Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard University in the 1970s to begin working on the computer company that would eventually become Microsoft. Mark Zuckerberg left during his sophomore year to care for an infantile Facebook. Lil Pump, meanwhile, dropped out of Harvard in his imagination, and now he’s perhaps the biggest rapper tied to the prestigious school.

Since announcing that he voluntarily exited the university to “save the rap game” in 2017 when he first came into mainstream prominence, Lil Pump has made college the pinnacle of his 18-year-old existence. He released the video for “Gucci Gang” that year which focused on a young adult’s education (with tigers, double-cupped Slurpees, and other new-age rap hijinks). By January 2018, he was outlining the idea behind an album called Harverd Dropout — yes, with an “e.”

As his star power grew through songs like “Esskeetit” and “I Love It” with Kanye West, people began to wonder: Did this rambunctious, color-dreaded rapper who admitted he could “barely read” really abandon an Ivy-League education? Then came the memes. A photoshopped or simply fake Harvard student I.D. even popped up.

With graduation season quickly approaching, a rumor began circulating that Lil Pump was giving the school’s 2019 commencement speech. (Sources potentially pointed to a press release from his label, Warner Bros.) It didn’t take long for the school to issue a statement saying no, Pump would not be speaking — but German Chancellor Angela Merkel would be. Nevertheless, Pump still gave an “unofficial” version of his address last week to the school’s WHRB radio station. Close enough.

Now that the jokes have subsided (and with 12 weeks until graduation), how do actual Harvard students feel about this whole thing? We asked two current students, Dianelis Lopez and Sebastian Rojas (both class of 2022), and two alumni, Joshua Scott (class of 2015) and Brionna Atkins (class of 2016). Here’s what they said.

MTV News: How familiar are you with Lil Pump?

Dianelis Lopez: I don’t know much about him as a person or his background, but I have heard that he is a SoundCloud rapper and the only song that comes to mind is “Gucci Gang.”

Sebastian Rojas: I’m not super familiar, like I know he’s a rapper from South Florida and I’ve heard “Gucci Gang,” but that’s about it.

Brionna Atkins: I’m not a fan of his music. I only really know of two songs. I had heard about the title of his album and seen the artwork but I didn’t think much of it. His music just isn’t my vibe, no disrespect or anything.

Joshua Scott: I have heard of Lil Pump, but do not wish to feign familiarity with his body of musical work.

MTV News: What did you think when rumors started to circulate that he would be giving the commencement speech this year?

Lopez: I genuinely thought that it was a joke by the Harvard Lampoon. Although the “fake news” appeared to be real, I was never convinced that Harvard would invite a rapper like Lil Pump to give the speech. Especially since the commencement is often done by people like Mark Zuckerberg or J.K. Rowling. However, I did wonder if maybe he had done some type of movement such as Logic did related to suicide.

Rojas: If I’m being completely honest, I didn’t really hear a lot of people talk about it on campus. Like, most of the people I’ve talked to didn’t know about it until after it went viral and after the university said that it was false. So basically most of us heard it after the fact.

Atkins: I just knew it was fake because Angela Merkel was already the confirmed speaker months ago, and it is just too comical to be true. If I thought it was true, I think I would have been surprised because it would be totally unexpected but essentially indifferent. Spielberg spoke at the afternoon exercises of my commencement in 2016 and I didn’t even go to that part because I was just apathetic at that point. Harvard has three days of speeches and exercises so by the time you get to the last speech of the day on the third day, you can just be checked out like I was.

MTV News: How would you feel if he would have given the commencement speech at your graduation?

Lopez: I don’t think he has the image that Harvard would want to portray. He is not a representation of Harvard or the student body, and it would be controversial to have someone like him speaking at the commencement. It would put under question the things that Harvard values. Harvard has already made some questionable decisions in how they deal with racism, diversity, and sexism, so having Lil Pump would not help their image.

Rojas: I would’ve found it really funny that he, out of all people, would be giving the speech. Like, if you compare him to previous speakers such as Mark Zuckerberg, Steven Spielberg, and Oprah Winfrey, it seems almost comical to have someone like Lil Pump be our commencement speaker.

