["Hustle Til the Day I Die" by Raphael Lake playing]
All right, I got a question for you, though,
while-- while-- while you're here.
-Yeah. -What-- what's it gonna take
to-- to keep the memes coming, though?
-Yeah. -Which-- which memes?
Just, you know,
keeping them coming.
All of them?
♪ Mama raised me a hustler, turn people to customers ♪
♪ Ain't no love in these streets, your best friend... ♪
-Memes. -Memes.
-Memes? -Meme-machine.
Is this, like, the new meme?
[reporter] And was forever immortalized as a meme.
[host] "Who is the spiciest memelord?"
The good people of social media love a good meme.
I love memes!
-Is it called meme? -[woman] Meme.
-I always thought it was me-mes. -I thought it was memes!
Every election throws up something new,
and this one has thrown up something called a dank meme.
It's natural, like, the memes started happening.
[news anchor] The group first called the chat
"Harvard Memes for Horny Bourgeois Teens."
[reporter] A dangerous health risk
spreading through social media memes.
Photos show laundry pods being used as pizza toppings.
What about all these other "meme trades"
that are lurking in the subreddits of Wall Street?
I mean, there's some good memes here. [laughs]
What is a meme?
[upbeat music playing]
What is a meme? I don't know what that means.
It's a image or video, uh, with a comment
that kind of goes straight to something
that you identify with.
A meme is something that spreads online
and evolves as it is shared.
What's a meme? That's--
Ah, every-- it's-- everyone's definition is different.
I just get a smile when I think about it
because it's-- it's just a-- uh, a piece of art, really.
Before I go to bed, I love to read a good meme.
It's like, boom, you put the right meme out
and, you know, you can make or break somebody.
[Shaquille] Oh, the M-E-M-E.
That's not a meme, it says "me-me."
It's almost like using the word Google.
Like, it's a verb now.
To be like, "Oh, are you gonna meme that?"
They build things that you don't actually
have to say it yourself.
You can post a meme and they go,
"I can't believe someone made this."
[Iliza] I think it's just another evolution
in comedic storytelling.
They're really-- the closest thing to me is,
like, the observational humor
of, like, Jerry Seinfeld or George Carlin.
It's-- it's all those things
MADtv and Saturday Night Live do
but just in a totally different format.
-He memed me. -I'm sorry. Memed you?
Look at the front page of reddit.com.
The late-night hosts, uh,
the-- the comic strip writers of The Sunday Times,
uh, the people that draw a cartoon in The New Yorker,
they're all being hacked.
It's truly the new way to get information.
I mean, I hate to say it but
it's almost like watching the news.
Like, I don't need to watch the news,
I can just read the memes
and get the funny version of what happened.
So embarrassing.
I got my news from a meme. Yeah.
You know it's true then.
It almost doesn't matter what the news is anymore,
it's just an excuse for people to make content
and share content about something.
[50 Cent] The sayings, the slogans,
and the things that are happening
are absolutely turning in the punchline.
There's an event in society,
and within seconds, somebody has put a white border
and a funny statement against that issue.
I mean, that is just the world we live in.
[Tank] You know, if on a Halloween,
you post a Halloween related meme,
it's gonna do well.
The debates. Or the Super Bowl.
♪ Go, go, go, go ♪
♪ Go, shawty, it's your birthday ♪
Some of you go wild, so this is how you see me.
Okay, bitch.
Fuck you, and fuck your mother
for having you, you motherfucker.
You know, I just got a little bit
a different way of dealing with how I feel about it.
There was even, you know, a joke
that Donald Trump was "memed" into the presidency.
Mike Pence with the fly on the head, dude.
To the men and women who serve in law enforcement
and I want everyone to know who puts on the uniform...
If you posted anything fly on the head related,
automatic banger.
Over the course of 2021,
there was a-- a milestone in internet history
when the price of the stock for GameStop
started to rise quickly.
In less than a year, the company's stock has jumped
from less than $3 a share
to almost $350.
