Leave Earl Sweatshirt Alone! How Creepy Internet "Journalists" Stalked a Troubled Little Kid over the Internet

Was lost, but now is found ...

As you know by now, the search is off.

Last Thursday, the investigative reporting branch of Complex published a post that left most music journalists' mouths gaping: They found Odd Future's missing member, Earl Sweatshirt, in a Samoan academy that aims to rehabilitate at-risk boys from the U.S.

The writers' hunt starts off innocently enough. In either a mastermind or impetuous move, Odd Future members Domo Genesis and Hodgy Beats' recent song "Tang Golf" threw a big chunk of bread at all the bloggers and journalists sniffing out the collective's best rapper's whereabouts: "Ask Syd where we at. She'll tell you where we going. To free Earl from the fucking Samoans."

But then, things take a turn for the "To Catch a Predator" creepy.

Trolling around on the Facebook page of some other kid (whose photo they originally hadn't scrambled) who was in the program with Earl, the writers piece together a timeline for Earl's disappearance:

After crawling through the Internet, trying to find a connection between Earl Sweatshirt and Samoa, we came across this Facebook post that appeared to be the answer to our inquiries.

They then tracked this guy's Facebook updates and comments over the past year, decided he's not back yet, and ultimately find a U.S. ambassador's photo from the academy that includes someone who looks an awfully lot like Earl Sweatshirt. Tyler denies on Twitter; music blogs throw up posts as quickly as possible.

Which is all fine and good, except these are just KIDS. That level of digging, while impressing us with its tenacity, also freaked us out a little bit. Yeah, we were as curious as everybody else, but this isn't uncovering some scandal at city hall. It's an underage kid's personal life, and one mystery we think was better unsolved.

See also: Earl Sweatshirt Is Home!