The first single off Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP was The Real Slim Shady; the song was a hit single, garnering much attention for insulting various celebrities, including: The chorus is about the sudden fashion changes caused by Eminem's success: "I'm Slim Shady, yes I'm the real Shady/All you other Slim Shadys are just imitating/So won't the real Slim Shady please stand up, please stand up, please stand up?". In the video for the song, a factory can be seen turning young white men into clones of Eminem, with hair dyed platinum blonde, baggy jeans and a plain white t-shirt.

Eminem's supporters sometimes point to a line in this song that they claim illustrates his lack of homophobia. "if we can hump dead animals and antelopes/then there's no reason that a man and another man can't elope" (referring to Tom Green humping a moose in the first line). Even liberal politicians in the late 1990s gave, at most, tepid support for gay marriages, yet Eminem apparently supports it in spite of his alleged homophobia. Another point of view is that Eminem is equating bestiality with homosexuality.