On the early morning of 2nd September 2012 Ervin McKinness proved that you do indeed only live once after being killed in a fiery car crash just minutes after drunkenly tweeting ‘YOLO’. 

McKinness, an aspiring young rapper from Southern California, was a passenger in his friend’s 2005 Nissan Sentra as it ploughed through a red light, lost control, and slammed into a wall in someone’s backyard, instantly killing him and three others with a fifth later succumbing to his injuries at a nearby hospital. 

YOLO is an acronym for “You Only Live Once” made popular across social media after the song “The Motto” by Drake hit the charts the previous year. It is usually preceded by admissions of recklessness or stupidity.

The 21-year-old’s final tweet was further filled with cruel irony: “Driving tweeting sipping the cup fuck yolo I’m turning it up.” Although this tweet has since been deleted and retweeted.

The tweets became part of an official investigation into the fatal crash as it seemed they were an admission of drunk and dangerous driving. 

‘They’re certainly looking at that because it will be a vital part of the investigation,’ Ontario police Sgt. David McBride told reporters ‘but it’s too early to give an opinion as to whether it was a cause or contributed to the crash,’.

The sister of McKinness later took over the rapper’s Twitter page insisting her brother was a passenger and not the driver that night, a fact later supported by police.

McKinness, who went by the names Jew’elz and Inkyy, had signed a record deal and an official video for his song ‘Dreams’ was published to his YouTube channel, InkyyTV, earlier that year.