Everyone knows who Drake is. He has given us gems such as Hotline Bling, the line “she said she a lesbian girl me too”, and his most… interesting… new song with 21 Savage accusing Megan Thee Stallion of lying about getting shot. This post is not in defense of Drake. I am a Megan Thee Stallion supporter for life and I fully back Ethel Cain releasing the amish upon him. However there is a new trend online centered around the song Rich Flex, which is featured on his new collab album with 21 Savage. In these videos people depict Drake as “acting like a girl” or “acting gay” to essentially make fun of him. Now, again, I am not a Drake fan, but this trend is a clear indication that within a straight world, LGBTQ+ people are just a punchline. The funny bit of every one of these videos is that Drake is acting gay. Here is a playlist of said tik tok trend (including 21 Savage’s reaction): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p7xhr2JBRA . Some of the creators in this compilation are part of the community, but some are not and I think it is pretty obvious who.
These videos are not malicious and I personally chuckled a little when I saw the roblox one, but the issue lies in the fact that this joke has been done so many times in an epidemic I call “acting fruity with the boys”. You see straight young boys/men across the country pretending to be gay with their friends, but saying “no homo” to cancel it out. They think pictures of men kissing or a man posing in a “feminine” way is just the pinnacle of comedy. They have words such as fruity and zesty randomly dispersed throughout their vocabulary. They just cackle, they love those jokes so much. To quote Princeton student/influencer Griffin Maxwell Brooks “being gay is the ultimate form of public humiliation”. It is a genuine issue that so many people do not take the LGBTQ+ community seriously because it has immense effects on an already marginalized group. With a constant feeling of being the butt of the joke, LGBTQ+ people (especially youth) are susceptible to bullying which in turn contributes to the statistic that they are at an increased risk for suicide. The Trevor project found that “LGBTQ young people report lower rates of attempting suicide when they have access to LGBTQ-affirming spaces”. The Rich Flex trend is of course not a direct cause of these issues, but jokes can sometimes be the beginning of a slippery slope towards “edgelord” comedy, bullying, and harassment.
Now, people can tell me that the joke of the Rich Flex trend is just that Drake is being flirty with 21 and it’s just kind of funny to think about. However female and male performers are singing seductively to each other all the time, yet it nevers becomes a comedy trend at least to the level of the Drake one. Let me bring in another Drake example. In the song Only, with Nicki Minaj, Drake spends his lyric time expressing how sexually attracted to her he is. Just to really drive home the point, no one made an entire tik tok trend mocking him for this. For reference, here are the lyrics:
I never fucked Nicki 'cause she got a man
But when that's over then I'm the first in line
And the other day in her Maybach
I thought goddamn, this is the perfect time
We had just come from that video
You know LA traffic, how the city slow
She was sitting down on that big butt
But I was still staring at the titties though
Yeah, low-key or may be high-key
I been peeped that you like me you know
Who the fuck you really wanna be with besides me?
I mean, it doesn't take much for us to do this shit quietly, I mean
She say I'm obsessed with thick women and I agree, yeha
That's right I like my girls BBW, yeah
Type that wanna suck you dry and then eat some lunch with you, yeah
So thick that everyone else in the room is so uncomfortable
Ass on Houston Texas, but the face look just like Claire Huxtable
Oh, yeah, you the man in the city when the mayor fuck with you
The NBA players fuck with you
The bad ass bitches doing makeup and hair fuck with you
Oh, that's 'cause I believe in something, and I stand for it
And Nicki if you ever tryna fuck
Just give me the heads up so I can plan for it (Pinkprint, ayy)
Now for comparison, here are Drake’s Rich Flex lyrics:
… 21, can you do some' for me? (21)
Can you hit a lil' rich flex for me? (21)
And 21, can you do sum' for me? (21, 21)
Drop some bars to my pussy ex to me
And 21 (21), can you do some' for me? (Yeah)
Can you talk to the opps necks for me? (Okay)
21, do your thing, 21, do your thing (21)
Do your thing, 21, do your thing
Of course though, Drake being attracted to 21 Savage is funny because it means he is gay! Now, the people making this trend aren’t, in most cases, genuinely hateful people. They are just trying to blow up on tik tok and I honestly respect the grind, but I cannot look past the greater implications this trend has of societal attitudes. There does not need to be a battle between the LGBTQ+ people and the straight community. All people are asking for is acceptance and a chance to live a fulfilling life so lets maybe pack up the gay jokes and save them for another day. I am sure there are other things to joke about. My main message here to the straight community is that gay jokes are just not for you! You just don't get it!
