This entry features the original production and promotion of the first single from Vince Staples' album FM!, which was done through his record company. The article innovatively leverages Vince Staples' music to communicate a greater cultural commentary about spectatorship, hood culture, and black and white America to consumers of Staples' music.

"FUN" is a single off Vince Staples' third studio album FM!, which reflects on the public's consumption of black nihilism as a form of popular entertainment. By placing the viewer in the position of the white spectator, this film is the peak culmination of that work's central thesis and, furthermore, provides commentary on the surveillance state.

Due to recent technological advancements, spectatorship has become more prevalent and far-reaching, giving those with privilege increased opportunities to objectify those without. By focusing on the fictitious Norfy, California, Vince Staples demonstrates that white America's voyeurism of black America only diminishes its pressing problems.

The creative idea was to explore the way that technology acts as a tool for young kids looking to access and consume hood culture. Map software allows users to get up close and view blocks of street life from the safety and comfort of their homes.

Because of technology, spectators are able to view discreet forms of violence, theft, and loss in predominantly black neighborhoods without ever truly having to engage with their everyday realities.

A predominant purpose of the video is to demonstrate how disconnected and disaffected white America is to hood culture even though they consume it as entertainment in mass quantities. Abrasion is utilized in order to make the viewer feel and truly comprehend that disparity.

The strategy was to start with an animated image high above, where only the Earth can be seen. Then, the animation zooms down into North America, America, California, and eventually down into the specific area of Norfy, California, which is meant to resemble Vince Staples' childhood neighborhood. Next, the camera adjusts to street mode.

The viewer starts at the beginning of the block and then travels up the street, observing different scenarios that comprise both the positive and the negative aspects of hood culture. Some of the Norfy residents pictured are blatantly aware that they are being objectified while others are completely unaware, thus creating a wide spectrum.

In the final scene, the camera view pulls out to reveal the screen of a young, white boy manipulating map software on his computer until his mother calls him to come downstairs and eat dinner, creating the video's most shocking effect.

A two-minute film. Directed by CALMATIC. Placed on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Part of the brilliance of "FUN!" lies in its subversion of expectation. Images of little girls walking home on the sidewalk and jumping rope are integrated with women attacking each other, and candlelit vigils, producing a knee-jerk reaction.

Even though technology is supposed to mediate the viewer's experience of Norfy residents, the video doesn't produce the safe, passive experience for viewers that's inherently promised. Instead, they are taken on an emotional journey, packed with Vince Staples' signature "slap," in which they are dared to feel and react authentically to the West Coast hood scenes before them.

The music video generated 3.7 million views on YouTube and received over 116,000 likes. Users called the video "amazing," "brilliant," and "mindblowing." It was also praised by prestigious music publications, such as Stereogum, MTV, and The Nation, for the way it complemented the album's overall brashness and disruptive commentary.

The video director CALMATIC asked to speak at UCLA's Flux screening series, which was centered on celebrating innovative directors who have created highly unconventional, boundary breaking video art. He was a guest speaker there along with multi-award winning creatives Kim Gehrig and Renee Mao.