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idk if you’ve don’t this already but can you do the white tiger lore …? i saw the qiyoku and boyliife one and i love how well you explain stuff > _ <

yes i have been meaning to also explain the white tiger lore! i will do it to the very best of my ability

White Tiger (2022) lore

more under the cut because this will be long, it goes over just why white tiger is such prominent imagery, the city of Unity, and the lore of the album!

background

before i get into dissecting the songs, most of the lore of this album actually resides in the background of it.

on February 22nd 2024, hollis explained just how the album came about. you can hear it yourself here at 1:08:33 but i will quote what he said

"I made that album when I literally was having like, a psychosis break. Like, genuinely… I didn’t leave my room for […] like 10 days straight, and, […] i believed that I was in like, The Truman Show. I thought I was in a simulation, and […] everyone in my life was fake. I had this whole breakdown— [and] every time I would […] start to freak out, I would picture […] a white tiger […] destroying this […] dark energy. It sounds corny, but […] it really […] saved my life. Every time I would start to have a breakdown, I would picture a white tiger saving me. It got so real [to the point where] that I was having extremely vivid dreams of […] a white tiger visiting me, […] speaking to me, and, like, blessing me, and I’d wake up in like, pools of sweat, being like “What the fuck is real, and what isn’t?” I just didn’t know what was happening. I believed no one was real and I truly thought that my life was over, and, […] everything was pre-planned. I don’t know, it really like, was a gnarly era. But, yeah, the white tiger means a lot to me. Like, that album holds a deeper meaning to me than any of my work. It […] actually saved my life — like, if I didn’t make that album, I think I might have actually […] lost it."

to sum it up, the album was made when he was in psychosis, and the one that thing comforted him during this time was imagining a white tiger.

when he was in psychosis, he recorded a four hour voice memo off the top of his head. this is where the lore of the city of Unity comes in, the (lowkey) setting of the album. this is what he says about it in the stream:

"On my phone there's [...] a literal [...] four voice memo. One night I [...] started at like 10:00 and it finished at like 1 or 2 in the morning and I [...] explained an entire- like freestyled off the top of my head an entire lore of [...] a story about [...] a city and how the world is like extremely polluted and [...] the only way to survive- like the floor of the world is so polluted and destroyed that people have to build up and [...] the the ground level is too toxic so you have to like build up and [...] live up so like there's people that haven't even ever seen the the true floor of the Earth because they were like born up in the top you know. And it's like ancient how long it's been now so like modern day right now would be like ancient to them it's like this whole crazy story but [...] that was a little excerpt from it and I put it on that shirt."

(a/n: hollis says like a LOT lmfaooo i had to edit this to make it easier to read)

transcript from the memo in question is on the back of the ultra rare white tiger merch! i will be going over it

here's a closer picture, but if you can't read i will put the whole thing

here's what it says: (you don't have to read it all if you don't want to, because i will explain most of it summed up)

The city of unity is ancient. It has stood for thousands of years…what could a year be.. Forget it man.. Let it go.. As earth grew more and more damaged by human civilization they had to build upward because the air on the ground was polluted and toxic…fucking humans…i want to bathe in fresh water…mother said it doesent exist…fuck her…. This led to the city of unity being miles high and the people migrated upwards with the city….its cold.. The lower levels have been abandoned for thousands of years and some people don’t even know if the bottom exists because they were born at the top and have never seen the ground of the earth….i saw it once..i swear i did.. I promise.. Dont doubt me.. I can see you think im lying…fucking hell… Down at the bottom there are some marauders and bandits wearing “mog suits”..a kind of crude hazmat suit developed in the late 5000s…skip the details …shut the fuck up… lurking in the shadows of a once inhabited and beautiful city but now an ancient wasteland…its cold… The lower levels were built in the late 2040s and was once called… dont say the name… it will scare them… ..The buildings down here haven’t even been touched for centuries and serve as encampments for the marauders…im crying….. Animals have completely vanished from the earth and are now considered a folk tale or a legend….i saw a rabbit once.. Gray with green eyes and a stretch of blood on his left foot…..poor fucking thing….animals to us are similar to how you think of dragons or mystical creatures in the renaissance and ancient ages….they are all real…the government hid them from you…..the great collapse revealed it all…..dragons lay dead….. Humans have learned to synthesize all food and water and essentials with complex cloning devices and machinery…..eat child….eat…… No human has eaten a natural food in thousands of years. ..There is a great legend and tall tale of a white tiger that roams the bottom, searching for a sign of life…..i saw the fucking thing….. It is said that if you see this white tiger that you will gain immortality and all energy that surrounds you will be that of positive heavenly energy. …..the tiger grins…..haha…heh…hah……The tiger is a celestial being sent from the higher realms…..a being of life……..take care…. God.

