About

Drakeposting refers to the practice of posting reaction images and other still shots from the music video of the Canadian hip hop artist's 2015 hit single Hotline Bling on the imageboard site 4chan, typically to express one's disdain of the thread topic or something said by another poster in a similar vein to the usage of Costanza.jpg.

Origin

The original image is taken from the music video of Drake's 2015 hit R&B single "Hotline Bling", in which the hip hop artist performs several different dance moves and gestures, including one that shows him holding his hand up to the side of his face while looking disgusted (shown below).

The pose in question was subsequently isolated into a reaction image and began circulating on 4chan's /v/ (video games) board as early as mid-to-late 2015 (shown below), with its earliest known usage as a reaction image found in a /v/ (video game) thread^[1] about first-person shooter games posted on October 31st earlier that year. Meanwhile, the earliest use of the term "Drakeposting" to describe general discussions about the hip hop artist on 4chan dates back to a comment posted in a /fit/ (fitness) thread^[2] on May 4th, 2015.

Spread

In January 2016, the usage of Drake's screenshot images from the music video "Hotline Bling" quickly snowballed into a shitpostng trend across various forums on 4chan, including /mu/^[3] on January 3rd, /int/^[4] (international) on January 5th, /v/^[5] (video games) on January 8th, /g/^[8] (technology) on January 16th. Between January and March in 2016, the term "drakeposting" was mentioned in hundreds of independently archived discussion threads across 4chan.^{[9][10][11][12][13][14]}

As a result of its growing presence on 4chan imageboards, the "drakeposting" phenomenon has prompted a number of tangential discussion threads on Sheeky Forum, a 4chan-affiliated community and archive site, as well as on Reddit's /r/4chan section. On January 30th, Sheeky Forum user TechHater^[15] asked about the popularity of "drakeposting" on the site in a Q&A thread.^[4] On February 2nd, Redditor Bobbistef^[18] mentioned "drakeposting" in response to an /r/4chan thread introducing the arrival of a new exploitable meme based on the character Pacha from Disney‘s 2000 animated buddy comedy film The Emperor's New Groove . On February 22nd, Sheeky Forum user Need_TLC^[17] started a survey asking other forum members' favorite Drake songs in a thread titled "Now that Drake is officially vidya related Sheeky Forums culture, what is your favorite Drake song?"

Cat Drake

On December 15th, 2016, Instagram ^[22] user @yisucrist published a photoshopped version of the Drake "Don't Like/Like" exploitable, featuring a black cat's head edited onto Drake's body. Next to the cats are a cat toy and a cat box. The post (shown below) received more than 32,000 likes in a little over one year.

About 14 months later, on February 22nd, Twitter^[19] user @DustyFotter posted a version of this meme with a new cat superimposed over Drake's face . Next to the images of the cat are a cat bed and a cardboard box, indicating that cats prefer the box to the bed. The post (shown below, left) received more than 12,000 retweets and 28,000 likes in four days.

Later that day, Redditor^[20] JM-Rie posted a variation on the /r/memes subreddit, featuring a keyboard instead of the cardboard box. The post (shown below, center) received more than 27,000 points (92% upvoted) and 190 comments. Over the next few hours, people began posting more variants of the meme based on common traits found in cats (example below, right).

The following day, The Daily Dot^[21] published an article on the emergence of the meme.

Examples

Search Interests

External References