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ENTERTAINMENT

Cardi B Was Instagram’s Video Queen of the Quarantine in March

By Todd Spangler

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) –

Cardi B is the Instagram viral-video queen the internet apparently needs during the coronavirus pandemic.

While Kylie Jenner dominated in 2019, took over in March: Five of the top 10 most-viewed videos on the platform last month came from the outspoken rapper and entertainer, as tracked by Pex, an L.A.-based video and music analytics and rights-management firm.

Each of Cardi’s videos in the top 10 revolved around COVID-19. In the No. 1 clip, a March 10 post captioned “Ya keep playing I’m deadass F—– SCARED. I’m stocking up on food,” she says in part, “Let me tell y’all something, I ain’t even gonna front: A bitch is scared. I’m a little scared…. S— got me panicking.” At the end, she exclaims, “! Coronavirus! I’m telling you, s— is real! S— is getting real!”

That video, in turn, yielded a hit for DJ and producer iMarkkeyz , who remixed Cardi B’s rant to a throbbing beat (and threw in a dancing Elmo for good measure).

In her other top videos for the month, she knocks over a tower of giant Jenga blocks ; cackles in response to seeing Donald Trump elbow-bump a health-care company CEO in a televised press conference; criticizes the U.S. government’s response to COVID-19 , particularly in lack of testing for poor and middle-class people; and is massively amused that one of her videos made it into a Chinese TV news report .

She’s also used her social-media footprint to urge people to be counted in the 2020 Census: In a March 26 Instagram post , in partnership with New York’s NYC Census 2020 initiative, she told followers to not be distracted by the virus and directed them to fill out the census at 2020census.gov or by calling (844) 330-2020.

Cardi B, with nearly 62 million followers, currently is the No. 35 most-followed account on Instagram (excluding Instagram itself). The Bronx native (real name Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar) deactivated her Instagram in February 2019 — for all of two days — upset by abuse directed her way after her album “Invasion of Privacy” won the best rap album at last year’s Grammy Awards.

Here’s the list of top 10 Instagram videos viewed last month (through March 30) as compiled by Pex:

Rank Account Video No. of Views
1Cardi B instagram.com/p/B9kvv79AAUw 27.8 million
2Enzo Zelocchi instagram.com/p/B-G81GlgLIH 24.3 million
3Cardi B instagram.com/p/B98nknmAE64 23.6 million
4Selena Gomez instagram.com/p/B9XZQtJDbTi 23.4 million
5Cardi B instagram.com/p/B9r7ACHHQR5 21.4 million
6Bad Bunny instagram.com/p/B9aJHLKhaZP 19.6 million
7OPPO India instagram.com/p/B9RxyCdlvsR 19.5 million
8Cardi B instagram.com/p/B-IpR_DgoTx 19.2 million
9The Rock instagram.com/p/B9e19HxlzEa 18.9 million
10Cardi B instagram.com/p/B9ua4nvAHe4 17.7 million

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