The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
b-side
Thursday, March 28 2019 — 3B

CHELSEA LAUREN / WIREIMAGE

Despite their legality (or lack 
thereof), fake IDs are ubiquitous 
across 
college 
campuses. 
Responsible RAs warn against 
the commodity, citing the harsh 
consequences of owning one: “Up 
to one-year of incarceration, a fine 
of $2000, or both,” according to 
the Barone Defense Firm. Posters 
line the walls of freshman dorms 
informing students that selling a 
fake ID is a punishable felony that 
could lead to $10,000 in fines or 
up to 5 years of jail time, or both. 
And yet, the fake ID market still 
persists.
Fake IDs are an art form born 
out of necessity, and their muse? 
Senator Frank R. Lautenberg 
from New Jersey. In an act meant 
to combat drunk driving in the 
United States in 1984, Lautenberg 
raised the drinking age from 18 to 
21. The Prohibition Era showed 
us laws that take away a person’s 
access to alcohol won’t necessarily 
deter 
them 
from 
getting 
it 
anyways, so it makes sense that 
Lautenberg’s bill only served to 
create the fake ID market. There 
are genuine concerns regarding 
this rise in false identification, 
but underage college students just 
trying to have a good time maybe 
shouldn’t have been this country’s 
first priority.
The art of creating a fake 
ID is an elusive one — as the 
popularity of the false ID grew, 
so did state precautions. IDs may 
have everything from a fun bear 
outline when a light is shined 
on it to a fun “tricolor image of a 
bridge on the front that appears 
and disappears when viewed from 
different from different angles.” 
These characteristics are meant 
to make an ID harder to copy, and 
they do, but some see these simply 
as obstacles to overcome on their 
way to a night on the town.
With the rise of the internet, it’s 
not surprising that most students 
get their IDs from an online 
retailer. These sites, though, tend 
to rely on a business-minded 
student that act as middle-men, 
campus ID ambassadors if you 
will. These students are the key 
to the market — they gather the 
customers, their details and, just 
like a true artist, aren’t always 
proud of their final product.
In an email interview with The 
Daily, one anonymous student 
discussed the difficulties of getting 
an ID photo just right: “a white 
background ... no shadow showing 
behind the person.” Forget being 
able to take high quality Instagram 

photos or LinkedIn headshots, the 
value of a photographer lies in 
their ability to make a subject look 
fresh out of the DMV. Personally, 
this student “was not proud of the 
way (their fake ID) turned out, just 
because (they) feel that the picture 
was taken too far away.”
Just because the photo has strict 
guidelines doesn’t mean artists 
lose all semblance of creativity. 
This same student mentioned the 
fun behind being from a different 
state or being able to make “your 
new address to be a mansion or 
even a local McDonald’s.” Imagine 
that — for all Schlissel does to 
fight the drinking culture at the 
University, someone could have 
picked his address to deceive a 
bouncer or a clerk at the local 
liquor store. Inspiration can come 
from anywhere, too. Some people 
skip the “different state” thing 
altogether and go international, 
toting Irish or Chinese IDs that 
go unquestioned. But our source 
stressed that the only way to truly 
test your ID’s legitimacy (other 
than risk getting caught at a bar) 
“is to hold it side-by-side with a 
real ID from that state.”
That begs the question, though: 
Is a real (expired) ID of someone 
who looks like you better than 
a fake ID of you? The answer 
depends on your preferences. Just 
like some people prefer a Rococo 
era painting to that of a darker 
Renaissance piece, some like the 
comfort of knowing their ID is 
real rather than carrying around 
something totally fake. According 
to our source, one detail to keep in 
mind is the fact that “if the ID has 
another person’s name on it, but a 
picture of you, it is identity fraud” 
— a legal line that most people 
aren’t trying to cross when they 
make their fake ID.
Just like the stone or clay 
matters in sculpture, materials 
matter in the art of making 

fake IDs. Most state IDs use 
some kind of PVC plastic or a 
“synthetic paper material” called 
Teslin. Teslin is useful in its 
tear resistance and waterproof 
qualities. That said, it also a 
very easily accessible material, 
making it an ideal material for 
most fake IDs. One problem a 
counterfeiter may run into with 
Teslin, though, is the legibility 
of the inkjet printing, a simple 
problem that can be detrimental 
if not properly handled. Even still, 
some state IDs are made out of 
polycarbonate and will break in 
half upon enduring the infamous 
“bend test.” Our source even said 
others may even go so far as to 
steal a DMV ID machine, taking 
out some of the fun of figuring out 
what exactly goes into making an 
ID, but producing a high-quality 
ID nonetheless.
Aside from ordering a fake ID, 
there are numerous places where 
someone could learn how to 
make an ID themselves. One site, 
King of Fakes, offers a tutorial on 
how to DIY a fake ID — all you 
need is a printer, some photoshop 
skills and a template to follow for 
the ID. It seems simple, but like 
most DIY projects, it’s probably 
best left to the professionals. And 
despite improved technology, like 
3D printing, our source isn’t any 
more optimistic about the future 
of the DIY ID. To them, new 
technology “can’t make fake IDs 
more believable, because your ID 
is either real or fake.”
While it may seem a daunting 
task to make your own ID, no one 
ever became a renowned artist 
by being scared. The art of the 
fake ID is an untapped source of 
inspiration. If Billy McFarland 
was able to copy his debit card 
magnetic strip onto a piece of steel, 
successfully making your own fake 
ID is probably not too crazy of a 
dream — just an illegal one. 

