Who’s Entertaining Who?: How The Internet Picks Up Drake’s Slack

Earlier this week, Drake secured the fourth solo Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 of his career with the song “In My Feelings,” off his fifth studio album Scorpion. But while most of the raps are his, the song’s skyrocket up the charts is due, in large part, to something Drake had nothing to do with.

The beauty of a meme is that it becomes something larger than anything its creator ever intended. The beauty of “In My Feelings” and what’s being called #DoTheShiggy Challenge — the pop culture dance craze of the summer — is that it’s still very unclear if one of its creators, Drake, actually intended anything at all. The success of the song and the dance it inspired capture perfectly what the rapper’s career has become: a string of successes with increasingly minimal effort. The Internet is picking up his slack.

Just days after the release of Scorpion, track 21 (yeah, it’s a long album), “In My Feelings,” took off. It’s not the most immediately catchy song on Scorpion. It’s not the most star-studded; the Michael Jackson cameo comes later on the disc. But by the end of the weekend just after its release, the song had shot to the top of the iTunes singles chart and dozens, if not hundreds of homemade videos were appearing online of fans dancing along to the opening lyrics in the song.