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Music

We Talked to the Guy Who Said "Gucci Gang" a Million Times on YouTube

Graham the Christian said "Gucci Gang" on a livestream for two weeks straight to raise money for charity. But what possessed him to do such a thing? And how did he lead anything like a normal life while he did it?
Both images via YouTube screenshots

This article originally appeared on Noisey Germany.

Some people like to set idealistic New Year's resolutions for themselves that they then give up rather quickly. Like quitting smoking or quitting an underpaid job, possibly after really telling off your boss one last time. Fuck yeah!

And then there are others who give themselves the goal of saying the words “Gucci gang” one million times. Well, one person. His name is Graham the Christian. He achieved his goal earlier this month, saying "Gucci Gang" for 15 days straight in a live video interrupted only by a few hours of sleep, and in a room isolated from the rest of humanity apart from the YouTube channel connecting them to the outside world.

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This, of course, raises a couple of questions. First and foremost: How masochistic do you actually have to be to voluntarily say the already soul-destroying hook of Lil Pump’s hit song? For those unfamiliar with we’re talking about, here’s the original video (which currently has more than 400 million views):

Because such an act of self-flagellation is strange and unusual even for our own absurdity-laden standards, we just had to talk to Graham.

Noisey: Why the hell would you do something like this?
Graham: For benevolent causes [Editor's note: All viewer donations go to rednoseday.org]. I always wanted to get into philanthropic work. Nothing else in the world could get me to follow through with something like this.

How did you get the idea of saying "Gucci gang" a million times in a live video?
Someone suggested it to me in a comment on another video. So then I thought, why not?

Of all songs, why this one?
"Gucci Gang" is just current right now. And it’s easy to repeat the words.

When did you start and how long were you online?
It all started on December 30, 2017 and went on until Saturday afternoon, January 13, 2018. I said “Gucci gang” about 80,000 times a day so that once school started up again, I could lead a normal life.

At a certain point you just started mumbling the words. It sounded almost like a ritual initiation or as if you were in a trance…
When you repeat a sentence or a couple of words that many times, it can get really exhausting for your mouth. Mumbling only helps to say the words and makes it less painful.

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Were you even able to lead a normal life during your livestream?
No! I sat in my hotel room the whole time. Friends always came by to visit and to cheer me on. But aside from that, I was really looking forward to getting back to my normal life.

Are you hoping Lil Pump will find out about your project?
Sure, that’d be great. Even in retrospect, I think so many more people could have donated to children in need.

How much money did people donate in total for all your hard work?
It came out to about $10,000.

What will you do next in your life? Are you interested in doing something similar?
Not something similar, no. For the time being, I'm fed up with emotional livestreams like this and am just going to continue to focus on my studies.

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