Eminem/YMMV

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• Alternative Character Interpretation: Those for and against him alike can't quite figure out whether he "really means it" or not. He's generally more intelligent and sensitive than his loudest detractors would admit, but still angrier and sicker than his younger fans' parents would like.
• Award Snub: The Marshall Mathers LP got awards left and right and is widely regarded as one of the best rap albums ever. Yet when it came time to award the Grammy for Album of the Year, it had two acclaimed rock albums to combat: Steely Dan's Two Against Nature and Radiohead's Kid A. The Academy chose the Steely Dan album, apparently because it was a safer choice than a rap album or an experimental rock album.
  • Inversely, at least early in his mainstream career, he seemed to win awards in rap categories by default.
• Awesome Music
• Bile Fascination: This is how he got a lot of his early audience, since he started his career in that transition period where people were getting tired of Gangsta Rap but hadn't fully embraced Crunk/Club Rap yet. He tended to alternate between Dead Baby Comedy and songs about killing women, and stuff you could dance to or was meant to be remixed.
• Complete Monster: At his worst, Slim Shady.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Despite his rude behavior, calling Christina Aguilera a whore for having the audacity to think writing a song about killing your wife was distasteful, and his homophobic and sexist lyrics (at least, how a lot of people interpreted them to be), he was still one of the top artists of the '00s and loved by teenage girls. He isn't at all villainous, however he is a controversial figure to most who just can't understand the overlooking.
  • To be fair, she was making assumptions about something she knew nothing about and it wasn't her place to put his business out there.
  • He lampshades this in the lyrics for "The Real Slim Shady":

"Feminist women love Eminem/ Chicka-chicka Slim Shady, I'm sick of him/Look at him Walking around, grabbin' his you-know-what/Flippin' the you-know-who Yeah, but he's so cute though..."

• Dude, Not Funny: Michael Jackson did not take well towards Eminem making fun of him in his Just Lose It music video. The backlash even resulted in B.E.T. pulling the video from airwaves.
• Ear Worm: Put on an Eminem song - any Eminem song. Chances are it stays stuck in your head for days and days.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Many people who like Eminem, but can't stand rap in general, making him an Ensemble Darkhorse for the entire rap genre.
  • He commonly overshadows other artists such as Rihanna, Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj and even Jay Z (Whether Em was actually better on Renegade than Hov can be debated, but the reviews said Em's verse was superior) when collaborating with them. Hell, he outshone Kanye West, Lil Wayne and Drake all on one song, Forever, Shady was indeed back.
• Face of the Band: He's the only recognizable member of D12 (though new fans might come to remember Bizarre, who stands out for being The Fat One and having the most out there lyrics). Lampshaded with the D12 song "My Band", in which the other D12 members bitch about the situation (and Em brags about it).
• Fan Dumb: Related to Fandom Rivalries:
  • Eminem fans claim that Cage ripped Eminem off, even though this doesn't make any sense. Logically, since the two rappers debuted at the same and only have a slight similarity, via being from separate rap scenes and not having the same influences, it's impossible for either one to have ripped each other off; while Cage made claims that Eminem ripped him off early in his career, he has since retracted these claims for the reason that they make no logical sense. Likewise, it's equally impossible for him to have ripped off Eminem.
  • Esham's "acid rap" style was a main source of influence for Eminem. When Esham insulted Eminem for "biting" his style, Eminem Fan Dumb responded by insulting Esham and claiming not to have heard of Esham, even though The Slim Shady LP had Eminem calling himself a cross between Manson, Esham and Ozzy Osbourne.
• Fandom Rivalry: Eminem fans vs. the fans of pretty much anyone who has ever feuded with Eminem, including Juggalos, Cage fans, Everlast fans, Esham fans, etc.
• Funny Aneurysm Moment: Encore's "One Shot 2 Shot" has Em and D12 rapping about a shooting at a D12 concert. Proof's death two years later made this song even scarier than it already was, and Proof's line "Believe me, I'm leavin' a carcass today" makes the impact even worse.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The video for Like Toy Soldiers (released in early 2005 as a single), which depicts Proof dying of gunshot wounds. Proof was shot to death about a year later.
  • Not to mention Kim, an already disturbing song about Eminem murdering his then wife Kim, is made a bit more disturbing when in Love The Way You Lie he reveals they were both mutually abusive towards each other.
  • Most of his songs about partying and drugs, especially "Drug Ballad", become this in light of his overdose.

BBC Radio 1: "This is not an autobiographical lyric [...] It's one of Eminem's flights of fancy, albeit one into a very real situation. Clearly he understands the psychology well, and can express the feelings with enormous clarity. Rihanna's role in all of this is interesting though."

