaconda turns into a 400-pound behemoth? Release it into the wild, where it’ll probably eat a deer or something before it gets killed by professional snake hunters. That’s not a joke: every year, disgruntled pet owners release their snakes into the Florida Everglades, and the state’s government pays snake hunters to kill them, as pythons are an invasive species. Earlier this week, hunters wrangled a 15-foot Burmese python, a species that is smaller (yes, smaller) than the reticulated pythons you can now mail to your frenemy in Alaska or wherever.

Well, thank goodness for that. BRB, moving to Hawaii.

I hate the idea of any kind of pets being used as promotional props or surprise "gifts"...as mentioned, those refused got further stress, & even being "accepted"
doesn't guarantee they'll be cared for as anything more than a novelty toy...it's just a lousy thing to do, IMO. And someone should tell him that snakes are not
slimy...! I suppose there's always a chance that these snakes will win a few people over, but it's unfair to them if they don't.

i know! snakes are not slimy! i hate that myth!
anyways Bamp! b/c Digits, one of the snakes has passed: https://www.spin.com/2018/12/digits-...hug-snake-dead

Digits, Our Young Thug Office Snake, Is Dead

Some sad news out of Spin HQ: Digits, the little green snake sent to our office to promote a new Young Thug project earlier this year, has died. We’d say something nice here about the tragedy of her short life, but who knows—maybe she was already, like, 10 years old or something when Young Thug sent her to us. Either way, we’ll miss you, girl.

Digits slithered into our lives and our hearts in August, when Thug’s team at 300 Entertainment sent snakes to our colleagues at Billboard, and a number of other media outlets, as part of the rollout for his Slime Language collaborative mixtape. We had our ethical reservations about a promotional campaign involving a bunch of live animals, that require care to continue living, handed off to unsuspecting journalists with no advance warning. But we grew to love her, and now she’s gone.

Ross Scarano, Billboard’s VP of Content, was Digits’s closest companion here, unless you count the faux rock in her tank that she spent most of her time hiding underneath as a companion. Scarano tells Spin he last interacted with Digits on Friday evening, when he filled her tank with water.

“She’s been quite active in the last few weeks, and consistent with that, she dove right in to take a drink and I documented the moment on my IG story, with the martini emoji,” Scarano said. But by Monday, Digits was “gently coiled in the corner of the tank, underneath the warming lamp,” and not moving. When Scarano tried to stimulate her and she did not respond, he realized she had died.

Digits is not the first Young Thug snake to go. In September, we reported that Hubby, a snake first sent to Vice’s music publication Noisey and later adopted by the PR firm Girlie Action Media, had also died.

As for Digits, Scarano says, “I hope she passed peacefully.”

RIP Digits