How and why that happened has caused rumbles on Wall Street
as small investors apparently joined forces
to beat the big traders at their own game.
[Don] Users on Reddit's wallstreetbets community
began to turn the stock into a meme.
Now the term "meme stock" exists because of this.
This is referring to a stock
that has gone viral on social media.
And its price has been affected significantly because of it.
AMC, Blackberry
and there's even cryptocurrencies
that have been affected by this as well.
[dramatic music playing]
-Heads up. -Huh?
-[man groaning in pain] -Yes.
Memes were really big during COVID
because everybody was stuck at home.
Everybody was on their phones
and most of all, we all needed a laugh.
No, I'm horrified.
[Betches] Almost everybody was going through
the same thing at the same time.
Everyone could relate to,
"We're never putting on pants again." [laughs]
Memes are really, like, this magical thing or-- or form
of making everyone feel a part of something.
Tank Sinatra is a bona fide Instagram celebrity
with almost a million followers.
So why is he still working a day job?
[Tank] I find the human condition hilarious.
The fact that we all think we're, like, so evolved,
yet we all get jammed up by the same things.
That's very funny to me. Humor is a skill.
[reporter] It's a skill he's turned into a second career.
Fencing salesman by day,
Tank creates most of his memes in his car.
[man] This is Tank Sinatra on Instagram.
-You have Instagram? -[man] Yeah.
-You fo-- you have Instagram? -Yeah.
-You like memes? -[indistinct] name?
-Tank Sinatra. -[man] Look him up right now.
-I'll look him up. -Yeah, look him up right here.
What do you-- what kind of meme accounts do you follow?
Uh-- [laughs]
-[man] Yeah. -All kinds?
-[man] Tank Sinatra. -Who do you follow?
-Uh, Dank Cum. -[man] Dank Cum?
-[Tank] Dank Cum? -Yeah.
[all laughing]
Yeah, it's Tank, T-A-N-K, dot Sinatra.
Dude, 1.1 mil?
-[man] Yeah, doggy. -Damn.
-That's crazy, bro. -All-- all-- all original.
I-- I just gave you-- I just gave you a follow.
-Nice. -Alex has 16.
-I got 16 subscribers. -[man] You're on your way, dude.
-[Tank] How old are you? -Uh, 18.
Oh, that's sick. I used to look like you.
-Yeah? -Young, thin, blonde hair.
Yeah. Now look at me.
-Yeah. -You're fucked.
[dramatic music playing]
So I wake up, obviously, I struggle for a little while.
[chuckles] Then I, uh-- I drink my coffee.
I check my a-- addiction websites,
the Facebook, the Reddit, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter.
You know, when he first got his itch
to start making these memes, I was like, "Oh,
another thing to be addicted with," you know?
But as I started to catch on to what was happening,
um, I just--
just let him just thrive in it.
[Tank] I do have a job that feeds this other life.
A friend of mine started a company about ten years ago,
a fence company, which I knew nothing about.
I don't want to say I'm not passionate about it,
but how could you be passionate about fence?
Honestly, I'm passionate about feeding my family.
That makes me feel good.
I just want to see how far I can take this meme thing.
I hesitate to make the jump
because if I cut this source off,
I don't know if I'll have the money to make this work.
I got kids to feed. [laughs] You know what I mean?
You want to see the baby's room?
-[kid] [indistinct]. -This is for the new baby.
Baby Bennett coming in a few weeks.
This is his room. It was already painted blue.
We got lucky. This was DJ's playroom.
Oh. [chuckles] What the hell was that?
[kid laughing]
Damn, now there's about to be two of these in the house.
[Tank sighs deeply]
You really leaving?
Yeah, I gotta go. I'm gonna be late.
-[indistinct]. -I love you.
Come on. [indistinct].
-Bye. -Bye, sweetie. Enjoy the day.
[intense music playing]
The word meme was originally coined
by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and his book,
The Selfish Gene, which was published in 1976.
