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I sit here finalising this piece today from the State Library in Melbourne, in what is probably my final two weeks in Melbourne before flying back to Argentina, and all I can think about it one thing: I miss my dog.

Pretty awesome really as we are about to crush some major profitability goals we had, enterprise growth is going through the roof, and we cracked an acquisition channel like you have never seen before. More on that down the line.

Anywho, today’s post is a good one. Our first ever true guest post. And one that hopefully should stoke some dank ideas in you by the end. Anyway, enjoy it, and stay awesome my loyal reader!

TL;DR ME 🙄

GUEST POST 💄

Meme Marketing Makes Millions

“A picture is worth a thousand words.” This well known adage is attributed to Fred R. Barnard, Tess Flanders, Confucius, and even Napoleon Bonaparte. Regardless of who said it, and irrespective of which era they said it in, the statement is cold hard facts.

If you believe that to be true, and a picture does in fact tell a thousands words, then what of memes. I’d argue memes tell more than 1,000 words, or it might tell 1,000 funnier, dankier words. Memes > Photos.

But what is a meme?—’Meme’ from the Greek word ‘mimema,’ which means "something imitated," was coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. He introduced the term as a way to describe how ideas, behaviours, and styles spread within a culture, analogous to how genes spread in a population. If there is one thing I over index on in this life, it’s memes.

And if you, like me, are a proud purveyor of this forbidden fruit then today you’re going to be in for a treat. Today, we have the Memelord himself, the dank LOL-pusher, the Head of Degeneracy, the Resident in Slop, Jason Levin, of Memelord Technologies with us to run you through how Memes Make Millions (™️) and how you can make millions too.

Even wondered what it feels like to live the life of a memelord? Well, buckle up ladies and germs as you are about to find out.

Open-Sourcing Meme Marketing

Wake up.
Check Twitter.
See what topics are hot.
Sam Altman is raising $1T for OpenAI?
Post dank memes about it.
Go viral.
Get new followers.
Make sales.
Drink Red Bull. 
Trump got shot?
Post dank memes about it.
Go viral.
Get new followers.
Make sales.
Drink another Red Bull.
Post even more unhinged memes (the more Red Bull, the more unhinged)
Go even more viral (the more unhinged, the more viral)  
Get even more followers.
Make even more sales.
Fall asleep.
Repeat the next day.
That is the life of a memelord. 

Last month, I quit my job as Head of Growth at Product Hunt to go full-time as the founder of meme marketing software Memelord Technologies. Which basically means I’m now drinking even more Red Bull and making even more memes all day. 

The memelord life is a tough life, but someone’s gotta do it.

So why the hell would I quit my job as Head of Growth at a prominent company to go all-in on memes? And why the hell would Bill Kerr let a nutjob like me write this post? Well, Bill understands something that the world is starting to pick up on. It’s something I wrote a book about. In the internet age, memes make millions. We live in the best time ever to monetize your sense of humor and memes are one of the many ways to do this. As Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha are growing from the lowly social media interns to becoming CMOs/founders, I believe we’re going to see more and more companies embracing meme marketing and humor-based marketing. We are living in a golden age of shitposting and making money being funny.

So let me explain how this goes down. 

How can stupid memes make millions? And why is every goddamn brand from Netflix to two-person startups posting memes? And why the fuck is Bill letting me write this post again? I’m gonna open-source meme marketing for you. Get ready.

Memelord Tactic 1: The Art of the Remix

See new pic of Zuck going viral on timeline. 
Download.
Remix time. 
Add new caption relating to your niche.
Make it spicy.
Post.
Go viral.
Make internet moolah.
Drive sales.
Get followers.
See new pic of Elon going viral.
Download. 
Remix time.
Use AI background removal tool.
Put Elon in Amazon Jungle doing ayuhuasca.
Add a PNG of the devil speaking to him.
Add spicy caption.
Post.
Go viral.
Repeat.
See.
Everyday. 
Multiple times per day.
Drink Red Bull.
Pass out.
More memes.
Repeat.
The memelord life ain’t for everyone.

“It ain’t stealing if you put a spin on it.” — Steven Pressfield, Nobody Wants to Read Your Shit.

Once you realize nothing is truly original, you’re able to make a lot more art.

