A TikTok clip of army men holding flags of Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice has sparked a conversation regarding the real-world influence of online fandoms. The clip, posted by user ‘pcox26’ on Christmas Day, went viral once shared by XXL Magazine. It shows soldiers chanting “U.S.A.” while holding American flags with images of the rappers on them.
The TikTok video also had the following text superimposed over the clip:
“Ice Spice saving NATO alliances with the French out here!!!!”\
This left netizens wondering if online feuds between fandoms, also known as stan wars, were moving over to real-world wars. For the uninitiated, stan is a combination of the words ‘stalker’ and ‘fan,’ often used to refer to overzealous fans of celebrities.
Netizens react to the army holding Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice flags
While some fans saw this adoration of female rappers as a positive change in a male-dominated military culture, others credited this trend to the popularity of Nicki Minaj and her fandom, the Barbz. Comments poured in under @DailyLoud and @PopCrave’s posts about the same:
Some netizens, however, seemed unaware of the trend and were left confused by the images of these rappers on the American flags.
Origins of the Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice flags
This isn’t the first time that images of either Nicki Minaj or Ice Spice have been spotted on American flags held by military personnel. The trend originated back in July 2015, when an image of Minaj saluting the flag in a blue top appeared alongside her interview for Cosmopolitan.
Videos of Nick Minaj fans using this version of the flag for the 2021 Fourth of July celebrations dominated TikTok soon after.
More recently, fellow rapper Ice Spice was also involved in her own flag trend. It began in June of this year, with a TikTok video showing marines stationed in Okinawa, Japan posing with a flag that had her face on it.
Ice Spice herself also participated in the trend, sharing an image of other marines posing with her flag in September.
Despite the competitive nature of the rap industry, both artists have a good relationship with each other.
Ice Spice has collaborated with Nicki Minaj on two tracks this year. The first was a remix of her song Princess Diana in April. The other was Barbie World in June, released as part of 2023’s summer blockbuster film Barbie. Nicki even referred to Ice Spice as the new princess of rap recently.
