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It was all good just a week ago. Well, several weeks actually.

It was July 6, 2015. Meek Mill had just gotten out of prison seven months earlier. He had the number one album in the country that moved over 215,000 units in its first week. He had Nicki Minaj on his arm and was in the midst of the North American leg of an enormous tour with his bae.

And then he decided to go at Drake.

An unexpected twitter rant for the ages on July 22, which centered around Drake allegedly not authoring his own rhymes, would ultimately send Meek Mill’s career into a free fall rivaled only by that Red Bull guy who jumped out of an aircraft from outer space.

A thousand and one reasons have been speculated upon as to what precipitated Meek’s tweet-roasting of Drake: The ghostwriting, the fact that Drake felt disrespected when Meek confronted him about the alleged ghostwriting (via reference track) on his album when Drake only did the record as a favor to Meek, Aubrey’s long history of lusting after Meek’s girl through song, the fact that Drake did not tweet out support for Meek’s sophomore LP Dreams Worth More Than Money, Drizzy going AWOL prior to a Meek show he previously had committed to, the rumored signing of Philly rapper AR-AB to Drake’s OVO; the list is like a bottomless pit of high school hysteria. Not to mention the likes of DJ Drama, Funkmaster Flex, T.I., Charlamagne Tha God and some dude named Quentin Miller have all been dragged into this mess on some level.

Initially, Drake took the high road. But then he put out “Charged Up“. Then “Back To Back” came out swinging like ’95 Albert Belle four days later, the latter putting the entire rap world on hold. After several days without responding to either, Meek Mill dropped his rebuttal “Wanna Know“, and well…nothing was the same.

Robert Rihmeek Williams, who had everything going for him just a few short weeks ago, could very well have his career on life support. That’s how embarrassing this fiasco has been for Meek Mill.

Exactly how far has the hate gone?

After “Wanna Know” went straight Shane Battier, the Internets instantly lit up Meek like a Roman candle. Worse yet, Meek’s cancerous personal ridicule has spread to the most disastrous location possible: Into the collective pop culture consciousness.

Meek was clowned on SportsCenter. He’s been trashed by burger joints. Planned Parenthood was not above throwing shade. Even Eggland’s Best and Rosetta Stone snuck in a few jabs. It’s hard to believe the suits at these corporations have any rap allegiances, and it’s safe to say these marking ploys were all in good fun. But when you’re ducking shots from The Hamburger Helper Hand, you know the shit has hit the fan.

For two solid weeks, the social media avalanche continued to bury Meek Milli because, well, everyone’s a comedian on Twitter. To add insult to injury, Meek was was roasted by MCs he’s beefed with in the past, and the WWE is suing Meek for improper usage of a sample from The Undertaker’s theme music. If pissing off “The Phenom” wasn’t bad enough, reports suggest Meek’s evisceration is actually having a negative impact on The Pinkprint Tour’s ticket sales. And the coup de grâce was Meek humiliatingly removing “Wanna Know” from his Soundcloud page (likely due to the pending lawsuit and a potential Tombstone Piledriver on the horizon) and the Philly MC just recently returned to Twitter after a 17 day hiatus due to his team “stealing his password.” Okay, Meek.

If we’ve learned anything from this, it’s that all publicity isn’t good publicity. While Meek’s profile has risen to heights he’s never known before, the streets seem to be cooling on him altogether at a time when his career had just ascended to its apex. And he made it all happen by novel means, such as consistently making hot music. (Who knew?)

But with all this, should one of rap’s promising young stars be forced to have his career extinguished? What exactly was Meek Mill’s true crime? He provoked a battle and took a pretty hard L. The L was on a grand stage and it was decisive. Should that mean the people ought to collectively decide he’s too corny to rock with anymore?

Some are aligning this MMG soldier with the likes of Canibus, Lil Flip and Ja Rule (especially after Meek made a 50 Cent/Ja Rule reference at the end of “Wanna Know”; that was ill advised. Why didn’t his crew put a stop to this before it ever happened?) However only in select circumstances has a lost battle ever been a direct cause for someone’s career being completely derailed. Maino was recently on The Breakfast Club and shared some thoughts about what taking an L on wax really means in the grand scheme:

https://youtu.be/iEb7En3dZ3U?start=1378&end=1650

Maino touches on a few key issues here. First, he is correct in his current assessment of the rap game. Meek Mill occupies a very specific niche— hardcore, rugged gangster rap. This lane has been a staple in hip-hop for many years, but the Tyler The Creators, Kid Cudis and Chance The Rappers of the world have induced this new age alternative “nerd rap” era that is currently thriving along with the “sensitive lyricist” steelo (Drake, Cole, Wale and Kendrick would all fall into this category). Quiet as kept, of all exclusively gangster rappers, Meek Milli has been the most successful over the last five years. Regardless of how bad he came out in this feud with Drake, hip-hop needs Meek’s aggressive brand of music.

Hard enough to appease the streets, while still lyrical enough to maintain their interest— nobody walks this tightrope better than Meek right now.

To Maino’s Nas/Jay Z point, many rap historians will also tell you Common bodied Ice Cube back in the mid-’90s. And Cube, one of the most respected MCs of all-time, authored up one of the great diss records ever recorded in a separate incident. But Cube’s loss to Comm Sense didn’t erode his career in the eyes of most, nor did the remaining members of N.W.A. have their livelihoods cut off by “No Vaseline”. Cube and Dr. Dre (one of said remaining N.W.A. members) recently collaborated on a major motion picture about the group they once both inhabited. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. The duo also collabed on  what is essentially a soundtrack to accompany the film, which is also doing pretty well.

Sidebar: Understatements of the year.

Twenty-four years after “No Vaseline”, it’s all water under the bridge and Cube & Dre are once again getting money together hand over fist. A loss in a battle is not a death sentence. Plenty of less talented artists have found themselves beefing with other rappers and didn’t get judged nearly as harshly for their performance. For fans to boo the Dreamchaser is less a reflection of the failed attempt of a diss record and far more of a referendum on the age we live in.

It happened to Manny Pacquiao, Miguel and Brandon Knight— you make a mistake on the big stage…nobody will love you. On the flip side, it happened to Odell Beckham Jr. when his unbelievable catch against the Cowboys was all ESPN and Twitter could talk about for five days, rather than his Giants blowing an 11-point lead at home on Monday Night. Our culture is one that thrives on mass consumption of small, easily digestible moments that, when fueled by mob mentality, are blown out of proportion even more easily. In an effort to validate it’s coolness, the national media now globs onto these moments and reflects them back onto the consumer, which further fuels the group-think state of mind.

Meek Mill’s loss to Drake was bad. It became one of the biggest cultural events of the year. Chances are, your mama has heard of Meek Mill now. Still, it wasn’t bad enough to warrant the never-ending wave of criticism he’s been faced with, his tour’s ticket sales taking a hit, or his records getting booed in the club. The individuals who now think supporting this man is beneath them are the same ones that turnt up to his new album days before the Drake episode went down. Sadly, the overreaction of the public has become the story, not the music itself. If clowning Meek hadn’t become the fashionable and socially encouraged thing to do, his career might’ve be spared, rather than looking like the movie The Pursuit of Happyness in reverse.