• He Really Can Act: In Eight Mile.
• Ho Yay: Memorably in the Dr. Dre song "What's the Difference", "I love you dawg." Though he did mean it in a father-son sort of way. Him and 50 Cent though...
  • Also in "My Dad's Gone Crazy", "All this time me and Dre have been fuckin' with hats off!"
  • Retroactively taken to new levels with Proof in several songs on Recovery, most notably "You're Never Over". Apparently they had pet names for each other...
  • "Just Lose It" is full of Accidental Public Confessions.

Now I'm gonna make you dance It's your chance Yeah, boy; shake that ass Oops, I mean girl Girl, girl, girl...

• • Not to mention "Lighters":

And pardon me if I'm a cocky prick but you cocks are slick Who you dicks try to kid, flipped dick, you did the opposite You stayed the same, cause cock backwards is still cock you pricks I love it when I tell em shove it ("And in conclusion... penis, penis, penis.")

• Hype Aversion: More cynical listeners believe Eminem's success is 30% talent and 70% because he's white, and that critics treat him as if he single-handedly invented hip-hop.
  • In some interviews (and stated in "White America) he kinda agrees with that cynical opinion.
• Jumping the Shark: For those who believe his drug addiction killed his rap talent permanently.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Where the fuck is Kanye West when you need him? Snatch the mike from 'em, bitch, Imma let you finish..."
  • In some corners of the internet, 'stan' and 'stanning' are terms for hardcore fanning. Mostly used in jest.
    • A lot of those places have been using it so long that the original meaning/origin is often completely unknown to people.
    • Many rappers have referred to Eminem's "Stan", like Nas on "Ether" (you a fake, a phony, a Stan) and Lupe Fiasco on "Lu Myself" (Like Stan, I'mma stand till it answers me).
• Misaimed Fandom / Comically Missing the Point: "Stan" has become a term to describe sick, obsessed fans... and Eminem's fandom.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • An MTV Brazil VJ said that watching Cleaning Out My Closet (which features Eminem burying his mother) while pregnant is really unsettling.
  • "'97 Bonnie And Clyde" (AKA Just the Two of Us). It's one of his most haunting songs, sung from the point of view of a father to his daughter after murdering his wife for infidelity. He has his little daughter help him unload the dead wife from the trunk of his car and dump her corpse in a lake. Then Tori Amos released a cover on her album Strange Little Girls, sung from the murdered wife's point of view, that is somehow even worse.
  • "Kim", the prequel to "'97 Bonnie & Clyde". The song isn't so much rapped as screamed between Eminem and his impression of Kim. It starts out innocently enough with Em watching Hailie sleep, but quickly goes south as he shoves Kim into a car and reveals he's murdered her new boyfriend and their 4-year-old son (lyrics describing this were actually left off the explicit version of the album, even though a later reference to the murder was left in; a truly explicit version called "Bitch So Wrong", which keeps the words intact, has been leaked and is still floating around online). It ends with him slitting her throat in the woods:

You were supposed to love me! Now bleed, bitch, bleed! BLEED, BITCH, BLEED! BLEEEEEEEEEEED!

• • "Stan" is fairly disturbing. It's about an Ax Crazy fan who eventually commits a murder-suicide because Shady won't answer any of his fan letters in a timely manner. Especially as the tape is starting to end and you can hear Stan's girlfriend screaming from the trunk before the car falls into the water...
• Sampled Up: Results tend to be Awesome Music, as shown by:
  • "Stan" for Dido's "Thank You".
  • "Sing for the Moment" for Aerosmith's "Dream On".
  • "Like Toy Soldiers" for Martika's "Toy Soldiers".
  • "Beautiful" for Queen + Paul Rodgers' "Reaching Out".
• Sequel Displacement: Go ask someone what Eminem's first album was.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: For the fans who were disappointed in Encore and Relapse, Recovery was a significant step forward in quality. Given how poorly Eminem thought of the albums himself in some Recovery tracks, he feels the same.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Like Toy Soldiers.
  • Mockingbird.
  • Beautiful.
  • Hailie's Song
  • You're Never Over.
  • Stan.
  • When I'm Gone.
  • His verse on B.o.B's Airplanes (Part II)
• They Just Didn't Care: Another common theory among haters of Encore.
  • Possible lampshading on the track "Rain Man" where the beat cuts out and it's revealed that it's because Dr. Dre fell asleep at the console.
• True Art Is Angsty: Cracked.com notes in The 10 Best Sci-Fi Films Never Made that as he "gets his life together his songs sound more and more like remixes and covers of the old ones. He'll never do 'Bonnie & Clyde' again."
• Weird Al Effect: "Will the real Slim Shady please stand up?" is actually derived from the 1960s/70s game show To Tell the Truth's catchphrase "Will the real [person's name] please stand up?", used to reveal the true mystery guest.
• What the Hell, Casting Agency?: Anybody else thinks it's a little strange to hear him on the same song as Hayley Williams?
  • Considering the popularity of "Airplanes," maybe not.
• Win Back the Crowd: Recovery.
• The Woobie / Jerkass Woobie: Let's face it, he's been through some bad stuff.