He was saying that ideas
undergo natural selection and evolve
because they replicate from person to person.
When the internet came around,
people needed a word to use for these things
that they'd see go viral very rapidly.
And the word "meme" was just kind of perfect
to convey this idea.
The meme has always existed.
We-- maybe we didn't call it a meme before.
We called it a-- you know, a comic frame.
That's always existed.
It never existed until now
as an art form in itself.
In the beginning of the internet,
memes were spread on places like Usenet,
these kind of early message boards.
Then they turned into videos with like Dancing Baby,
which is considered to be the earliest viral video.
♪ Oogachacka, ooga, ooga oogachacka, ooga, ooga ♪
And then, you know, we move into the early 2000s
when some of the first memetic hubs
started forming around the internet.
And then a bunch of social media platforms
started coming around.
That's when the meme culture,
as we know it, started happening.
When I first got into it, it was pictures
and the impact font at the top and the bottom.
There was Bad Luck Brian...
Scumbag Steve.
There was, like, so few images.
Now memes have become this mainstream force
that has dominated all of online culture.
The famous ones are really what we call macros
that people end up putting their own spin on.
With Hide the Pain Harold,
probably the most iconic meme image of all time.
You have the Joker putting the lipstick on crying.
Dennis Reynolds in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
driving with the cereal saying, "You dumb bitch."
Big Ed from 90 Day Fiancé.
Spice Adams behind the tree looking at something tasty.
The Blinking Guy, he blinks
and then he's incredulously trying to process what he saw.
Then you have the guy looking back
with the jealous girlfriend.
Everyone has seen the Michael Jordan crying meme
a million times.
Something happens, sad or in the world,
and you're able to put that crying meme on it.
You get it right away.
You understand, like, this is the sorrow.
This is the degree of sad that I am
about my tacos being gone.
It's funny because, uh, Michael Jordan,
uh, probably to this young generation,
is known from this meme
and not from being the greatest basketball player.
[Michael] We talked about everything.
And he was just trying to be a better person.
Now he's got me.
I'll have to look at another crying meme for the next...
[audience laughing]
I told my wife I wasn't going to do this
because I didn't want to see that
for the next three or four years.
[audience laughing]
[upbeat music playing]
I see half the stuff
that gets-- that gets picked up by the internet
and I'm like, "Okay, we're doing this now."
The name Karen.
Does it bring up some weird things for you when I say Karen?
[reporter] They've been caught on tape ranting and raving,
complaining about what sure seems like nonsensical things.
And the phenomenon even has a Wikipedia page.
"A woman perceived to be entitled
or demanding beyond the scope
of what is considered appropriate or necessary."
The Karen meme started, it's a haircut.
It wasn't even someone named Karen.
It was Jon & Kate Plus 8.
So really they should be called Kates.
You need to stop playing toys and come help.
[baby cooing]
You stand here, I have to go ahead.
Playing with toys instead of doing his job.
It's not just a haircut. It's an attitude.
It's a way of life. It's a type of person.
[reporter] This incident involved a white woman
who called the cops on a group of Black people barbecuing
at Lake Merritt in Oakland.
Uh, it's illegal to have
a charcoal grill in the park here.
Growing backlash against this kind of behavior
and the memes, uh, that it's been generating.
So here are a couple of my favorites.
"She's worried about Martin Luther King."
[audience laughing]
With Obama. "Hello, officer, it's me, Susan.
There's a Black man in the White House.
This cannot be right. I don't feel safe."
[audience laughing]
And "Hello, officer, it's me, Susan.
There's an obscene number of coloreds
screaming something about Wakanda being forever."
So unfortunate for people named Karen
or anybody that might like safety or rules.
My sister's name is Karen
and I do feel really bad for her
every time I post a Karen meme.
But, you know, it is what it is.
Blame our parents for naming her Karen.
She is kind of annoying sometimes.
The people that make these
are tapping into something incredibly intelligent and smart
in terms of, like, skating social commentary.