Scott: Had Lil Pump been selected to speak, I would have listened to hear what he had to share. Everyone has something to contribute – in some way, shape, or form – based on their life experiences, their personal trials and tribulations, and the platform they have built for themselves.

MTV News: Who would you have preferred instead of Lil Pump?

Atkins: There isn’t a specific person I could say I would prefer but I can say I would expect someone who has just lived life a little longer as a baseline. I would also expect the speaker to be exceptional in some capacity. There will be something that clearly demonstrates said person is a consistent positive outlier in their respective field. A commencement speech is a privileged opportunity to share wisdom and experiences as well as energize a graduating class. I think there is tremendous value in framing such an event as a theoretical endowment of responsibility onto a new generation to “change the world.” That is not to say someone who is young cannot be wise or have valuable insight worth sharing, but that may be better suited to another event.

Scott: If we are sticking within the confines of hip hop artists, J. Cole is the first name that comes to mind. His deliberately conscientious and contemplative approach to the art form creates the nuance and depth necessary to spark meaningful and stimulating dialogue – a keystone for any institution of higher learning.

The real-world ramifications of the gender data gap are all around, us all the time. 

From the size of the phone currently in your palm, to the temperature of the office you’re sitting in, to the way your car has been built, to the way the medicine you take has been made. 

A new book by feminist campaigner and author Caroline Criado Perez has uncovered the dangers of not collecting data about women, and the fact that data bias is putting women’s lives at risk. 

A new GoFundMe campaign led by writer and activist Tracy King aims to send a copy of the book — Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men — to every MP in the country in the hope that lawmakers will take action about this important issue. 

SEE ALSO: We aren’t collecting data about women and it’s literally putting their lives at risk

The campaign aims to crowdfund enough money to send a copy of the book to every MP with the aim of getting them to read it and take tangible action. King told Mashable she believes Criado Perez’s book has the power to change the world, which is why it’s important our lawmakers are aware of the extent of data bias’ impact. 

Criado Perez spent three years researching and writing the book, which brings together a wealth of information about the dangers of the lack of sex-disaggregated data — data specific to women. The consequences of not collecting data about women means that urban planning, medicine, transportation, policy, design, manufacturing, and engineering are all overlooking women’s needs. 

“We knew we were second-class citizens but we couldn’t prove it before.”

King says the reason the book has already proved hugely resonant before it was even published is because women have been going through life with the knowledge that these problems already existed. “We sort of already know this, we low-level know, but we never had the proof before,” says King. “Women just went, ‘oh thank goodness, there’s proof,’” she adds. “We knew we were second-class citizens but we couldn’t prove it before.”

It goes without saying that it’s important that women, the people affected by the data gap, are aware of the book, but it also needs to fall into the hands of people in power who can do something about the data gap, says King. 

“The decision-makers, the people in power, they’re the ones who make the laws, the regulations, and the policies that directly affect women, how things are built, and how things are made,” says King. “And they need to read this book, they need to know the book exists.”

The GoFundMe campaign needs to hit its £6,750 goal in order to purchase enough books to send to all 650 members of parliament. 

“I don’t fool myself into believing all 650 MPs are definitely gonna sit down and diligently read the book and then do something. If we don’t ask, we don’t try, and if we make enough noise, then some of them, the important ones who’re the decision makers in the areas that affect women in engineering and STEM, they might do something.”

“Every law, policy of regulation that the government touches, I want them to be thinking about how that impacts women.”

King feels that female MPs will likely be interested to read the book because they “recognise the issue,” but she would like to see male MPs read the book because they might not be aware of the scale of the data gap. “It’s the ultimate way to force them to check their privilege,” says King. 

In an ideal world, King hopes that MPs will start looking at the laws, regulations, and policies that disadvantage women. 

“The government funds a huge amount of medical research, and they could make it mandatory to have gender equality in your research funding proposal,” says King.  “Big changes could be effected if people in power decided, ‘well ok, you can’t have government funding for something if you’re not considering women.’”

“I want every law, policy of regulation that the government touches, I want them to be thinking about how that impacts women,” says King. “Do a gender impact assessment as default.” 

We’re a sucker for a good love story. 

Which is why the internet was utterly rapt when Chance the Rapper’s story of how he met his fiancée who he’s marrying in the next few days. 

