What You Need to Know About Those Spiders Young Thug Is Sending Around

Young Thug has once again out-weirded the music industry’s playbook for album rollouts. Forget billboards, pop-ups, or mysterious QR codes plastered across city walls—Thug is sending spiders. Real ones.

To hype up his new album, UY Scuti, the “Best Friend” rapper has been mailing live black-and-orange tarantulas to artists, streamers, and media outlets (not us, but we’ll try not to take it personally). Each spider arrives in a sleek glass enclosure topped with a black cover embossed with the album title—equal parts chic and unsettling.

“I don’t know what you on,” Kai Cenat said on livestream, recoiling as he unboxed his eight-legged gift. “But listen, this motherfucker going to a pet shop.” MGK, on the other hand, let his new roomie crawl right up his arm.

“I thought that's really kind of cool,” says Jason Bond, a professor in the department of entomology and nematology at the University of California, Davis. “I love to see spiders making their way more into popular culture, and I'll be curious to see what the connection is between spiders and his work.”

This sort of promo strategy is not without precedent, at least for Thug. In 2018, with Slime Language, he sent snakes to media outlets. But what, exactly, is this mysterious spider Thug’s been slinging across the country this time around? And why is it the star of his promo campaign? Bond, whose lab work centers around the study of spider evolution, taxonomy, and speciation, ID’d the species and broke down some fascinating tidbits about it.

It’s a Mexican Red Knee Tarantula

The spider starring in Young Thug’s promo campaign is Mexican Red Knee Tarantula—aka a Brachypelma beauty with legs (and history) for days.

“They can live 10 to 20 years, if not longer in some cases,” Bond says. “Their relatives go back probably two to 300 million years ago. They've been on the planet a really long time, and they're just remarkable, beautiful animals.”

@hyek3957 Young Thug sent Kai Cenat a personal Tarantula while Kai has arachnophobia 😭😭😭 #kaicenat #youngthug #ysl #sp5der #spider ♬ original sound - Hyek Clips🤫

They’re common pets for spider lovers

The Red Knee isn’t nearly as spooky or elusive as I once believed. According to Bond, it’s actually a bit of a celebrity in the exotic pet world.

“There‘s a lot of people that breed them and sell them here in the United States,” he says. “And they tend to be quite gentle as far as spiders go. They probably make OK pets.”

@l11ug Young Thug sends Max a LIVE spider as promo for his upcoming album #plaqueboymax #5star #youngthug #fyp #trending #viral ♬ original sound - L11ug

They have fangs that are envenomated but aren’t totally dangerous

Despite their eight hairy legs and roles in our nightmares, these Red Knee crawlers aren’t out to get us. Bond says they do have venom—but less than 0.1 percent of spider species have venom that’s dangerous to humans. Unless you aggressively poke or prod them, they’ll just mind their business.

“I don't know if there are any documented cases of people being allergic to those venom," Bond says. “Bee stings are far more common than than tarantula bites. You really have to work to provoke one of those spiders into into a bite.”

@rap #YoungThug sent us a new pet for #RapTV ♬ Money On Money (feat. Future) - Young Thug

Wash your hands after handling them

Just because tarantulas aren’t out here plotting your demise doesn’t mean they won’t defend their fuzzy selves. As Bond explains, they’re armed with urticating hairs—tiny barbed hairs, like fiberglass—they’ll launch if you push them too far.

“She'll kick those off, and they can be irritating if you get them on your skin and very irritating if you get them in your eyes,” he says.

The best way to protect yourself?

“You need to be careful not to touch your face or your eyes after you do. You should absolutely wash your hands before doing so.”

@clippeddbylu The way they all looked concerned 😭😭🤣 and why #ddg look like a tech guy😭 #youngthug #ddg #neon #neonstream #neonkick #kick #kickstreaming #kickstreamer ♬ original sound - clippeddbylu

Prepare to invest in them or take them to a pet shop

Remember: These tarantulas can live a long time, so make sure you’re ready to commit to them. Sure, they only need to feed once a week on a cricket (and can probably go longer without), but like dogs, they need their little bowl of water to sustain themselves. And if for some reason you aren’t totally up for the task of parenting a spider, don’t just release them into the wild.

“When I see something like [Thug’s spider videos], the one thing that concerns me is that folks will just take them outside and let them go,” Bond says. “I would say, don't do that. Try to find a home or local pet shop. You always want to be cognizant of not releasing animals into the wild that don‘t belong in the wild.”

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