![]() ![]() In a 2010 MTV documentary titled Better Than Good Enough, a then-23-year-old Drake offers what remains the most generous access into his interior life. ![]() Before there was an Instagram, he embodied what Instagram would become. ![]() It almost functions like a coping mechanism, which you could say will always be Instagram’s purpose.ĭrake was always like this. But the whole thing is one-sided, since no one can really tell who he’s talking about. ![]() There are likely real jabs being tossed in his captions, cryptic notes to people who’ve hurt him. Russell Simmons’ Ex-Wife and Daughter Accuse Him of Verbal Abuseĭrake is so famous to so many people, for so many reasons, that his account relies on what you might call “context collapse.” Posts mean everything and nothing all at once. That, and sponsored posts, which Drake also loves. It’s the fuel that keeps a platform like Instagram going. Since their inception, these apps were about showing off and being petty. Social media offers a vector through which we can confirm our beliefs about the world and ourselves and despite recent claims to the contrary, has little to do with democracy or free speech. The music focused re-launch didn’t last long, but Timberlake also wasn’t the Drake of Myspace.Ī Google search for “Drake Instagram caption,” yields scores of blog posts - responding to what appears to be a ravenous demand - that list the best Drake lyrics to use when you need your followers to know what you’re on. Justin Timberlake was part of a group of investors that jointly purchased Myspace for roughly $35 million in 2011. And a hypothetical Drizzy takeover wouldn’t be the first time a musician stepped in to save a fledgling social media company. The platform has seen declining engagement over the past several years, and is currently locked in a battle with rival TikTok, going so far as to help publish opposition research on the company via a conservative-linked PR firm. Instagram, for its part, could surely use something. Musk’s Twitter purchase is likely just the beginning of a bigger shift, as the rich become more emboldened, and social media reach becomes more akin to real world power. Our culture now places what many see as an ungodly amount of power in the hands of the most influential social platforms. The Biden Administration recently briefed TikTok creators on the situation in Ukraine as a means of disseminating genuine information about the war. In South Korea, presidential candidates experimented with social media “deepfakes” as a means of engaging younger voters. Musk’s bid for the company, and the ensuing fallout, pointed to a tension growing between public figures and the avenues by which they influence the rest of us.ĭrake’s 108 million Instagram followers outpaces Presidents Obama, Trump, and Biden combined, and in today’s world there’s more working in Drake’s favor than any former President. On Twitter itself, the deep level of passion that exists for a single website was illustrated in the non-stop reactions to the sale, which ranged from the hysterically overjoyed to the hysterically depressed. Musk’s agreed upon purchase of Twitter - for an affordable $44 billion - shined a light on the public’s relationship to the corporations behind the social media platforms that dominate our lives. Like Drake, the main difference between him and his online following is mountains of money, $252 billion to be exact. Despite running an automotive company with a nearly trillion dollar market cap, he is constantly goofing off online, trolling politicians, and being frustratingly obtuse about basic political arguments. The same can be said for Elon Musk’s relationship to Twitter. It is the platonic ideal of an Instagram caption, a potent distillation of the app’s underlying ethics. “The reward for hard work is more work…kno dat.” The words still clang around my subconscious like a Patek Philippe tossed into a dryer. Affixed to a carousel of mostly shirtless photos from Drake’s vacation in the Turks & Caicos Islands reads a caption that only Aubrey Graham could’ve typed. Just look at this post from sixteen weeks ago. His page is a case study in gnomic posturing, the embodiment of who we become on the app. On Instagram, we are all just doing our best Drake impression. ![]()
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