Drake Mirror Selfie

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Part of a series on Drake. [View Related Entries]

About

Drake Mirror Selfie or Drake's Gay Mirror Selfie refers to a mirror selfie taken by Canadian recording artist Drake that was posted to his Instagram Story in which the rapper is wearing an oversized wool sweater and holding his hand up to his face, almost resembling a cat paw. The photo was mocked across social media in the days following its upload, resulting in a number of memes, with many users accusing Drake of being gay and being unable to deny supposed "gay allegations" after the photo.

Origin

On July 31st, 2021, Drake posted a mirror selfie to his Instagram^[1] page in which he's wearing what appears to be a wool sweater with his hand up at his face, twiddling his beard (shown below). The hand looks like a cat paw, as noticed by many. Drake also has a heart shape cut into his hair in the photo. The Story was deleted at some point that day by Drake.

On that day, Twitter^[5] user @IvyKungu posted the image with the caption, "this is exactly how i feel in an oversized sweatshirt. i don’t blame him" gaining over 212,000 likes and 20,000 retweets in four days (shown below, left). That same day, Twitter^[6] user @KeilahDashh retweeted the image, adding "Ariana Grande has 24 hours to respond," referencing Grande's tendency to wear large sweaters and make this hand pose, gaining over 80,000 likes and 10,000 retweets in the same span of time (shown below, right).

Spread

That day, Twitter users began sharing the photo on the site, particularly in posts making fun of the image. On that day, for example, Twitter^[2] user @willfulchaos posted the image with the caption, "drake’s never beating the gay allegations 😭" gaining over 600 likes in three days. On the same date, Instagram^[3] meme page @on_a_downward_spiral posted the image with the caption, "he’s so petite and fertile," a reference to the submissive and breedable meme, gaining over 67,000 likes in the same span of time. Instagram^[4] user @mybloodyvirginators posted a photoshopped version of the image that day with added Snapchat text about going somewhere and smoking a joint, gaining over 2,500 likes in three days (shown below). It was shared by @on_a_downward_spiral that day, gaining over 53,000 likes.

The search term "Drake Gay" became popular on Twitter in the following days, receiving a significant boost in Google search traffic. On August 2nd, Instagram^[8] page @tinycelebrities posted a photoshop of the image featuring Drake with short legs, gaining over 7,500 likes in two days (shown below).

On the same date, @on_a_downward_spiral posted a 21st Century video edit to Instagram^[7] featuring the image, gaining over 227,000 views in two days (shown below).