Everything is a remix of everything. Every artist is inspired by previous generations. And not just artists. Entrepreneurs. Chefs. Whatever. Nothing is truly original. Given humans have existed for like 10,000 years, it would be kinda hard to be original anyways. But the point is, stop worrying about fully original, start focusing on like 10% original. That’s enough. Become a remix machine.

Memes are all about remixing. 

You see a template, you add a new caption that fits your niche, maybe a sticker on top of it or a funny PNG or whatever, and you post it. When it comes to memes, you don’t need to be original, you need to be funny. You don’t even need to make your own meme templates to be a memelord. You just need to know how to remix templates to your niche. And any meme template can be applied to basically any niche. Let me explain.

On October 2^nd, this Tim Walz meme went viral of him at the debate. Watch how the same meme template gets remixed across industries. David Phillips is the founder of accounting startup Fondo so he applies the meme to the accounting niche. Chris Bakke founded and sold three startups so he applies the meme to MKBHD’s failed wallpaper app.

Meanwhile, Preston Holland runs a consulting firm and media company around private jets so he applies the meme to private jets. I’m not rich enough to know what this private jet meme means, but Preston’s audience loves it and that’s all that matters. All different niches. Same meme template. That’s the beauty of memes. They are infinitely remixable and viral.

So many of my viral memes are just remixes of popular memes made to my niche, startups and VC. It’s why it pays to know the most famous meme templates and pays extra to know all the weird ones and newest viral ones (why we add them all to Memelord Technologies). At this point, I literally think in and can remix any template to my niche. Like check these out:

Millions of views. From simple remixes. Stop focusing on being original. Start focusing on being funny. If you take a template and put a funny spin on it that makes people laugh, that’s good content. It doesn’t matter where the fucking template came as long as you’re making people laugh and driving traffic. This is the internet economy baby not art class. As Pressfield said, “it ain’t stealing if you put a spin on it.” So go put a goddamn spin on it.

“How can this shit possibly work?” you’re probably wondering. 

Well like I said, you don’t need to be original to go viral, you need to be funny. Funny gets attention. Attention drives traffic. Chris Bakke sold his last startup for $100M and drove $3M in revenue alone from viral memes. I sold 1000s of copies of my book and have already gotten 100s of users for my software this way. Remix memes to fit your target audience, mention your company underneath, get more traffic, get sales. Boom. It works.

Tactic 2: Capitalize on the Current Thing

Zuck got hot? 
Fantastic for memes.
VP Candidate Tim Walz says “I became friends with school shooters live on television.”
Amazing for memes!! (Still doesn’t make sense. But who cares. Great for memes.)
Ukraine War going viral?
Sad. But perfect meme fodder. 
There is inspiration all around you.
The timeline gives you endless inspiration of what the current mindshare is.
Tap into the mindshare. The timeline is the matrix. Be a part of it. Use it. Don’t just scroll. Leverage it. 
Drink another Red Bull.
Make more memes.
Fall asleep.
Do it all again the next day.

If there were 1 rule to unite all memelords, it would be this: capitalize on The Current Thing.

The public’s attention shifts like Charlie Sheen checking in and out of rehab programs. Remember him? Oh yeah, it’s been a while since he was The Current Thing. Ok, what about Michael Jackson touching kids? Yeah no one really talks about that much anymore. Hmm, what about Donald Trump getting shot? Even that was gone off the news in a week.

See, with the rise of the 24-hour news cycle, there’s always a new current thing. And whatever The Current Thing is, people can’t get enough of it. Some days it feels like there’s a New Current Thing like 20x/day.

As a memelord, it’s your professional duty to stay very online and always know The Current Thing. Scrolling is not a waste of time as a memelord. It is education. It is staying up to date on culture and trends and popular meme templates. This knowledge is actually extremely valuable for businesses (and one of the reasons why businesses pay me to work for them is become I’m just insanely online and get what’s going on in the zeitgeist.) The ever-changing nature of The Current Thing is an eternal truth that enables the memelord’s profession.

When something’s The Current Thing, that’s the perfect time to make memes about it. Whether it’s the war in Ukraine, JD Vance copulating with couches, all of OpenAI quitting, or whatever it might be, there are memes to be made and mindshare to capitalize on. When people are already thinking about a topic, that’s the best time to make memes about it. Everyday, there’s always new meme narratives, and in the age of the internet, narratives move fast. So you gotta jump on it ASAP.