A meme artist, I don't know who they are,
is a funny person that has the best memes
or the best content.
In my mind, they're all young.
They're all handsome.
They all got great deals
and Sprite pays them a lot of money.
And I don't know why Sprite.
I don't know where these come from,
but these are funny.
Like, I don't like
when real comedian friends of mine send me memes.
They don't-- I don't think they know
that, like, there's a meme industry
teeming up just beneath the surface.
No one knows you, memers.
You're faceless.
You're not known.
Do something. Put your face next to your meme.
A day in the life of Tank Sinatra.
Tank Sinatra is one of the most popular meme makers--
meme accounts rather on social media.
But having millions of followers on Instagram
won't necessarily make you a millionaire.
-We're going to make a meme. -Okay.
"Uh, I'll have the human breast."
-That's funny. -I would say,
"When you run away from home for attention and you get it."
[both laughing]
[gentle music playing]
-Hey. -[Maureen] Hi, George.
-[Tank] How's it going? -[George] Good to see you.
My real name is George Resch. My account name is Tank Sinatra.
I always wanted, like, an alter ego
or a nickname and nobody ever gave me one.
Yeah, are you sad that I changed my name?
-[Maureen] No. -[Tank] No? I mean--
-It's a stage name, George. -Yeah.
-No, but you call me Tank now. -I don't.
-[Tank] Mom. -I call you Sunshine.
There's a chance that I'm going to be very famous.
What do you think about that?
-You're already famous. -You're already famous.
-No-- -No, like, very famous.
Like, for real.
Well, that's-- I think it would be great then.
You-- like, you said, you could pay off our mortgages.
-You can-- You know? -[Tank laughs]
I've always loved comedy. Always have loved comedy.
I've always loved to laugh.
I've always loved to make people laugh.
Like, since I honestly could first remember as a child.
-Is that me? -[Maureen] Yes.
[Tank] The hell am I doing?
-[Maureen] Uh-- -[Tank] I remember that helmet.
That's my G. I. Joe.
That's your helmet for pooping on the party.
Pooping on the party helmet.
When I was in eighth grade,
they did, like, the class couple,
most athletic, blah, blah, blah.
But they nixed class clown and I was pissed.
I was like, "That was my spot.
Like, that was my-- that was going to be how I made it."
Hey, growing up,
you know, chubby, kids are mean.
I-- I was a very sensitive kid. And I'm still very sensitive.
Oh, my God, Mandy, we should not ever show anybody this picture.
[indistinct]. [laughs]
It was something about people thinking I was funny
that fed this-- this void inside me.
If I wasn't tough, I didn't have money.
I was funny. Funny fat kid.
When I was a kid, I used to watch
Dom Irerra and Joe Rogan on the show
called Full Frontal Comedy on Showtime,
which is completely inappropriate
for an 11-year-old to watch.
No guy ever quits while jerking off, ever.
That's a project you start, you always finish.
I used to watch it and I used to die laughing.
So I was like, "Wow, these guys are, like, funny for real.
Like, they're funny for a living.
This is, like, what they dedicate their lives to."
And I thought that was interesting.
I don't have the time,
the-- the desire, or the willingness
to create a comedy special, go on the road and tour it.
So from my-- the comfort of my own car or home,
I can make people laugh.
I mean, the fact that the internet exists today
and I can reach as many people as I reach
is a-- a gift, total gift.
-I love you. -Bye, buddy. I love you too.
I love you. [grunts] Proud of you.
[upbeat music playing]
My bio on Instagram is,
"dad jokes if your dad was a Black lesbian."
Just kind of putting it out there
that this is not made by a straight white dude.
I do a lot of those jokes where it's super specific.
You know, love is okay, but why fall in love
when you can just use the free Wi-Fi at Walmart
to watch hardcore porn?
I've had posts where people are like,
"These are getting way too normie for me."
In my mind, that means I need to talk way more about ass.
