Through social media, Trump was both learning how the game was
played online and creating new rules for politics beyond it. All those
over-the-top tweets didn’t just win fans. They also stoked an endless cycle of attention and outrage that both kept Trump in the spotlight and
literally made him crave more and more.
Thomas was a Gangster Disciple and wanted everyone to know it. So
he trumpeted the fact online, using it to build up that essential new currency: his personal brand. But there were real consequences of revealing
your gang status online. On two separate occasions, he was shot at in
broad daylight. Several bystanders were killed, including a young man
who was waiting at the same bus stop to go to his first day of a new job.
But each time, Thomas got away