Kanye West Holding Notepad

About

Kanye West Holding Notepad refers to an image of rapper Kanye West holding up a yellow pad of paper, also known as a legal pad, with the words "my account is not hacked" and the date underneath, posted by West to his Instagram on February 13th, 2022, in the midst of a posting spree to prove he hasn't been hacked on social media. The image went viral over the following days as an exploitable sign-holding format as people edited the notepad to share a new, comedic message or drawing as if made by Kanye himself.

Origin

In February 2022, Kanye West began making posts on his Instagram expressing concerns about Pete Davidson dating his ex-wife Kim Kardashian, as well as his ongoing divorce. The frequency of the posts coming from West, who is usually quiet on social media, sparked concerns from some that he was hacked.

On February 13th, 2022, Kanye West posted two images of himself holding up a yellow notepad with the text "my account is not hacked 2 13 22" written on it to Instagram,^[1] one without a mask and one wearing a mask and holding his arm up in the air (shown below, left and right, post caption below images). West deleted the post later on. The post's caption calls out SNL actor Michael Che, who responded on Instagram^[2] through numerous notepad pages that day, gaining over 291,000 likes in a day.

MY ACCOUNT IS NOT HACKED I WILL BE AT SUNDAY SERVICE AT NOON AND WILL ME TAKING NORTH AND SAINT TO THE SUPERBOWL SHORTLY AFTER @CHETINKS I'LL DOUBLE WHATEVER THEY PAYING YOU JUST SO YOU DONT HAVE TO LOOK AT THAT PAWN EVER AGAIN BIG LOVE

Spread

On the same day, February 13th, 2022, Twitter^[3] user @PopBase reposted the images, gaining over 3,200 likes in a day. Also that day, Twitter^[4] user @SeriousUnci posted a photoshop edit of the maskless image with the text removed, leaving the notepad blank, writing, "New Meme Format dropped #KanyeWest #Kanye," gaining over 400 likes in the same span of time (shown below).

Variations on the meme were posted to the comments section of @SeriousUnci's post over the course of the following days (examples shown below).

On February 13th, 2022, Twitter^[5] user @jr_itm posted a version of the meme where Doodlebob is drawn on the notepad, gaining over 7,400 retweets and 52,000 likes in a day (shown below, left). Twitter^[6] user @KelseyKreppel posted a version referencing the Kanye Interrupts meme, gaining over 26,600 likes and 2,700 retweets in the same rough span of time (shown below, right).

On February 14th, Twitter^[7] user @KanyePodcast posted a screenshot of a Twitter user ratioing a post using an image of West's notepad with "ratio" written on it, writing, "First successful Ye Notepad ratio?," gaining over 200 likes in under a day (shown below). On the same day, HITC^[8] and Distractify^[9] published pieces on the meme.

Template

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References