Last year, Drake took one of the most brutal beatings in hip-hop history. Since the culture-defining 2024 beef, he’s had his name slandered, pride destroyed, watched his adversary go on to win a record number of Grammys, and become the first rapper to solo headline the Super Bowl—all while audiences happily sang along to a song calling him a PDF file.
This beef not only affected music, but altered entire subcultures of the internet. Before the fallout, the Kendrick Lamar and Drake subreddits were just happy that their favorite artists were making music. But after the nuke that was Meet the Grahams, and subsequently Not Like Us, the fanbases turned hostile.
Today I’m going to be comparing how the Drake and Conservative subreddits reacted to major losses, and how echo chambers have permanently eroded the once-neutral culture within these subs.
Reality Denial
Reality denial looks different for every group, but the psychology is the same. Some people are drawn to communities that may have unpopular or niche opinions, and once they meet like-minded people, they feel more validated or vindicated about their beliefs. Think flat earthers. Once the internet gave them a platform, they felt more confident, despite their opinion being completely nonsensical.
The same thing happened with the Drake and Conservative subreddits, just less extreme at first. These subs started as a place for news, discussion, or appreciation, but when the core figures of the communities were constantly mocked and attacked, intense emotions spiked. The people who identified with Drake felt personally affected by the loss.
A neutral fan might be disappointed for a while but eventually works their way through the stages of grief and accepts the loss. But in echo chambers, the most extreme and devoted fans cycle between anger and denial.
When Kendrick secured the Super Bowl, Drake fans said Drake would play at the World Cup. When Kendrick was dominating the charts, Drake fans said the industry was rigged and all the listeners were bots. Sound familiar? After the 2020 election, half the forum accepted the result, but the other half doubled down and claimed election fraud. These subreddits are so eerily similar that both figureheads filed lawsuits claiming systematic manipulation and fraud. As more radical people join the sub, you see rational opinions drowned in downvotes from the vocal minority. Anyone who has a neutral opinion is downvoted.
Weaponizing Victimhood
When communities become radicalized, they’ll often adopt a victim mentality to retain narrative control. Take this thread from r/Drizzy: “Why do people hate Drake?”
I could find that info with a 10-second Google search. They don’t want to know why people dislike Drake—this is just an opportunity to weed out dissonance and paint Drake as a martyr who did nothing wrong.
You get goofy, bad-faith responses like “people hate him because they’re jealous,” or “people just love to hate on others who take risks.” As if Drake is the biggest risk-taker in the industry.
Then you get other posts that are just using ad hominems, calling anyone who doesn’t like Drake ugly, weak, or weird.
Another one that’s similar to the Conservative sub is the idea that Drake is “anti-industry.” Drake is one of the most industry-benefited artists to ever exist.
All of the negative comments in this thread about Drake were removed under the guise of “protecting the community.”
On r/Conservative, there’s also some dissonance, but it’s neutralized by the algorithm, moderators, and downvotes. More extreme, emotion-inducing content means more interaction time. The people with the loudest megaphones control the narrative.
Another funny example is when Conan made a Kendrick Lamar joke at the Oscars. The joke was so innocuous, but the comment section was chaos. The best example I could find is this lukewarm comment saying that the joke was “kind of funny” being drowned in downvotes.
Drake also always has to be the good guy. Never mind how he’s constantly dissing people, getting with his “friends’” exes, or just feeling inauthentic to some people. When a community can’t voice complaints against their guy, the subreddit becomes a place to prove how dedicated you are instead of discussing their work. Crafting narratives and attacking less faithful fans becomes a competition to see who can be the best stan.
This is similar to how the Conservative sub works. There aren’t any nuanced or grey areas of discussion. You don’t like pro-life? You’re not a real patriot. Enjoy your ban!
To Be Fair…
Subreddits like these have to constantly moderate their communities due to sabotage. Reddit is already a predominately liberal site, and any forums different to the culture are flooded with trolls and brigaders.
When Kendrick Lamar would make the news, users would go to r/Drizzy to mock, tease, and ridicule Drake fans. To prevent bad-faith posting, moderation is necessary. But when moderators get used to wielding this type of power, it becomes easier to ban or silence people when they don’t share the same opinion. Over time, this can spiral into delusional territory where logic, reasoning, and facts don’t support the community’s beliefs. Eventually, it gets to a point where the community is so far detached from reality that they become vulnerable to grifters.
Grifters
R/Drizzy has gone full groupthink, and as a result, it’s laid the ground for businesses to step in. A lot of these people feel so betrayed by mainstream culture that any person or company who steps in to defend Drake is seen as good. Azealia Banks, Kanye West, and other deranged people have defended Drake recently, so the community has embraced them more.
This applies to companies as well. Happy Dad and Stake have been banking off the OVO culture for a while. Denounced YouTuber What’s the Dirt, who was laughed off the internet for being a Drake fan, came back with an obvious Happy Dad sponsorship, same as DJ Akademiks. Stake, a company that is by definition a scam, is another entity that has capitalized on Drake’s and DJ Akademiks’ community following.
And maybe the biggest grift of them all is from Drake himself.
When $$$4U came out, his fanbase felt so vindicated that they were pushing each other to buy multiple digital copies of the album. They get nothing out of this other than giving Drake more money and boosting streams, which is something they were accusing Kendrick’s fanbase of doing. There were people in this thread who were buying hundreds of digital copies.
The pattern is consistent with r/Conservative. Conservatives criticize big pharma and vaccines, snake oil salesmen step in, people like Alex Jones victimize themselves and say the government is trying to silence them, and only money can help them stay platformed. And on top of that, you’ve got probably the biggest con man and grifter in American history leading the movement.
At this point, the grift is genuinely impressive. And while I can hate all I want, these are the people who have worked their way up to running our society.
I hope you took something from this video. Recognizing echo chambers is essential if you want to keep your critical thinking skills—and your identity—intact.
Most people end up in these communities out of curiosity, niche opinions, or a desire to feel seen. But over time, these spaces stop being about discussion and start becoming tests of loyalty.
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Check out my video on this topic here: