I didn't choose the thug life, the thug life chose me

About

“I didn’t choose the thug life, the thug life chose me” is a catchphrase used to give a reason for living the thug lifestyle, a concept typically referenced in hip hop music, especially in the gangsta rap subgenre. On the Internet, the phrase is often used to caption images of people wearing odd attire or stereotypical “thug” clothing as a way of mocking their desperate attempts for attention. It is also used as a snowclone.

Origin

The phrase has been attributed to American rapper Tupac Shakur.^[1] The original quote may originate from a 1996 Shakur interview with the California radio station KMEL.

I didn’t choose the thug life, the thug life chose me. All I’m trying to do is survive and make good out of the dirty, nasty unbelievable lifestyle that they gave me.

Several 2Pac songs, including “Livin’ the Thug Life” and “Thug 4 Life”, as well as the album Thug Life: Volume 1 by Shakur’s group Thug Life, acknowledge the concept of the “thug life”.

Merriam-Webster defines a thug as “a brutal ruffian or assassin”, listing “gangster” as a synonym.^[2] An Urban Dictionary entry for the word mentions Shakur himself, and mentions a distinct difference between a thug and a gangster:^[3]

As Tupac defined it, a thug is someone who is going through struggles, has gone through struggles, and continues to live day by day with nothing for them. That person is a thug. and the life they are living is the thug life. A thug is NOT a gangster. Look up gangster and gangsta. Not even CLOSE, my friend.

Spread

A Facebook fan page for the phrase was created in January 2011, and has received over 31,600 likes as of August 5, 2012.^[4] An image of a high school yearbook featuring a teen’s picture accompanied by the phrase (shown below) was posted to the /r/funny subreddit in May 2012, receiving 1,501 upvotes.^[5] In mid-2012, an influx of images featuring the phrase were uploaded to the website Meme Generator.

Notable Examples

External References