I need to talk way more about Doritos.
I need to talk way more about using your tears as lube.
Blake, uh, is a meme in of himself.
The meme of the millennial
who is, like, way overconfident for no reason.
This is a guy who is so delusional
that no matter what he does, he thinks he's killing the game.
What up, [indistinct]?
Vaping in front of this cop car right now.
[indistinct].
Fortunately, he's not in the car
because if he was, he'd probably arrest me
for killing the fucking game, dude.
Like, being that excited over something that simple.
Um, and I think that says a lot
about where we're at as a society today.
Hi, my name is Violet Benson and I have a meme account
called @daddyissues-.
I grew up with daddy issues
and I just figured growing up in LA
that everyone had some type of daddy issues,
whether it's having a sugar daddy
or having actual real daddy issues.
I'm known as the meme queen by Vanity Fair.
So I will always be the meme queen
because I've decided that I will always be the meme queen.
And I'm going to continue
walking around like I am the meme queen.
I started out just kind of fucking around on Facebook.
My mother-in-law kept calling my wife
and asking her every day
what the shit meant that I was posting about.
So I just blocked her and then started Dr. Grayfang.
Dr. Grayfang's brand of humor
is, um, more on the savage side.
I like people to either be, like, really disgusted with it
or kind of laugh and say like,
"That shit was pretty fucked up."
My name is John Trulli.
My two main accounts on Instagram
are Cabbage Cat Memes and Doggos Doing Things.
Social media gets the reputation
of everybody only showing the good parts of your life.
They'll just go on vacation, post pictures of that.
I try to balance it out
by, like, focusing on the more negative parts of my life.
Like, I'll talk about, like, I went to jail
for riding a moped drunk
in somebody's front yard at a party.
All the ones that I'm involved in,
I tallied them earlier today, it was 16 accounts.
Me and Reid are doing most of them together.
The big ones are Shitheadsteve...
Trashcan Paul...
Hell yeah!
Hey, come on, baby. Come on.
[Reid] ...Animals Doing Things...
Drunk People Doing Things.
[laughter]
[glass shattering]
I started doing Middle Class Fancy
because I was just able
to tap into the middle class lifestyle
because that's where I came from.
I mean, a lot of people are middle class people,
but they try to take it to another level
to where they're, like, upper middle class.
But they're, like, kind of lower middle class.
It's hard to explain.
Um, I don't know.
I put a lot more of myself into my page
than, like, normal accounts are,
where they're just, like, faceless meme accounts
where, uh, like, you're coming for cash and these are my jokes,
these are my ideas I have in my head.
You're learning stuff about me as you go through my page.
Hey, does anybody remember, uh, this
when, uh, people used to do this?
I feel like I'm my quintessential follower.
I am, like, a basic white girl who, like, lives in New York,
has a Long Island accent.
I very much appropriate white girl culture.
Brunch is a symbol in the white girl community.
It's a very powerful symbol.
So any meme that mentions the word brunch
is guaranteed to overperform.
Science percent.
♪ Music pop, bring that drum ♪
♪ Let the beat rock, boy ♪
Like, some of my favorite basic white girl memes
have to be, like, stalking your boyfriend,
like, by the phone or going through his text messages
or just really overreacting for no reason.
And fuckboys are the guys that don't text you
unless it's, like, 2:00 a.m.
It's two words. It says, "U up?"
And it's not even spelled out "you."
It's the letter "U."
My name is Adam Padilla. My account is Adam The Creator.
I've always identified, uh, with the creatives,
the kind of oddballs.
This was me trying to sell something
to a-- a line of trading cards to a dentist.
I tried anything.
I made this movie Pals 2. It's terrible.
Oh, really? Got yourself a date, have you?
I mean, it is not a good movie.
I feel a kindred spirit with memes
because just like me, memes don't fit into a box.
What I want to bring to the table is
"Here's an image that you haven't seen yet."
Fake news has now reached the world
of children's toys.
