"The Streisand Effect" is the fourth episode of the first season of Atlanta. It is the fourth episode of the series overall. It was released on September 20, 2016 on FX.
Premise[]
Paper Boi is tripping about this blog stuff but it's just Twitter bruh. It's just entertainment. Somebody needs to get Earn some money. Skreetmoney Worldwide man.
Plot[]
Earnest Marks and Alfred Miles smoke outside a club and crack jokes about recording a new song and a young, obnoxious social media star named Zan joins them without bei. He introduces himself as a fan and offers them a hat with his name on it, which they both awkwardly reject. He goes on to show them a meme he posted on Instagram, which they are both confused by. Darius approaches and Zan shouts for him to back off until an irate Al tells him Darius is with them. Ignoring Al's clear dislike of him, Zan gives Darius a hat and has the three pose for him for a social media picture. Earn gives Zan his phone number to get him to go away, and Zan rolls off, revealing he was on a hoverboard the whole time.
Earn wakes up on Al's couch to find him staring down the barrel of a gun laid on the coffee table. Al finds that Zan is trash-talking him on social media and begins furiously typing a response. Earn tries to warn him that he is only going to make it to worse, and Al ignores him by flipping off. As Earn and Darius drive past a billboard for HIV testing, Darius states that AIDS was invented by the government to keep basketball player Wilt Chamberlain from being actor Steve McQueen's "sex record," Earn not knowing who the latter is. Darius muses that "most black people don't know who Steve McQueen is," but he specifically knows because he is Nigerian. While getting gas, Al sees that Zan has tweeted out a sketch that shows Al being candidly filmed while taking out his garbage, Zan claiming his mixtapes are inside the trash bag.
Earn and Darius go to a pawn shop to try and sell Earn's phone and Darius finds himself taken with a sword, which he convinces Earn to buy for him under the pretext that he can flip it for more money. As the cashier rings it up, Earn notices a poster with Steve McQueen on it hanging on the wall and asks the cashier if he knows who he is. The cashier says he does and Earn gives Darius a smug look, until he states that he only knows who he is for protection, as he knows someone is trying to rob him if they ask about the poster to get him to turn around. As Earn finishes purchasing the sword, he sheepishly tells the cashier he wasn't trying to rob him. While playing pool at a bar, Al has his friend watch Zan's new YouTube video criticizing Al's choice of rap name and general music quality. His friend insists that it's "just the internet," but Al is adamant that Zan is harming his brand. As he bemoans Zan exploiting rap to sell merchandise, the bartender notes that a strange man was waiting for Al before opening time earlier. Before Al can look into this, Zan posts a new sketch that depicts him jumping out of a car to avoid listening to Al's music. Knowing Zan, the bartender gives Al his place of work, despite his friend trying to warn him against tracking him down.
Earn states his dislike of Zan because he continues to text Earn about parties, and Darius, thinking him part Chinese, theorizes on the origin of why Chinese people are short and dislike black people, which Earn dismisses as racist. Darius goes to barter the sword with a group of Koreans while Earn waits outside, leaning on a fence with goats milling around on the other side while a nearby asian man speaks frantically into his phone in another language. Darius comes back with a dog he has christened "Barfight", having traded the sword for it and promises Earn that they need to make one more stop to make the money. Al confronts Zan at his job as a pizza deliveryman, but he jovially ignores him and tells him to come along on his next job.
In the car, despite Al trying to explain to Zan why his actions are harming his business, Zan continues to deflect and miss the point of everything he says. Zan justifies it by claiming Al is exploiting his culture to make rap, and he is just "exploiting you exploiting that." Al tells Zan he is only stopping himself from going off on him because a young boy is sitting in the back of the car, who he believes to be Zan's son. Zan corrects him that the boy is his business partner and is there to appeal to women, his catchphrases being "sure I know, bitch!" and "I *extended bleep* on everybody face!" Unsure what to say, Al stares at the boy and then tells him to put his seatbelt on. They arrive at Zan's delivery location and he has the kid deliver the pizza for him. The shirtless customer takes the pizza and the money out of the boy's pockets, and Al notices Zan is nonchalantly filming the boy angrily knocking on the door and demanding the pizza back. Fed up, Al walks away as the boy continues to shout bleeped phrases.
Darius gives the dog to a breeder he knows and walks away. Earn asks if he is going to get the money, and he explains they will get the money when the dogs breed and the puppies are sold in several months. An irate Earn berates Darius for leading him on when he needed his phone money for Vanessa Keifer and his daughter. Feeling bad, Darius gives Earn his phone to sell as an apology, stating that he regardless switches phones every month to avoid being tracked. Earn apologizes for his outburst and thanks him, and a cheerful Darius observes that this makes them friends as he gets back in the car. Earn sits on the hood for a moment before getting in with him.
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