Take the 2024 Olympics for example. The Olympics was meme after viral meme. My favorite was US gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik. He was sleeping during other people's events and then wake up for his event like a baller and win the gold medal. If you look closely, notice how the viral tweet and the spike in search trends are in the same 24 hour span. The first hours are the most important. 

When I realized this, I thought to myself, “imagine if you could get alerted of new viral meme templates... like a Google Trends for Memes. This is literally how I started Memelord Technologies. Every single day my team emails our users new viral trending memes like Stephen Nedorosik PLUS updates our meme editor so they’re already there for you for hyperspeed memeing. YOU GOTTA MOVE FAST.

If you want to win in the attention economy, you have to capitalize on The Current Thing.

Tactic 3: Embrace the Cringe

Omg what’s Allie gonna think about this?
Agh what if Sam sees this?
Omg what’s Jack gonna say?
Who fucking cares?????
Are you trying to make money or impress your high school crush?
Who cares if you look “cringe?” 
I fucking hate that word. People are so afraid of it, but no one can agree upon the meaning. Is this cringe? I don’t fucking know. Because it’s a stupid word. It gives power to the person who is saying it and takes it away from the person it’s being said about. 
So stop giving them power.
Embrace the cringe.
They’ll call you cringe until you’re rich and then they’ll call you a genius. 

Is making money cringe?

Personally I don’t think so. I’m a big fan of Benjamin Franklin. 

Stop worrying about being cringe, and focus on being funny and making your marketing make money and get attention. If you’re so focused on being perceived as being “cringe” you’re gonna never take any fucking risks on the internet and no one will ever see your shit because you’re too scared. Stop it. Grow up. Wanna make money online? You gotta take some goddamn risks. Cringe is the new cool. Become a cringe arbitrageur. You can get so much more attention on the internet when you’re willing to be cringe and do things others are afraid of (like quitting your job to start a meme marketing company).

Wanna know who looked cringe as fuck? Travis Scott performing in 2013 with 12 people at his show. Every famous rapper starts with zero people in the crowd except his mom. Every entrepreneur starts with zero customers except his mom. It’s not “cringe.” You’re just in the beginning phases. That’s it. Are you gonna let the fear of being “cringe” stop you from following your dreams because I sure as hell am not?

Oh and one last thing before I go—It’s ok if some memes don’t land or go viral. I still delete tweets all the time. It’s not cringe to fail or for a joke to not land. 

Wanna know what’s cringe for real? Not trying because you’re too scared what some kid from high school thinks. Now that’s real cringe. So let’s go make some funny money, make some memes, and go make millions.

If you remember 1 thing from this posts, it’s what I wrote in my book Memes Make Millions; “Never underestimate the jester because he may be a king in disguise.”

Memelord out.

Why I am a loyal convert to the Church of Cyber Memes.

Jason is actually an equity investor in my startup, Athyna, where we hire global talent. And while we were going through the investment courting process with this particular Memelord, I found out he had a daily subscription to an editable file of trending memes for $6.90. From this moment my cheque book was forever his.

If you are looking for the hottest trending memes to up your marketing muscle then you should subscribe too. He even build a browser to edit the memes. In all seriousness though, trending memes get higher clickthrough than non-trending memes, and from regular marketing messaging, I think anyway. _{*Statement cannot be backed up by any facts.}

How you can apply this

Summary

And that’s it. I hope you enjoyed today’s post. Memes can absolutely make us all millions. Ok, well maybe not memes themselves, but differentiation. It’s a sea of sameness out there people. Adding some flavour, personality, and maybe a couple of sneaky memes can go a very long way.

And that’s it! You can follow Jason here, sign up to his subscription here, and buy his book here.

BRAIN FOOD 🧠 

The title says it all; Flying Cars Have Arrived. The team behind Archer, Joby, Wisk—all effectively flying car companies—joined the All-In Summit to discuss the future we are soon to be living in.

TWEETS OF THE WEEK 🐣 

ASK ME ANYTHING 🗣

I want to be a trusted resource for you. If you think anything I know in relation to brand, culture, global teams, sales and growth would help you unblock a problem in your weeks shoot me a line.

Ask in the comments or reply to this email and I will do my best to answer it in a future edition. 🙌🏼

TOOLS WE USE 🛠️

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See the full set of tools we use inside of Athyna & Open Source CEO here.

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