Meme History: Drake memes
Few pop stars are more internet-famous than Drake, and when you think of a Drake Meme, chances are you’re thinking of this one.
His boo used to call him on his cell phone, and in the mid-2010s, the whole of the internet used to call him the hottest thing wherever memes are shared.
The video for “Hotline Bling,” off of Drake’s 4th album Views, dropped on October 19, 2015. Shot on a pretty minimal set that was easy to replicate, and featuring dance moves that were described as both “eccentric” and “dorky,” this video was perfect meme-fodder, and immediately caused parodies and spin-offs—notably on Saturday Night Live two weeks after the video’s release.
On the internet, the usage of screenshots from the video, also known as “Drakeposting,” began mostly on 4Chan and niche forums, but spread to basically everywhere else on the internet by January and February of the following year.
The most common iteration is a 2-panel reaction meme where the first features a still of Drake dancing, looking like he dislikes something, and the second is him in another pose, liking something else quite a bit.
It's simple, and immediate, and great for use as an innocent joke, or social commentary, or both.
And whether it's his perceived sensitivity, or mere proclivity to get himself in weird memeable situations, Drake is one of the most widely memed people on the internet, and has been for a long time.
The closest other template to Drakeposting, is the obvious “Cat Drake”—which chronicles the pickiness of our feline overlords:
But there’s also a version of Galaxy Brain, which features screenshots from a 2010 Sprite commercial that the R&B star starred in.
There’s “Drake is the type of guy”—an older, largely text-based meme where people talk about how nice and sensitive he is. Kind of like an inverse Chuck Norris joke.
And, not a meme per se, but while all these were growing throughout the 2010s, Drake was also in a long-running feud with Kendrick Lamar, who was once quoted dissing Drake and J Cole by saying “mother f** the big three n*** it's just big me” In May of 2024, all of this escalated with Kendrick’s new diss track, “Not Like Us.”
Like any self-respecting rapper, Drake is not without the occasional controversy. But by and large, he’s earned himself a reputation as a relatively wholesome beacon for what pop R&B can be. Which is kind of the same idea as a Drakepost.
The internet doesn’t always have to be vitriol. Sometimes it can just be fun.
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