The "Street Dealer to Drug Lord" meme is the latest to explore the rags to riches template. "Glow up" memes have littered the Web before, but not in the organized manner in which the "Street Dealer" meme presents itself. Inevitably, the meme is being disguised as a motivational tool, but in many cases, it ends up embarrassing the subject.
The Internet has an uncanny memory when it comes to retaining compromising photos, some more humiliating than others. The left-hand side of the "Street Dealer" meme is generally occupied by the older compromised photo, the right side, an appreciable "current day" version of the subject. Many of the more cutting submissions use cultural phenomena already embedded in our minds, like the photos that were uncovered of Rick Ross as a correctional officer in a previous lifetime.
Other submissions incorporate a similar element of familiarity even if they don't pertain to a moment in particular, a good example being a time-specific photo of Jay-Z wearing a durag, or something of that order. Here are some of the best submissions in this early juncture of the "Street Dealer to Drug Lord" meme ascendancy.
https://twitter.com/_/status/1047953303345221632
https://twitter.com/_/status/1047958156523888640
https://twitter.com/_/status/1047955229445173254
https://twitter.com/_/status/1047955591073865729
https://twitter.com/_/status/1047948691800301570
https://twitter.com/_/status/1047952761806106624
https://twitter.com/_/status/1047961086492905477