ARTIST
PROFILE

IN

EMMA CHANG
Senior Arts Editor

It’s 
surprisingly 
difficult 
to go back and re-establish a 
perspective of animation and 
children’s 
entertainment 
pre-
Pixar.
In his great TED Talk, Pixar 
animator Andrew Stanton (the 
second animator the company 
ever hired) talks about the 
expectations of the princess-
meets-prince adventure they had 
to fight against when pitching 
their first film. Stanton’s team 
rejected the pre-destined love, 
sing-along 
formula 
that 
had 
propelled “The Little Mermaid” 
and “Aladdin” to the top when 
they began work on “Toy Story,” 
approaching the film with their 
own set of criteria: No songs, no “I 
want” moments, no happy village 
and no love story.
“Toy Story” has become a 
watershed work both technically 
and for the genre as a whole. The 
film changed the way studios 
thought about what could be 
made, marketed and sold to the 
youngest slice of the box-office 
pie (and the parents dragged 
along with it). The massive 
success Pixar enjoyed post “Toy 
Story” paved the way for a new 
type of film to emerge — the Pixar 
imitator. Ignoring the other actual 
successful animation studios that 
have followed in Pixar’s wake 
(the Dreamworkses of the world), 
it’s much more fun to look at the 
other end of the spectrum, to 
shine a light on the crust scraped 
up from the bottom of the barrel.
The picture for this article 
includes the box-art for a horrible 
knockoff of Pixar’s “Up,” almost 
unbelievably called, “What’s Up: 

Balloon to the Rescue!” Ignoring 
the terrible attempt to fit the 
only recognizable word — Up 
— into their title, “What’s Up” 
represents a class of films that 
exist basically only to confuse 
or deceive people into watching 
them. The companies behind 
these monstrosities prey on all the 
poor-old, aloof-and-unassuming 
grandparents 
looking 
for 
birthday gifts in the Walmart 
bargain bin — as far as they know, 
they’re supporting the animation 
studio that has owned the Oscar 
category for the past two decades.
Within this class of terrible 
knockoffs, sometimes the movie 
on the disk isn’t even the same 
as the one on the packaging. It’s 
stupidly common for one of these 
knockoffs to ship a disk that isn’t 
at all related to the one on the 
cover. In a (pretty great) video 
by the YouTube channel “I Hate 
Everything” titled “The (NOT 
DISNEY) Collection,” the host 
revealed that two of the knockoffs 
he bought off Amazon, one called 
“Braver” and the other “Tangled 
Up,” were just rips of basic cable 
TV programming from the ’90s. 
The movie that was supposed 
to be “Braver” turned out to be 
a cartoon made-for-TV-movie 
about a Christmas princess. And 
even if you dodge the predatory-
ass bullet of a complete scam, like 
those named above, there’s a very 
non-zero chance that the DVD 
you just purchased is a renamed, 
reskinned 
and 
reimported 
foreign language animated film 
given a new, Pixar-ish title. See 
“Ratatoing.”
The actual movie content 
in each of these punishment 
packages is just god-awful, but it’s 
also kind of fun. For a buck a piece, 
you can own dozens of awful, 

good-for-nothing knockoffs that 
probably aren’t even bad enough 
to finish. But I get why people 
are so morbidly-curious to try 
these out. Names like “Chop-Kick 
Panda” and “A Cars Life” sound 
like 
terrible, 
groan-inducing 
jokes, so the fact that they’re 
“real” movies just begs you to give 
them a watch.
It’s interesting to see how the 
movie-internet rallies around this 
sort of cinema dredge. There’s a 
whole host of YouTube channels, 
blogs and podcasts dedicated to 
covering the worst of the worst 
of the worst when it comes to 
movies. Something is enticing 
about 
watching 
gruesome, 
catastrophic failures. Watching 
a bad movie that means well is 
often times much more painful 
than 
watching 
an 
alleyway 
dumpster fire of a movie with 
no redeeming qualities. This is 
probably similar to that deep 
psychological thing where we 
can’t not watch tragedies unfold. 
It’s a fight or flight thing — 
adrenaline pumping, we have to 
keep watching to make sure the 
bad movie doesn’t kill us.
It’s not unlikely that it’s us 
who are keeping these movies in 
circulation, not the video aisle 
grandpas. While we laugh at the 
mismatched mouth movements 
of the overdub, the production 
companies laugh their way to 
the bank. (I mean, it must cost 
like, a day and a half of work to 
crank one of these out, right?) 
But, you know, whatever. Keep 
‘em coming. They’re grating 
and grossly exploitative, but 
I don’t know if I have a better 
recommendation if you just want 
to sit and laugh with some friends. 
One or two tip-toes into cinema 
masochism never hurt.

