Certified Lover Boy Cover Parodies — Grid of twelve cartoon and real characters depicted pregnant in the style of the Certified Lover Boy album cover

Certified Lover Boy Cover Parodies

2021photoshop parodyclassic

Published November 10, 2026

Certified Lover Boy Cover Parodies are photoshops of Drake's September 2021 album cover, which artist Damien Hirst designed using 12 Pregnant Woman Emojis in rows of four. Within hours of Drake's August 30th, 2021 Instagram reveal, Lil Nas X, Twitter users and Instagram pages swapped the emojis for Among Us crewmates, Android pregnant icons and pregnant fictional men ahead of the September 3rd release.

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Overview

A typical Certified Lover Boy parody keeps the clean white background and the three-by-four grid from Damien Hirst's original design, then swaps the 12 Pregnant Woman Emojis for something absurd. Edits range from simple emoji substitutions, such as Android's chunkier pregnant icon1, to full image replacements using game characters or scenes from other media2.

The joke works on two levels. One is a reaction to Drake's cover itself, which many thought was ugly or random for a major hip-hop release3. The other is pure template humor: any group of 12 similar things can be slotted into Hirst's layout, which made the format easy to riff on in the days before and after the album's September 3rd, 2021 drop3.

Origin & Background

Platform
Instagram / Twitter (viral spread)
Key People
Unknown
Date
2021

On August 30th, 2021, Drake posted the cover for his album Certified Lover Boy on Instagram, four days ahead of its September 3rd release4. The artwork, designed by British artist Damien Hirst, places 12 Pregnant Woman Emojis with varied skin tones and sweater colors in three rows of four on a white background. Drake's announcement post gained more than 4.1 million likes in its first four days4.

Parodies began the same day. Rapper Lil Nas X posted an edit swapping Hirst's figures for the Pregnant Man Emoji, scoring over 1.2 million likes within four days5. Twitter user @drac0srevenge posted another early edit captioned "android users when certified lover boy drops," using Android's blockier Pregnant Woman Emoji, which got over 55,000 likes and 8,000 retweets in the same window1.

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How It Spread

Parody edits spread fastest on Instagram and Twitter in the three days between the reveal and the album's release3. Lil Nas X's Pregnant Man Emoji post was the most-liked early entry at over 1.2 million likes in four days5, while @drac0srevenge's Android emoji version did the heaviest lifting on Twitter with 55,000-plus likes1.

On August 31st, 2021, the format widened past emoji swaps. Instagram page @fingees replaced the pregnant figures with Among Us crewmates, gaining over 4,500 likes in three days6. The same day, Twitter user @KiddTheArtist__ posted a grid of pregnant male characters from various media franchises, playing off a running joke about the cover's maternal theme2. By the September 3rd release date, the Hirst grid had been reused as a general-purpose photoshop template3.

Timeline

2021-08-30

Drake posts the official Certified Lover Boy cover, designed by Damien Hirst, on Instagram[4].

2021-08-30

Lil Nas X posts the Pregnant Man Emoji parody, scoring over 1.2 million likes in four days[5].

2021-08-30

Twitter user @drac0srevenge posts the Android Pregnant Woman Emoji version with the "android users when certified lover boy drops" caption[1].

2021-08-31

Instagram page @fingees posts an Among Us crewmate edit[6], and Twitter user @KiddTheArtist__ posts a pregnant fictional male characters edit[2].

2021-09-03

Certified Lover Boy is released; parody edits of the cover are still circulating widely on Instagram and Twitter[3].

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How to Use This Meme

Creators typically take the plain white Certified Lover Boy template, keep the three-by-four grid, and replace the 12 pregnant emojis with 12 copies of a different image. Common swaps include other emojis (Pregnant Man, Android versions), game characters such as Among Us crewmates6, or a lineup of pregnant male fictional characters pulled from various franchises2.

Frequently Asked Questions