When Toronto rapper; Drake released the video to his Grammy award winning song Hotline Bling back in October of 2015, you couldn?t scroll through your social media feed without seeing some type of hilarious meme from his new video. While the song alone was popular for its catchy lyrics and smooth beat, the video was popular for much more than that and took on its own life in the world of ?memes? being remixed and mashed by up hundreds?if not thousands of social media users.
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On October 19th, 2015 Drake released the video for his hit single Hotline Bling exclusively on Apple Music (and shortly after to YouTube) from his forth studio album titled ?Views?. As with anything the Toronto born hip-hop star (and former t.v star) releases; the video instantly became a viral sensation, both because of the catchiness of the song and the sheer size of the rappers fan base?but mainly due to his awkward dance moves and funny facial expressions that seemed to fill most of the 4:55 minute video.
The music video has raked up over 1.3 billion views on YouTube since being released:
Source: YouTube
After the video was officially released it instantly became an internet phenomenon as ?Drake?s awkward dancing in the video quickly spawned various memes and parodies, culminating with a Saturday Night Live ski that featured Donald Trump?. The mixture of Drake?s dorky dance moves, his iconic turtleneck sweater, the puffy bright red Moncler jacket and the upbeat vibe of the song all came together to produce a video that would inspire numerous viral memes that could make you laugh whether you cared for Drake as an artist or not.
?It?s no secret that Drake has become the undisputed meme king of the interweb? ? Beth Daniher
It wasn?t long before the internet took over and began producing hilarious memes from different parts of the video and posting them to social media. Whether it was a snippet of Drake?s dance moves paired with a different song inspiring the #DrakeAlwaysOnBeat challenge, or screen grabs of the rappers facial expression being used much like an emoji to respond to different situations?the video was simply perfect to meme-ify.
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There is too many memes that were born from this video to explain them all, but I will attempt to outline some of the most popular ones and showcase the context they are used in across the internet.
#DrakeAlwaysOnBeat Challenge:
The #DrakeAlwaysOnBeat challenge was one of early trends that first went mainstream on Twitter after @Rev_MT muted the Hotline Bling video and played another song over Drake?s dancing just hours after the video?s release. The idea behind this ?challenge? was that social media users felt that Drake?s dance moves were always in sync with any song you played over the video. Users took to social media (and someone even created a page dedicated to the challenge) to share mashups they made of the video by replacing the original audio with anything from the Charlie Brown Theme song to Spanish pop hits.
Drake even found some of the videos humorous and got in on the action by sharing one of the mashup?s on his personal Instagram account with the caption simply reading: ???????????. The video has 660,000+ views to date.
Source: Instagram
Drake Disapproves / Approves Meme:
The original meme that used this set of screenshots from the video was by Twitter user @sassycxss. Using the combination of two screen shots from the video; one showing Drake?s face in disgust (referred as #DrakePosting) and the other showing him with a huge smile on his face (referred as ?Drake Approves?), this meme is used to compare something you dislike vs. something you like or show how you may first say no to something that you really want to be polite.
Source: Twitter
Source: Imgflip
Others:
Here are some other honourable mentions from Drake?s Hotline Bling series of meme?s:
Source: Image.Genius
Source: Giphy
Source: Giphy
Source: Imgur
Source: Imgur
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Search Trends:
The search trends pulled from Google show that the trends for the terms ?Hotline Bling Meme? had spiked during the first month of the videos release and slowly declined as time went on. Next, the term ?Drake Meme? still shows some signs of relevance as Drake is a man of many memes. Although the Drake meme?s discussed in this post may be the most familiar to the mainstream audience?this is no where near his first or last time he has been a viral meme through social media.
Screenshot of Google Trends for ?Hotline Bling Meme? & ?Drake Meme?. Source: Google
To see the full compilation of the extensive collection of viral Hotline Bling meme?s check out this video below by Social Mania:
Source: YouTube