What is ‘Ratatoing’? The 
scary world of Pixar rips

STEPHEN SATARINO
Daily Film Editor

VIDEO BRINQUEDO

B-SIDE: FILM

Summer 2018 reignited a 
seven-year-old beef between 
Pusha T and Drake, one that 
never has nor will be merciful 
to Drake. “The Story of Adidon” 
is the obvious apex to this 
chapter, with the revelation of 
Drake’s decision to unveil his 
son’s existence only to promote 
his Adidas line coming as a 
low move. The publication and 
media attention understandably 

proved to overshadow other 
revelations of Drake’s sleazy 
character. But throughout the 
whole saga, Pusha T echoes the 
same information that set the 
rap community on fire in 2015: 
Drake makes extensive use of 
ghost writers. Perhaps it’s just 
not all that shocking anymore — 
we’ve all heard that joke about 
“The Weeknd writing half of 
Drake’s best album.” But it was 
a different story when Meek 
Mill first spilled the beans on 
Twitter four years ago.
This isn’t to say that Drake 
is the only person with a ghost 

writer. Some of the biggest 
artists in the industry, from 
Frank Ocean, to rap legend Jay-
Z, got their start ghostwriting 
for other artists. The market’s 
full of them. But it only ever 
seems to be called out when a 
rapper — not a pop artist, not 
a country singer, not a rock 
star — is faking it. Why all the 
intense scrutiny?
The thing with rap is it’s 
nothing 
without 
its 
flows. 
Whereas the lyrical content of a 
pop song or country ballad can 
be overlooked for its production 
and musical stylings, rap’s all 

about the message it conveys. 
The production is important, 
certainly, but it follows the cues 
of the words and story of the 
rapper. Unlike other song lyrics, 
those of a rap song are generally 
more 
meticulously 
composed 
into 
bars 
with a lot of wit and 
creative 
conventions 
tying them together. 
It’s more about being 
smart than it is making 
people dance.
Take these lyrics by 
Pusha T for example 
(you 
know, 
while 
we’re 
on 
the 
topic 
of ghost writing and 
Drake): “The game’s 
fucked up / N***a’s 
beats is bangin’, n***a, 
ya hooks did it / The 
lyric 
pennin’ 
equal 
the Trumps winnin’ 
/ The bigger question 
is how the Russians 
did it / It was written 
like Nas, but it came 
from 
Quentin.” 
The 
lyrics are deft, chock 
full 
of 
imagery, 
rhymes, 
metaphors 
and wordplay. Yet it’s 
still captivating and 
memorable, 
despite 
lacking 
the 
same 
catchy quotables you’d 
expect from a different 
genre’s chorus. There’s 
more at stake when 
you cheat in the rap 
game; you claim more than 
you’re capable of.
That 
being 
said, 
more 
importantly, 
the 
lyrics 
tell 
a story. Rap prides itself on 
the element of “realness,” the 
capacity to speak to specific 

experiences 
and 
people 
in 
extensive detail. Rap, more 
than any other genre, also faces 
unfair critique and judgement 
before it’s even listened to, 
many music listeners are quick 

to excuse it as meaningless 
by virtue of their superficial 
understanding of it — they can’t 
fathom rap beyond the “gangsta 
rap” trope.
And perhaps that’s why the 
urge to protect the genre is 

such a pivotal part of the rap 
community. It comes from a 
history where a large majority 
of the people who listened to it 
and took it seriously were the 
people who experienced the 
stories it told. Because 
rap started with the 
Black 
community, 
the 
majority 
white, 
middle-class American 
crowd did not consider 
it 
a 
serious 
music 
genre. 
The 
genre 
is often reduced to 
harmful and negative 
stereotypes 
of 
drug 
dealing, philandering 
and bravado without 
much consideration for 
how these topics might 
fit into a song with 
much deeper meaning 
to it. This considered, 
faking 
your 
art 
is 
blasphemous 
not 
only 
because 
you’re 
lying, 
but 
because 
you 
steal 
someone 
else’s experience and 
personality by doing 
so. You de-legitimize 
a genre that demands 
it be taken seriously 
despite the critique of 
a judgemental, racist 
world.
Kendrick 
Lamar 
puts 
it 
simply: 
“I 
called myself the best 
rapper. I cannot call 
myself the best rapper 
if I have a ghostwriter.” In a 
rap game where the true test 
comes in honing your skills 
and not falling victim to the 
expectations of other people, 
legitimacy is what gets you 
respect.

Cleansing unoriginal sin: 
Ghostwriting in hip-hop

Rap prides itself on the 
element of “realness,” the 
capacity to speak to specific 
experiences and people in 
extensive detail. Rap, more 
than any other genre, also 
faces unfair critique and 
judgment before it’s even 
listened to, and many music 
listeners are quick to excuse 
it as meaningless

DIANA YASSIN
Daily Arts Writer

B-SIDE: MUSIC

ALEXIS RANKIN / DAILY