SEE ALSO: Chance the Rapper buys out every screening of ‘Get Out’ at theater so fans can watch for free

In a Twitter thread, Chance explained that he was nine years old when he met the woman he would go on to marry. 

Back in 2003, his mum was working as a real estate agent when she took her family to one of the office parties. He was told that the party would be featuring an “exclusive performance” from none other than Destiny’s Child.

In walk three girls who, per Chance, “were not Destiny’s Child.” Lol. 

“Brief pause while they got in position and crouched with their heads down before the music starts,” he wrote. 

As the music begins, and the words “question, tell me what you think about me” play, 9-year-old Chance couldn’t stop looking at one of the performers.

“Now I’m locking eyes with the prettiest girl I ever seen in my almost-a-decade of life on earth,” wrote Chance. 

Chance’s dad encouraged him to join the three performers to show off his dance moves. But, Chance was too shy. “Young me was shy,” he wrote. 

But it wasn’t just his shyness that prevented him from getting up to dance. “It’s cause I knew I was gonna marry that girl. And I ain’t wanna jump the gun,” he wrote. 

“So I shook my head with anxiety, moved to the back of the crowd and never even introduced myself.”

“16 years later it’s happening,” he added. “This wknd is the time, and the place is my wedding. I’m gonna dance with my wife because this is my destiny.” 

None of us really know how we would behave if we suddenly found ourselves face-to-face with with a real A-list Hollywood movie star. 

Writer and creator of play-turned-tv show Fleabag told Stephen Colbert on The Late Show, that when she first interacted with Queen Meryl Streep herself, she was not quite as cool as she perhaps would have liked.

On the set of the movie The Iron Lady, Waller-Bridge said she got “overexcited,” and made what’s pretty much the dorkiest apple crumble-related joke ever.

When Streep casually asked Waller-Bridge what she was eating, the latter bellowed “*MY* APPLE CRUMBLE!”

To be fair, nobody would be able to keep their cool in front of Meryl Streep. 

The first ever screen adaptation of Nobel Prize winning author Gabriel García Márquez’s classic novel One Hundred Years of Solitude is coming to Netflix. 

Netflix will be turning the 1967 magical realist masterpiece into a Spanish language original series, the company said in a press release. The series will be shot mainly in Márquez’s home country of Colombia, and will have the author’s two sons as executive producers. 

SEE ALSO: Netflix’s ‘Paddleton’ shows how desperately we need the words to describe our more-than-friendships

Rodrigo García, Márquez’s eldest son, said that while their father, who passed away in 2014, was reluctant to sell the rights to his novel, the family trusts that the Netflix production will do his work justice. 

“For decades our father was reluctant to sell the film rights to Cien Años de Soledad because he believed that it could not be made under the time constraints of a feature film, or that producing it in a language other than Spanish would not do it justice,” García said in the press release, adding that given that we live in “golden age of series,” the time for an adaptation could “not be better.”

García elaborated in an interview with The New York Times, saying that his father’s main concern about adapting One Hundred Years of Solitude into a movie had been that the story is too big and complicated to tell in one or even two feature films. 

One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the Buendía family through seven generations in a fictional town in Colombia.  

Some fans of the novel expressed scepticism on social media at the idea of a screen adaption of the novel. Given the vastness of the story, and the fact that it belongs to the magical realist genre, it’s not going to translate well onto the screen, writer Kara Brown said in a thread of tweets which received over 1.7 K likes. 

“Anyone who has read it and actually understands it knows this book cannot and should not be a made into a movie,” Brown wrote. 

Vice President of Spanish Language Originals for Netflix, Francisco Ramos, said in Netflix’s press release that the company is “thrilled” to be trusted with the work of adapting the iconic novel. 

“We are incredibly honoured to be entrusted with the first filmed adaptation of One Hundred Years of Solitude, a timeless and iconic story from Latin America that we are thrilled to share with the world,”  Ramos said. 

Netflix has had great success with Spanish language in the past, such as hit series Narcos and the Oscar nominated movie Roma.

Every once in a while a tweet so damn good comes along that it makes me think that maybe, just maybe, all the bad the internet has given us has been worth it.

It’s rare for a tweet to spark so much joy that the “like” and “retweet” buttons don’t do it justice. But whenever it happens I feel compelled to take some sort of action.

