What happens when a halftime smirk hijacks the internet and winds up in a United Airlines tweet?
During the 2025 Super Bowl, Kendrick Lamar paused mid-performance, stared straight into the camera, and grinned: “Say, Drake.”
In five seconds, he didn’t just fuel the hottest celebrity feud; he birthed one of the most popular memes right now and handed marketers a cultural shortcut to viral gold.
The Kendrick and Drake rivalry didn’t start on that stage. It’s been years in the making, flaring publicly since the early 2010s.
The feud reached critical mass in 2024 when Lamar dropped Euphoria and Not Like Us, the latter Grammy-winning, diamond-certified track featuring the loaded lyric, “I hear you like ‘em young.”
Drake’s legal team later alleged UMG ‘weaponized’ the track’s success, citing its 600% streaming surge post-halftime (per court filings).
What turned the feud from music beef into a meme template was the way Kendrick delivered it live.
He looked delighted. Diabolical. Fans called it “supervillain energy” and “the smirk of a man who already knows he’s won”.
During his 13-minute set, Lamar performed hits including Humble and Squabble Up, as well as his Drake diss track Not Like Us… The moment he said, ‘Say, Drake,’ everything changed.
Fans zeroed in on Kendrick’s diamond-encrusted ‘A’ necklace during the performance, sparking instant debate.
Some interpreted it as a sly nod to his Not Like Us lyric (‘certified pedophile… is probably a minor’), weaponising the meme further against Drake.
Others, including longtime Lamar stans, argued it simply referenced his company pgLang; a duality the rapper leaned into by smirking during the line’s delivery.
‘The ambiguity is the point,’ tweeted hip-hop critic @NoSkips, ‘Kendrick knows how to weaponize symbolism.’
Within hours, the clip flooded social feeds. TikTokers and X users remixed it for any situation where a sarcastic callout fit: dirty dishes, terrible dates, botched workouts.
It didn’t matter whether people knew the backstory. The format was sticky.
“Say Drake…”
by u/False-Ad-3855 in KendrickLamar
“Say, Drake” became the new “Hotline Bling,” repurposed endlessly in bold Impact font with a frozen grin from Kendrick mid-diss.
The visual cue was everything. His expression did half the work. It wasn’t just funny; it felt like being let in on something bigger.
Kapwing quickly spun it into a meme template. Pages offering “Say Drake” captions mushroomed alongside searches for “most popular memes,” “hot memes right now,” and “meme of the day,” all riding the wave of SEO traffic and social engagement.
Searches for “popular memes right now” and “recent memes” have exploded across social platforms, confirming the culture isn’t just watching, it’s actively searching, remixing, and participating.
And brands were paying attention.
United Airlines fired first, tweeting the performance clip with the caption, “My bag watching me follow it around the carousel.”
My bag watching me follow it around the carouselpic.twitter.com/8qUmKntkgu
— United Airlines (@united) February 10, 2025
The post earned nearly 10 million views in 48 hours and set off a chain reaction of replies and meme parodies from fans and social accounts alike.
Even McDonald’s chimed in. Why? Because the meme was ready-made for punchy, relatable commentary.
seriously i can never catch up
— McDonald's (@McDonalds) February 10, 2025
It was quick, it was current, and it let companies tap into a cultural moment without sounding forced.
This wasn’t accidental. The reason memes like this catch fire is that they hit three pressure points: celebrity drama, live broadcast virality, and visual remixability. A feud gives it friction. A live Super Bowl performance gives it reach.
And Kendrick’s half-smile gives it the meme magic. As the Adweek breakdown put it, “fans flooded social media with reactions and memes speculating how Drake must have felt watching from afar”.
Even Drake couldn’t ignore the ripple effects. He responded to Kendrick’s Super Bowl taunts during his Melbourne concert just days later.
While performing Knife Talk, he changed the lyric from the original ‘beef is alive, spoiler alert, this dies’ to ‘beef is alive, spoiler alert, I never died’ – a direct clapback that sent the crowd into cheers.
The defiant lyric flip came as Drake’s For All the Dogs Scary Hours Edition maintained its #1 position on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart for a 12th consecutive week, according to industry charts.
While Drake made no further public comments, the simultaneous chart success underscored his commercial staying power amid the feud.
Behind the scenes, his legal team filed an amended lawsuit against Universal Music Group, claiming Kendrick’s halftime show was “orchestrated to assassinate” his character.
This charge was aimed less at his rival and more at the industry machine promoting him.
The lawsuit alleges the performance introduced defamatory lyrics to millions of new viewers, igniting both streaming surges and security threats.
In short, the “Say, Drake” moment didn’t just go viral. It escalated into litigation.
Marketers know that attention is currency. But attention that feels like an inside joke is even more valuable.
It builds community, sparks participation, and makes even the most mundane brand account look plugged in.
When it is tethered to a meme that is still evolving, it keeps looping in new audiences.
TikTok one minute, Twitter the next, then back again when the next brand throws its logo into the ring.
As for Kendrick and Drake, the music might settle, but the memes won’t.
Not while users keep remixing, brands keep reposting, and “Say, Drake” continues showing up in new cultural mashups, from gym fail reels to procrastination TikToks.
The real question now is this: What happens when the next feud hits the main stage? Will brands be faster, or will the moment belong to the fans again?
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