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The meme who parties too hard is coming to an iTunes account near you.
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Scumbag Steve, whose real name is Blake Boston, has come full circle on his unintentional Internet fame. The meme -- which is often associated with apathetic behavior, partying, drugs and other objectionable activity -- spawned from an album cover photo by Boston's former rap group, Beantown Mafia.
The photo features Boston in a sideways fitted cap, looking dazed and flush in a hallway. It caught the attention of Reddit in 2011 and was turned into a series of "macros" -- pictures with funny captions.
Today, there are nearly 500 pages of captioned images on the Scumbag Steve website, and the character has been featured in advertising for Pepsi -- though it's not actually Boston.
Now, Boston says that he is combining his love of music with the publicity he's received from this persona to pursue what he is calling Scumbag Thursdays.
"Blake Boston AKA Scumbag Steve" -- which is his full rapper name -- will release one song on iTunes, along with a music video, every Thursday, until he decides not to. The song is available for free to download every Thursday on his website. The album will then follow.
According to Boston, the persona has helped him a lot.
"You can always come up [with] different scumbag stuff that people do," says Boston. "Putting it in the first person is a little bit easier. At the same time, it's still reaching people who are interested in what Scumbag Steve is all about."
The captions submitted by people are included in the lyrics, but Boston says there are some original "scumbag moments" on the album.
But does this persona actually portray Boston in real life, or is it only a character? According to him, sometimes. There are some memes which have spiraled out of control at the misfortune of the person in the image, but Boston seems to be rolling with the punches, and attempting to use it to his advantage.
"Everyone has their scumbag moments. Even before Scumbag Steve happened, I maybe had a couple too many drinks," says Boston. "But right now, it's more about Scumbag Steve as a character. With the whole persona of the CD, yeah, I'm going to sing about scumbag stuff to do."
Do you think memes can really transcend formats the way Boston hopes? Let us know in the comments.
This story originally published on Mashable here.
