Tyler, the Creator Mugshot

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About

Tyler, the Creator Mugshot is a mugshot photograph of rapper Tyler, the Creator released by the Austin Police Department on March 15th, 2014 after the rapper was arrested for allegedly inciting a riot at the SXSW festival. The mugshot has since gained significant popularity in hip-hop and ironic meme communities as an exploitable.

Origin

On March 15th, 2014, American rapper Tyler, the Creator was arrested at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport by the Austin Police Department on the charge of inciting a riot at the SXSW festival a day prior.^[1] On the same day, a mugshot of the rapper was released by the police department (shown below). The rapper has subsequently been released on a $25,000 bond with the official charge being Riot-Class A Misdemeanor.^[2]

Spread

On March 16th, 2014, Redditor BryanBeast13 posted the mugshot to /r/photoshopbattles subreddit, with multiple users responding with edits of the photograph, including a noseless edit by Redditor Friesheid (examples shown below).^[3]^[4] The thread gained over 1,900 upvotes in six months.

In the following years, the mugshot has seen use in edits among the rapper's fans, particularly in /r/tylerthecreator subreddit, with the image increasing in popularity towards mid-2019 (notable examples shown below). For example, a May 23rd, 2019, post by Redditor Marsuv1us showed the photograph appearing in a school yearbook.^[5]

Starting in mid-2019, the format saw further spread in the hip-hop and ironic meme communities, with notable posts appearing in /r/hiphopcirclejerk^[6] and /r/okbuddyretard^[7] subreddits, iFunny^[8] and Instagram.^[9]