Bladee

About

Bladee whose real name is Benjamin Reichwald is a Swedish rapper, singer, designer and founding member of artistic collective Drain Gang, formerly known as the Gravity Boys. In memes, fans of Bladee are referred to as "Drainers" who are "draining," associated with having a bad taste or pretentious taste in music as well as an alienating character. He is known in conjunction with Yung Lean and the Sad Boys as well as with the music genres of meme rap and hyperpop. Memes about Bladee became notable online in 2019 on platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Reddit and TikTok.

Online History

Bladee first made music in 2011 under the name Ken Burns. He came out with the song "Tony Hawk" on August 29th, 2011, which featured fellow Drain Gang member and recurring collaborator Ecco2k.^[1] It was re-uploaded to YouTube on September 9th, 2017, where it earned roughly 66,400 views over four years (shown below, left). In 2012, Bladee came out with the song "OXYGEN" under his current name. Although the original upload has since been deleted, it was reuploaded on January 10th, 2014, by YouTuber^[2] 1sleep23 where over the course of seven years, the video's been viewed roughly 255,100 times (shown below, right).

Bladee became associated with Yung Lean's Sad Boys collective in early 2013 when he sent a DM on Soundcloud to producer Yung Sherman.^[3] He would later be featured on Lean's 2013 mixtape Unknown Death 2002 on the track "Heal You // Bladerunner" (shown below, left). A year later, Bladee released his first full-length mixtape titled "Gluee" (the intro titled "Deletee" is shown below, right).

Origin of Bladee Memes

Bladee accumulated a following going into 2015. For instance, the /r/Draingang^[4] subreddit was created on August 11th, 2015. Over the course of seven years, the subreddit has gained roughly 7,700 members. However, the first post to the subreddit wasn't until 2020.^[5]

As far as music reviews, Bladee had trouble picking up mainstream attention early on unlike his counterpart Yung Lean. For instance, on June 21st, 2018, music reviewer Anthony Fantano posted a review of Bladee's album "Red Light" (shown below, left). He ended up giving it a 1/10, which started a long rivalry between Drainers and Anthony Fantano. In fact, the first-ever Bladee meme posted online was uploaded to YouTube one year prior, on January 3rd, 2017, and it's a fake Anthony Fantano review of Bladee's first album "Eversince." The video (shown below, right) was uploaded by YouTuber youngstuna, who received roughly 71,300 views over the course of four years.

Spread

Because of Anthony Fantano's 1/10 review of "Red Light," it actually gave Bladee increased attention online and turned internet users onto him. In 2017, he received an increase in engagement on his Twitter. For instance, on October 28th, 2017,^[6] Bladee tweeted, "Man Walks in to starbucks yea ima need that umm Pumpkin spice latte," receiving roughly 4,100 likes, being the first of his tweets to break over 1,000 likes (shown below, left). On November 26th, 2017, Twitter^[7] user KevinKazi tweeted about Bladee and Ecco2k sounding good despite a lot of auto tune, receiving over 45 likes and being one of the first people on the platform to namedrop the artist (shown below, right).

Bladee memes appeared on Instagram in 2018 but more notably in 2019. The first Bladee meme posted to Instagram was on December 2nd, 2018, by Instagram^[8] page nicotinepoisoning (shown below, left). In three years, the meme received six likes. On September 5th, 2019, the Instagram^[9] page certified.drainers.only started posting memes, being one of the first online and on the platform to do so. Their meme (shown below, right) received over 80 likes in two years.

On Twitter, user PeterXinping posted multiple Bladee references in 2019, ultimately popularizing him as a reference in regards to Doomer Boy and Incel types. For instance, on May 19th, 2019, he posted a tweet^[10] reading, "Bladee Fans Be Like Yeah He Fuckinng Suckssssss But U Get Used To It," earning roughly 6,700 likes over the course of three years (shown below).

Bladee and Drain Gang accumulated more memes about them, their music and their fans going into 2021, spreading to platforms like iFunny ^[11] and TikTok. For instance, on TikTok, a trend emerged in 2021 that used Bladee's song "Hotel Breakfast" as a sound.^[12] Users started posting memes following a phrasal template of "The X-est Bladee Fan." TikToker^[13] stacydreamstar posted a video on October 29th, 2021, that said, "the weakest bladee fan," only to flex in the video, showing that he's strong (shown below). The video received roughly 10,900 plays over the course of two months.

Overall, Bladee memes, Drainer memes and Drain Gang memes revolve around the meme concepts of Ur Scaring The Hoes and Gen Z / Zoomer music taste in general. Many use Wojaks to demonstrate Drainers as undesirable or weird.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References