I’ve always been a fan of screenshotting extra special tweets to ensure I remember them long after they pass through my timeline, but these days there are far more charming, thoughtful, and highly amusing ways to immortalize a favorite tweet.

Maybe you’ve had a tweet go viral or get some celebrity love? Perhaps you’ve tweeted something that became a hilarious inside joke with your friends? Or you’re considering taking the plunge and wiping your Twitter clean, but you’re holding back because of one or two really great tweets that you’re not ready to let go of just yet? Then making Twitter-inspired merch might be for you.

SEE ALSO: Crush Twitter proves that sometimes subtweets can be good

Immortalizing tweets — whether they’re your own, a friend’s, a celebrity’s, or even… a brand’s — is a perfect way to make lasting memories. Not to mention, personalized Twitter merch can be a next-level gift.

So next time you find a tweet worth memorializing, here are 10 incredibly fun, borderline unhinged ways to make it last forever.

1. Frame a tweet

For the perfect balance of simple and extra as hell, print a tweet out and put it in a legit frame. It might not sound like a particularly grand gesture, but my cousin gave me a framed collage of some of my favorite tweets for Christmas, and I’m slightly embarrassed to admit it’s one of the best gifts I’ve ever received.

Framed Tweets is a professional tweet-framing service that does all the work for you — though frames and posters cost between $49 to $199, which is a bit pricey if you ask me. If you want to go cheaper, buy an old frame and print out your own tweet. If you really want to get fancy, you can even use photo paper.

2. Wear a tweet

Retweets might not equal endorsements, but tweet shirts certainly do. What better way to show the world you love a tweet than by wearing it?

You can get tweets printed on all manner of apparel — shirts, sweatshirts, hats, tote bags, and more — on websites like Tee Tweets, Etsy, and Redbubble. For even more options, use a printing service like Custom Ink.

3. Make tweet stickers

If you’re looking for an easy way to display a tweet on the many surfaces in your life, why not consider making stickers? They’re fun, temporary, and easily sharable. Redbubble offers a selection of standout celebrity tweet stickers, though you can always make your own.

4. Put it on a pillow

If you’re in the mood to have some ~tweet dreams~ why not order a custom-made Twitter pillow? Etsy has a selection of classic and more artistic options, Redbubble offers quite the choice of throw pillows and covers, and Framed Tweets also has all your customization needs covered.

5. Enjoy a piping hot cup of tweet

To wake yourself up before you spend the day scrolling through Twitter, we suggest drinking coffee out of a Twitter-themed mug. TweetMugz.com is available for all your celeb, political, brand, and custom tweet mug needs.

6. Order a delicious tweet cake

People put photos on cakes, so why not tweets? I’m sure bakeries have received their fair share of odd requests over the years, so you should feel no shame in sending a photo of a tweet for them to put atop your cake.

7. Carve a tweet into wood

If you’re in the market for a slightly classier social media-inspired gift, turn your attention to these Twitter wood carvings.

Laser Tweets etches your tweet onto a beautifully smooth and thin piece of wood for $25. For  and even makes a set of custom wooden coasters for $55.00. It’s like, we really don’t need them but also we kind of absolutely do?

8. New phone case who dis?

Want the world to see a tweet of your choosing but not quite ready for a tweet shirt? Start smaller with a tweet phone case. Redbubble has a small selection of pre-made cases featuring popular tweets for a variety of different phones, and you can also create custom ones online.

9. Try temporary tweet tattoos

Ever love a tweet so much you briefly consider getting a tattoo of it before deciding it’s probably not the best idea? Same. But TwitterTats gives us the best of both worlds.

TwitterTats lets you create temporary tattoos of your favorite tweets that come off of your skin in about three days. Now you can seem adventurous without having to embrace the huge commitment of a real tattoo. Pre-made celebrity packs are available for $9.99 each, or you can create a custom temporary tattoos for $25.00.

10. Get a real Twitter tattoo

If you’re a Twitter-loving daredevil you always technically have the option of getting a real tattoo of a tweet. But before you head over to your nearest tattoo artist, remember that not all tweets stand the test of time. And this is one tweet you won’t be able to delete. So think before you ink.

#HappyTweetMerchMakingToAll