as this is from a voice memo, its not rlly a concrete lore dump so i will make it easier to understand!

starting off, like i briefly mentioned in my Qiyoku lore post, the city of Unity is is thousands and thousands of years into the future. like hollis said, our era of 2026 (or 2024 of the time of that recording) would be considered ancient to the people of the city. he doesn't say the current year of the city, but mentions that a certain type of hazmat suit made was developed in the late 5000s meaning that it is at least that far into the future.

the city of unity exists upwards on earth, meaning that they have built it far upwards from the earth because the air on the ground was so polluted and toxic from human civilization. it has been so long since that time that there are people that were born in this elevated city that have never seen the ground before and/or don't even know it exists. there are people that parade among the lower/lowest levels called marauders or bandits and wear "mog suits" (funny name ik but not the looksmaxxing mog LMFAO)

animals are completely extinct and have vanished from the earth. humans no longer eat natural food and have learned to synthesize them with complex cloning devices and machinery to survive.

thisss is where the white tiger comes in. there is a tale of a white tiger that roams the very bottom of unity searching for a sign of life. it is said that it is a celestial being sent from the higher realms, and if you see it you will gain immortality and all energy that surrounds you will be that of positive heavenly energy.

i also just want to make it clear (although you've probably realized it by now) that hollis is NOT the white tiger!! the white tiger is a nickname that fans have given him (it actually comes from a tiktok comment from 2025, i kinda witnessed the nickname being popularized for him lol) but lore wise he is not the white tiger and has never been. he addressed it in a story a year ago:

i dont have the other story but he said that he does not mind being called it though! but in terms of lore he is not the white tiger.

now to get into the actual album!

Song Meanings/Album

this isn't really related to lore, but i wanted to discuss the album cover a lil bit

we actually have the original pic of the background (not the exact picture but the same scene, from his alt soundcloud secretRare) and i couldnt find the the picture of himself on the album cover, but i did find one of him in the same robe thats likely from the same photoshoot

now onto the songs. some of the songs will be skipped over if i dont feel like they really add anything lore wise

gate

as admittedly i dont relisten to this song often, i actually thought it had no lyrics but it does!

Under his tiger gleam Energy, take over me Take over me, white tiger Come, let's see

this is obviously referring to the energy that the white tiger bestows upon whoever perceives it, this song is just an intro to the album so there's not much else to say about it

king of the darkness

hollis also talks about this song specifically in the twitch stream while talking about the lore. this is the song that meant the most to hollis on white tiger:

"King of the darkness was like the peak of it like I was literally-- I had lost my mind at that point. I very vividly remember making that song. [...] I was just truly [...] disassociated, like I didn't know what was happening in my life and I was, like, in like a fantasy world. Just [...] thinking about it even like fucks me up a little bit. It just was a dark time. But that song, I like, in my head I was like the only way I'm going to beat this is if I like join.[...] It's like if you can't beat-- if you can't beat them join them you know. Like I was like maybe if I can't beat the darkness like what if I become the king of the darkness."

this pretty much explains the song, its about how hollis felt during his psychotic episode. the music video to this song is my favorite hollis music video ever

i do

this song is basically hollis recounting seeing the white tiger

"Trust God, I do, I know, I saw Smoke in the air, it's falling down You on my mind, I can't get out Store me away, got off the lot White Tiger, trust, I do, I saw-aw"

actor

this song is about how hollis felt like he was in the truman show during his psychotic episode. he felt like he was acting and nothing was real.

"Acting, I'm acting, I need this to be over White tiger in the darkness, four leaf clover It's a psychotic masterpiece, I'm lost inside of life and dream"

the music video to this song contains an intro that says a bit about the lore of Unity that I just explained to you:

(hopefully this vid works when i post this-)

white tiger

this song is about hollis imagining this white tiger destroying the dark energy.

"White tiger, white tiger, break through it White tiger, white tiger, take it, move it"

the light upon the surface that beckoned deep into the moment and the tiger stepped forth

i have always seen this song as the end of this psychosis break, and the white tiger finally saving him from it.

in the music video, it says this at the beginning:

"the actor is no more" obviously meaning that he has been freed from thinking that way

raise + safety + i always questioned it

these songs are all the aftermath of this psychotic break. in safety he says "the storm is over"

overall...

after what ive told you by now, you've probably realized that the album is more about his psychotic episode than the lore of Unity. they both are relevant to the album, but the songs are really about how he was feeling during that time.

like i briefly mention before, unity is also connected to the scrapped qiyoku album and is the primary setting of that album if you would like to go relisten to it with that knowledge! i think it will make a lot more sense

white tiger is a very important album to hollis, so i hope you enjoy it even more now knowing the background of it !

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