#StraightOutta the Internet: From brands to celebs, the NWA meme takes over the Web

by Jordan Valinsky

Internet, meet your new inescapable meme.

As a way to promote the upcoming biographical movie about N.W.A., called “Straight Outta Compton,” advertising firm North Kingdom, together with Beats by Dre, created a template that lets users replace the California city with a city of their choosing and a background picture.

From there, the picture can be easily uploaded to Facebook or Twitter creating an infectious viral meme that slyly serves as a promotional tool. The meme has also infiltrated Instagram, but the sharing process is less seamless since they have to take a screenshot then upload it to the photo-sharing app.

The template, which mimics a Snapchat sponsored filter, is also adorned with a Beats by Dre logo as Dr. Dre is a producer on the film releasing Friday. While it works both on mobile and desktop, emojis sadly aren’t compatible.

Since its inception last week, the #StraightOutta hashtag exploded with 7,000 tweets over the weekend. It blew up on Instagram, with 141,000 total pictures with the hashtag with most of them using the template.

Some used the meme seriously while others made it into a joke. Let’s review who used it, starting with celebrities:

#StraightOutta #TheBronx #FBF #BronxBarbie

A photo posted by Jennifer Lopez (@jlo) on

The #StraightOutta hashtag is killin me.

A photo posted by Questlove Gomez (@questlove) on

Obviously brands couldn’t resist:

One person managed to find a way to include the Drake vs. Meek Mill beef…

…or shade Bill Cosby.

But the best mic drop of all was probably this one:

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