Caleb Natale went to bed Monday night when most college students do — at 3 a.m. But, he wasn’t kept up by incomplete homework. Instead, he was putting the final touches on a Vine that parodied Drake’s new music video for “Hotline Bling.”
The Vine featured a snippet of Drake, crouched down, dancing along and waving his hand to and fro to the beat of his song. Natale envisioned a different, funnier atmosphere for the video, so he decided to superimpose Wii tennis animations, effects and sounds.
“I was watching his motions in the video, and it really looked like he was swatting something around. I was like, ‘What would be funny for him to be swatting around?’ And I thought of tennis,” he said.
Drake’s dancing turned into Drake seemingly and strangely playing tennis.
Hours prior, he had hastily uploaded the Vine, but forgot to brand it with his name. This is a measure done by many Viners as a copyright gesture to prevent popular meme accounts from hijacking original content and sharing it as if it were their own.
He quickly deleted the unmarked clip and reuploaded it, marking it as his original work.
“When I was making it, I definitely knew this is one that was going to do really well,” Natale said.
He was right.
When the avid Viner woke up in his dorm at Liberty University and checked his Vine like most of us routinely check our phones, he saw that the six-second clip had amassed approximately 3.5 million views overnight.
Now, the clip, which peaked as the number one Vine overall, has garnered more than 12 million views, or in the parlance of Viners, loops. It has also totaled 215,000 likes, 111,000 revines and 9,000 comments on the app, among hundreds of thousands views, likes, retweets and shares on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Senior Abby Reimer, who appreciated the video, saw Natale’s Vine.
“The tennis racket Vine — you know, people want to hate on Drake. They’re like ‘He can’t dance,’” she said. “But I think it was purposeful."
"There’s been so many Vines that have spun out of this 'Hotline Bling' video. It’s really a testament to how mainstream Drake has asserted himself into popular culture today,” said James Martin, who is a graduate student in computer science.
But since Natale had originally released the Vine without his name stamped on it, countless accounts were still able to seize the clip as if it were their own.
Natale listed the Instagram accounts “insta_comedy” (2.2 million followers), “daquan” (1.9 million followers) “destorm” (1.5 million followers) and “fuckjerry.tv” (1.2 million followers) as the main offenders and said the account coordinators blocked comments that mentioned or gave credit to Natale.
“These accounts know that I made it. They intentionally stole it," he said. "They blocked comments that mentioned my name.”
But many social media users have supported Natale, directing skeptics to his Instagram, where he posted video proof of him using his computer software to create the now famous Vine.
"At the same time, it's kind of flattering. Even though they were stealing it, it's cool that everyone liked it enough that they would take it."
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