Tupac Hologram Performs Live At Coachella…The End is Nigh

Over the weekend, the 2012 Coachella Music Festival was held, featuring a bunch of bands that white people like and an appearance by a holographic Tupac Shakur partially performing “Hail Mary” and “2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted” (can we all be grateful the purposeful misspelling of words trend has died down? Eat my ass, Prince.) The weekend has passed, and all anyone can talk about is the Tupac hologram, so, haha, fuck you, Radiohead.

In theory, I like holographs being able to mimic performers, especially rappers. Have you ever seen a rapper perform live? Don’t let the muscles fool you, because that’s just a side effect of being black. Most rappers are horribly out of shape, their lung capacity grossly diminished by consuming more weed than a Cheech & Chong film set. You’re lucky to get 40 minutes of performance, much of the vocal duties handled by a posse of lackeys. It’s like seeing a Doors cover band perform with the corpse of Jim Morrison as a centerpiece.

The problem is this technology is going to run amok. Remember when the Internet came out and it promised to uplift the human condition with its easy access to knowledge of all kinds? That lasted roughly 18 minutes before the entire thing became a melange of porn, pirated music and pictures of cats with nonsensical captions. Sure, lifelike holograms could be used to help doctors better rehearse surgical situations or allow us to experience FDR giving a live speech. What will end up happening is that guys will spend their entire lives having sex with Tori Black holograms and the government will use the technology to make it appear that it has footage of Hugo Chávez rimming Vladimir Putin and otherwise discredit leaders that it hates. Mark my words, this is the beginning of the end.