Rap Genius can now count itself among only a small handful of startups where a member of the community (as in, someone who isn’t a founder or employee) has ink related to the startup

Now, even if Monster Mike’s new tattoo is a fake, I would argue that this is still kickass for RG. The site isn’t just crushing their original goal of bringing the nuances of rap lyrics to the masses, but that their community is getting stronger and stronger with every song that gets decoded

Superfans are so, so important to any community endeavor – those few people who will put your stickers on bathroom walls and tell their friends to get an account. The ones who will spend hours on your site, making it better for every new visitor that arrives. As a founder (like Tom Lehman) or an employee there’s only so many people you can reach every day – superfans help to spread the word in a way that you as a founder maybe can’t. While 1 guy getting a tatt isn’t the same as other “metrics” like month-on-month traffic growth, I would argue that it is maybe more significant

This is just the beginning for this burgeoning empire of swag that is Rap Genius. Once you get the community dynamics just right, even on the most micro scale, the community will build on itself, weaning its way into the zeitgeist and never looking back