Diddy, fresh off his playful recreation of an infamous 2013 VMAs afterparty incident involving J. Cole, offered his 18 million Instagram followers some post-holiday inspiration on Tuesday.
The message came in two forms, starting with the video portion of the Instaspiration entry, which sees Diddy enjoying some mango against the backdrop of both an enviable pool and an equally enviable ocean.
“You could do it,” Diddy said in the clip. “You could be whoever you want. You could be eating mango too, with the ocean as your backdrop. I ain’t special. I just want it. I want it bad, you feel me? I won’t allow myself to not have mango. I hustle hard.”
But it’s the caption of the post, namely its inclusion of a cockroach count, that’s received the most traction.
“One day when I was growing up, I woke up and there was 15 roaches on my face,” Diddy wrote. “At that moment I said hell no, I refuse to live like this. Work hard, believe in your crazy dreams…AND NEVER SETTLE!”
And while the sentiment was indeed intended as an inspiring but brief message about overcoming the adversities within which a person may be born, it didn’t take long for the “15 roaches” bit to take on a life of its own in the form of roach-based jokes on Twitter.
See a few highlights from the batch of early contenders below.
Last month, Diddy announced he was partnering with the WME talent agency to help students break into the entertainment industry, particularly at the executive level. The project, dubbed the Excellence Program, lasts six weeks and is free for eligible students from underrepresented communities.
