DaBaby

For DaBaby Convertible, Less Go and other ironic DaBaby memes, please refer to Ironic DaBaby Memes

About

DaBaby is the performance alias of Jonathan Lyndale Kirk, an American rapper and recording artist. In late 2020, the rapper became a popular subject of ironic memes online.

History

On May 25th, 2015, under the name "Baby Jesus," Kirk uploaded his first video to YouTube for the song "No compadre." The video has since received more than 207,000 views in less than five years (shown below).

Four years later, he released the music video "Suge (Yea Yea)" on YouTube. The post received more than 198 million views in less than one year (shown below, left). Later that year, he released the video for "BOP on Broadway (Hip Hop Musical)," which received more than 143 million views in less than three months (shown below, right).

Personal Life

Shooting

In November 2018, DaBaby shot and killed a man in Huntersville, North Carolina.^[1] The charges were eventually dropped. Though, Kirk, who said he acted in self-defense, pleaded guilty to carrying a concealed weapon.^[2]

Hotel Worker Altercation Video

On January 18th, 2020, TMZ shared a video of DaBaby in an altercation with a worker at a hotel. Within two days, the video received more than 255,000 views (shown below).

The rapper responded to the video on Instagram with a post saying that the hotel compromised the rapper and his two-year-old child.

Related Memes

DaBaby's Fake Nudes

DaBaby's Fake Nudes refer to a debate surrounding a viral video of an erect penis which was falsely attributed to American rapper DaBaby. After the video was posted online and presented as a leaked nude video of DaBaby, many users on Twitter made posts about the clip and commented on the size of the penis in the clip.

/r/DaBaby Subreddit

In late November of 2020 Dababy's subreddit, /r/DaBaby,^[3] started gaining increased attention as its ironic shitpost culture became more well-known across the web. It likely came about from the rise of ironic hip-hop subreddits such as r/hiphopcirclejerk and r/playboicarti.

On November 30th, /u/Freepyle, a moderator for the subreddit, lifted a ban on "DaBaby penis posts,"^[4] referring to memes about leaked nudes allegedly belonging to the rapper. The post was met with praise, receiving over 7,500 upvotes and 50 Reddit awards and encouraging further shitposts.

On that day, shitposts^[5][6] by /u/pinobutter99 and /u/chuyito200531 gained over 14,500 and 9,700 upvotes respectively, becoming the two top posts of all time on the subreddit (shown below, left and right respectively). /u/chuyito's shitpost follows a common format on the subreddit, where users upload a photo of someone who doesn't look like DaBaby and ask if they look like DaBaby, or claim to have met him that day, the photo allegedly being of DaBaby. On the same day, /r/Hiphopcirclejerk banned reposts from /r/DaBaby and several other rap-related subreddits known for shitposting, a move that was criticized by commenters.^[12]

Despite its success, /u/pinobutter99's post (as well as several other posts) was highly criticized outside of the subreddit for being racist. For example, on December 2nd, Twitter user JrWave19 tweeted,^[7] "wtf Dababy Reddit gotta go" with several screenshots of posts from the subreddit that are arguably racist (shown below). The tweet gained over 17,000 likes and 845 retweets in 17 hours. Among the screenshots used for evidence is a November 21st post to the subreddit by /u/NebulaPizel, ironically asking if he should call DaBaby "The Baby" to avoid being racist that gained over 4,900 upvotes in 11 days.^[8] On December 3rd, 2020, /r/dababy was banned.^[13]

In the wake of the ban, subreddits /r/dababypenis^[14] and /r/DababyHentai^[15] were created, with Ironic DaBaby Memes maintaining significant popularity in the following months.

YouTubers began posting reaction and compilation videos about /r/DaBaby on December 1st as its popularity grew (example shown below, left).^[9] On December 2nd, YouTuber noah username uploaded a video to YouTube^[10] discussing the shitposts, both praising the comedy and criticizing the racist posts and the lack of actual music discussion on the forum (shown below, right). On December 3rd, Nightcrawler made a post titled "Some racist s*** happening on Dababy subreddit" to the music forum on KTT2^[11] telling users about the subreddit and describing how to get it suspended.

Various Examples From /r/DaBaby

Ironic DaBaby Memes

Ironic DaBaby Memes refers to a series of ironic memes featuring rapper DaBaby. The format utilizes images and the name of the rapper in humorous ways and includes several notable submemes such as DaBaby Convertible, DaBaby's Finger Guns Edits and his "Let's Go" lyric.

DaBaby Curved by a Fan

On April 7th, 2022, a video surfaced of DaBaby trying to kiss a female fan on the way to his car. In the video, DaBaby leaned in to kiss the woman who immediately turned her cheek to him, trying to fend him off her. It was reposted to Twitter by the internet news outlet No Jumper on the 7th, wherein less than 24 hours, it received roughly 10.3 million views and 70,000 likes (shown below).

#DaBaby getting curved by fans 😂 pic.twitter.com/EiiP7NMfsX

— No Jumper (@nojumper) April 7, 2022

Going into the next day, fans and critics alike reacted to the clip in memes and humorous tweets. A common reaction emerged regarding, "DaBaby's PR Team," with meme creators imagining the difficulty they faced regarding the rapper's history of public slip-ups. For instance, on the 7th, Twitter^[16] user TimFromIllino1s posted a tweet that captioned a LeBron James image reading, "NO HELP," with, "Dababys PR team," earning roughly 7,400 likes in one day (shown below, left). Twitter^[17] user HLSMF posted a parallel tweet, captioning an image of SpongeBob crying and earning roughly 2,700 likes in one day (shown below, right).

A month prior to this incident, on March 6th, 2022, TikToker^[18] kandipatel posted a similar video of DaBaby trying to kiss her after a show, earning roughly 360,000 plays and 35,000 likes in one month (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References