Lilmar

About

Lilmar (real name Lamar Cruz), also known as Mar, Lil Mar or TheRealLilmar, is a rapper from South Carolina who gained virality in the late 2010s on Instagram and YouTube for his music that many likened to Meme Rap, as in, many championed his music satirically. He came to prominence at the end of the SoundCloud rap and Clout era in 2018. His awkward, oftentimes cringy music videos juxtaposed him getting a face tattoo and saying his catchphrase "Dat Way" in his videos. Much of Lilmar's virality was due to him being a Lolcow within Instagram's Hood Irony community. This was because, outside of his music, Lilmar documented his "body count" through photos and videos, and was overall, destructive to himself with alcohol abuse. He was arrested in 2019, incarcerated in 2021 and released in 2022. He returned to social media to post videos of him driving recklessly fast and became a truck driver. In early 2023, Lilmar went on Instagram Live in the hospital, resulting in a screenshot that was edited into various memes, later dubbed the Lilmar Hospital Instagram Live Edits.

Online History

In the year 2015, Lilmar uploaded his first track to SoundCloud^[1] which was the song "Bass Bumpin ft. SkullKrippla & PricelessBeats," earning roughly 1,400 listens in eight years. The song was the start of Lilmar's rap career which became increasingly viral in the year 2017. Around this time, Lilmar started posting to Facebook^[2] and Instagram. For instance, his first Instagram^[3] post was uploaded on January 19th, 2017, gaining over 320 likes in six years (shown below, left).

Lilmar's music and social media predominantly went viral in early 2018, following the release of his song "Do Da Mar" and its music video which was uploaded to YouTube^[4] on January 6th, 2018, by the channel A1VISUALS, gaining roughly 48,500 views in five years (shown below, left). On January 7th, he uploaded a clip from the video to Instagram,^[5] gaining roughly 16,800 views in five years. On January 28th, 2018, the music video for his song "WOAH" was posted to YouTube by A1VISUALS, gaining roughly 4,500 views in the same timeframe (shown below, right).

On July 1st, 2018, Lilmar posted a clip from his music video "Body Count" to Instagram,^[7] gaining roughly 14,300 views in five years (shown below, left). The combination of both 2018 Instagram^[6][7] posts earned Lilmar his first wave of followers, spreading through the then-recent surge of Hood Irony Instagram accounts in 2018, many of which have since been deleted or banned from the platform. Currently, the earliest post to mention Lilmar was uploaded by Instagram^[8] user @awshltcuz on January 19th, 2019, namedropping him in the videos' description and instead showing then-recent, Instagram lolcow Zech (shown below, right).

Controversies

In 2019, Lilmar's Instagram following grew, mainly due to his Instagram Lives and Stories in which he would document his "body count" as in, how many women he'd had sex with. For instance, on February 28th, 2019, Instagram^[10] user @sauuce84liina posted a screen recording of Lilmar's then-recent story that said "BODY COUNT 18" in all caps. The post gained roughly 111,400 views and 2,200 likes in four years (shown below).

More documentation of his "body count" stories were posted to Instagram^[10] in early 2019, mostly in the form of screen recordings and screenshots. On March 28th, 2019, the Instagram^[11] account @biblecastworldwide uploaded a meme video using a moldy Lilmar Triller video, gaining roughly 7,800 views in four years.

On August 11th, 2019, Lilmar uploaded a YouTube^[16] video that was originally called "Meeting Up With A 12-year-old Girl! (Story Time)"^[15] but was later changed to "She Lied About Her Age! (Story Time)." In the video, Lilmar addressed allegations about a time when he accidentally met up with an underage girl. The video received roughly 45,300 views in four years (shown below, left). On September 22nd, 2019, Lilmar uploaded another YouTube^[17] video titled, "Addressing all the rumors…" that was roughly 18 minutes long. The video had multiple, timestamped sections, ranging from, "Abandoning homeless girl" to "impregnating a 14-year-old." The video gained roughly 169,800 views in four years (shown below, right).

2019 Arrest

On October 22nd, 2019, Chester, South Carolina local news channel CBS17 published an article about two men who'd been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting an underage girl in a Walmart parking lot.^[12] The two men were 19-year-old Lilmar and 21-year-old Randle Huff.

The event caused discourse on Reddit^[13] and elsewhere, including memes on Instagram. For instance, on October 23rd, 2023, Instagram^[14] user @whomstd.v1_ posted a screenshot of what appeared to be a Lilmar YouTube video titled, "Meeting Up With A 12-year-old Girl! (Story Time)," earning over 2,000 likes in four years (shown below). In April 2020, Lilmar made his return to Instagram^[15] in a song that alleged he'd been incarcerated for 50 days over a "false allegation."

Post-arrest

Following his 2019 arrest, Lilmar became more religious, getting baptized in June 2020.^[18] In 2021,^[19] he was employed as a long-haul trucker, passing his CDL test.

2021 Incarceration

In December 2021, Lilmar was incarcerated for his 2019 arrest for four months, being released in March 2021. He uploaded a YouTube video on March 9th, 2021, called, "I just got out of prison…" in which he explained why he was in jail and how he only spent four months in prison (shown below).

After he was released in early 2022, Lilmar's Instagram^[20] and online presence started to center around his love for cars, specifically his galaxy-wrapped Corvette.

Related Memes

Lilmar Hospital Bed Instagram Live Edits

Lilmar Hospital Instagram Live Edits refers to a series of crudely-made Photoshops of a Lilmar 2023 Instagram Live stream in which he was in a hospital bed and the chat comments were saying, "DIE BRUH," "Mar you ugly af" and "Alcohol or car," among other insults. The screenshot of the Instagram Live, in which Mar is looking at the camera, was posted to Twitter and Instagram in February 2023, later becoming a viral exploitable in April and May 2023 as creators made Lilmar look like a bug, Mario or covered him in mold, among other absurd and ironic iterations that also recaptioned the chat messages in accordance with the meme's theme.

Search Interest

External References