Donald Glover

About

Donald Glover is an American actor, comedian and recording artist best best known for playing Troy on the NBC comedy television series Community and his rapper persona, Childish Gambino.

Acting Career

Glover acted in several shorts films and videos in the mid-2000s. He also appeared in multiple episodes of the comedy show 30 Rock, where he also worked as a writer. In 2009 he won the part of Troy Barnes on the NBC comedy series Community, he left the show in 2014 in the middle of its fifth season. He also guest starred in the second season of the HBO comedy Girls in 2013, and appeared in a number of films including The Muppets (2011) and The To-Do List (2013). Glover also played in the popular kids show Adventure Time with Finn and Jake, as he played the roll of Marshall Lee.

On October 15th, 2015, FX ordered 10 episodes of Atlanta, a show created by and starring Glover.^[19] The series premiered about a year later, on September 6th, 2016 and follows the story of two cousins attempting to break into the rap scene in Atlanta, Georgia. The series went onto receive two Golden Globes, one for Best Television Series -- Musical or Comedy and another for Best Actor -- Television Series Musical or Comedy for Glover's performance.^[20]

On October 21st, 2016, the official Star Wars Twitter account announced that Donald Glover would be playing Lando Calrissian in the Han Solo prequel film. @starwars^[18] tweeted a picture of the actor with the caption "Hello, what have we here? Donald Glover is Lando Calrissian in the untitled 2018 Han Solo Star Wars Story."
The tweet (shown below) received more than 57,000 retweets and 88,000 likes.

Online History

#Donald4Spiderman

On May 28th, 2010, io9^[13] published a post titled "The last thing Spider-Man should be is another white guy." After readers suggested Glover could fill the role, he introduced the hashtag #donald4spiderman (through a tweet that has since been deleted) and created a photoshopped image of himself in the Spider-Man suit. The hashtag became a trending topic^[14] over Memorial Day weekend, and the phenomena was covered by several websites including Access Hollywood^[15] and Collider.^[16]

Public Sex Livetweet

On March 26th, 2011, Donald Glover live-tweeted a couple having sex in a Bank of America ATM booth in New York City, the highlights of which were subsequently picked up by BuzzFeed^[17] on the following day.

Childish Gambino

Glover is also a recording artist, rapping under his stage name Childish Gambino. He released his first EP as Childish Gambino on March 8th, 2011. Glover released his first full length album as Childish Gambino, titled Camp on November 15th, 2011, following it with his sophomore album, Because the Internet on December 10th, 2013. Childish Gambino's official Vevo YouTube channel^[8] was launched on May 9th, 2011. On November 1st, 2011, he released his first music video through the channel, titled "Bonfire." As of July 2014, the video has gained over 8.7 million views. As of July 2014, the channel's most viewed video, titled "3005," which was uploaded on December 6th, 2013, has gained over 14.8 million views. The third Childish Gambino album, Awaken, My Love! was released on December 2nd, 2016, peaked at #5 on Billboard and has sold more than 100,000 copies as of June 2017.^[23]

Retirement

On June 4th, 2017, during his Childish Gambino set at Governor's Ball, Glover hinted that the fourth Childish Gambino album would his last. At the end of his performance, Glover said, "You’re in my hear. I’ll see you for the last Gambino album."^[21] The next day, Glover told HuffPo^[22] that he would be ending his music career, and effectively Gambino, because it was "necessary." He went on to say:

Like I feel like there’s gotta be a reason to do things and I always had a reason to be punk. Being punk just always felt really good to me and we always looked at Atlanta as a punk show and I feel like the direction I would go with Childish Gambino wouldn’t be punk anymore. As much as “Redbone” is a punk song because it’s a gospel song that’s on the radio, I’m like there’s only so far you can go before you just are the radio.

Instagram Notes

On October 14th, 2013, Glover posted a series of seven photos of notes written on Marriott stationary describing his professional and personal fears and insecurities to his Instagram account.^[9] As of July 2014, the final note in the series has gained over 33,000 likes.

Several websites wrote pieces on the series expressing concern for Glover, including People Magazine^[10] and The Huffington Post.^[11] Glover responded to the concern in an interview with People^[12] published on October 17th, 2013, explaining:

"If I'm depressed, everybody's depressed. I don't think those feelings are that different from what everybody's feeling. Most people just don't tell everybody."

"Redbone"

“Redbone” is the second single off Awaken, My Love! and was released on November 17th, 2016.^[1] The song is Gambino’s most successful single to date and his first top 40 single. The song also featured in the closing credits of the race-related horror film Get Out directed by Jordan Peele. The song has become a popular source of remixes, which examine what "Redbone" would sound like in different scenarios.

Fandom

As of July 2014, Glover's Facebook page^[2] has gained over 640,000 likes and his Twitter account^[3] has gained over 1.3 million followers. Fans have created several Tumblr blogs dedicated to him including donldlover^[4], fuckyeahdonaldglover^[5] and fuckyeah-childishgambino.^[6] As of July 2014, DeviantArt ^[7] has over 400 fan art submissions tagged Donald Glover.

/r/thedonald

On October 25th, 2013, Redditor^[24] th3pudding launched the /r/thedonald subreddit. Within five years, the subreddit amassed more than 16,000 subscribers. While the subreddit was mostly used to share news of United States President Donald Trump, during the week of May 19th, various Redditors began posting images of Donald Glover. On May 20th, 2018, Redditor^[25] SvennoBenno posted an image of Glover (shown below) and the title "The Donald. Upvote this so that people see it when they Google 'The Donald'." The post received more than 45,000 upvotes (73% upvoted) and 895 comments in 24 hours.

On May 21st, Redditor^[26] captainoftrips posted about the subreddit in the /r/OutOfTheLoop subreddit. The post read, "All of the 'typical' /r/thedonald posts have been downvoted to oblivion and the most upvoted are either about Donald Glover or openly anti-Trump. What happened?"

That day, Redditor S0ny666 explained, "It's because /r/thedonald was a mostly empty sub until everybody started talking about Donald Glover's 'This is America' song. The sole mod there hasn't been active for 19 days so somebody found out they could use the sub to make Donald Glover memes. /r/the_donald is the sub dedicated to President Trump."

Related Memes

Donde Esta La Biblioteca

Donde Esta La Biblioteca is a YouTube fad revolving around a Spanish rap from the NBC sitcom series Community. The phrase "donde esta la biblioteca" is a basic Spanish phrase that translates to "where is the library?" in English. It is often one of the first phrases taught in beginner's Spanish class.

I Have the Weirdest Boner

'I Have The Weirdest Boner' is a catchphrase expression that is used to convey one's feeling of sexual arousal and guilt at the same time. The phrase was first introduced in an episode ofCommunity titled titled "Romantic Expressionism" which first aired on February 4th, 2010. In the episode, Troy (played by Glover) says "I have the weirdest boner" after his friend Jeff whispers something into his ear.

"This Is America"

This Is America is a song released by Childish Gambino in May 2018. The song and its video, directed by Hiro Murai, was widely praised upon release for its striking imagery as it related to racial politics in America. The video also sparked some object labeling memes on Reddit following its release.

Personal Life

Glover was born on September 25th, 1983 on the California Edwards Air Force Base. He attended NYU and graduated with a degree in dramatic writing in 2006.

Search Interest

External References