[man]
[Dan] People are outraged after someone posted this image.
A picture of what appears to be a happy hour play set.
The style of it, I did very realistically.
And I did-- uh, I photoshopped these kids into it.
It became a national news story.
When I say national news, I mean literally.
It was on the Today Show.
I actually heard, you know,
Al Roker and these guys laughing at-- at it.
I was-- I was going to order that
for you, Dylan, as a present.
I do want this really bad right now.
So I'm getting, you know, "This is what I love.
This is what I've-- I've been doing this stuff for forever.
It's just that attention.
I get a-- I get a thrill about that."
One clever father edited it-- the fake ad together,
shared it on Instagram, and the outrage followed.
Unfortunately, though...
Imagine it gets so big that Fisher-Price,
biggest toy company in the world,
issues a statement.
I got a bunch of followers. Gave me some confidence.
What I started to realize was
there's a bigger thing here that can happen.
This could actually be a platform itself.
[uplifting music playing]
It's time to make the memes right now.
And I got a good idea, so I'm going to dig in.
Here is how I do it. Here's the process I go to.
First...
I, uh-- I go to Twitter and I type...
"Get in, loser...
we're going
crying,"
which is a play on Mean Girls.
-[car horn honking] -Get in, loser.
We're going shopping.
But this time it's Drake, who is perpetually sad.
[laughs] Which is pretty funny because look how sad he is.
So then, from here, I have to screenshot it.
From there, I go to Instasize, save it.
So now I open up PhotoGrid to add my watermark
so that people know who made it, where it came from.
Sometimes you get a little anxiety making these things
because it takes so long, there's so many different apps.
And then I go to Instagram
and, uh, post up
and wait for the likes to roll in.
[Adam] This is what I wait for.
This is, like, the thing that gets me up in the morning,
like, "Okay, this exists."
I know it, once I look at it, I'm like, "Okay, this is funny."
I'm going to take this kid out
because he's right in the middle.
For me, I'm just looking at this kid
because it's all-- he's, like, in the center of the picture.
And what if this is Jay-Z?
And that's-- that's what--
that's what excites me at the end of the day.
So I grab this...
and make my own layer about it, so now I have this.
I get inspiration
from, like, literally anything that happens in my day.
If I'm buying, like, toilet paper at CVS
and there's a hot guy behind me,
I'm like, "Oh, God, that's-- that's going to be a meme."
It's pretty much, like, the sixth sense
all day.
I walk around. I see memes everywhere.
It's kind of like ingrained in me now.
It's like, I wake up. I just, like, look for content.
Sometimes I wake up at, like, 6:00 a.m.,
and I-- for an hour or two,
I'm just going looking for memes that I like for that day.
Whatever I feel like is, like, funny to me at the time,
like, real life shit, like, not relationship stuff,
but just, like, girl stuff.
Like, man, like, why don't girls like me type stuff. [laughs]
I just turn it into jokes.
[laughs] That's the only way to cope with it.
I've never made a meme.
Um, I've-- I've thought about it a couple of times.
I don't know how to make a me-me.
I've never really tried to do the meme thing.
It is, uh-- it is something that even when you think about it,
you go, "It's really hard."
Like, it's-- it's not as easy as what people think.
It's really hard to be, like, on all the time.
And I think that's what people
don't really understand about memes.
They're like, "Oh, wh-- what's so hard?
Like, you take a funny picture and you-- you put a caption."
There's a cost of entry, everybody runs around and says,
"Oh, I want to be an Instagram influencer."
I feel like the word "influencer" is cringy.
That word has got so much baggage attached to it.
I try not to use it ever for any reason,
because nobody knows what it means.
Who are you influencing? And for what-- to what end?
I don't know.
I prefer the term "content creator".
I like just m-- meme person.
Meme, anything with the word "meme" in it.
Not meme influencer, but--
Meme God, that works.
[chuckles]
When I look directly under the hood
of who's winning in the meme and media culture landscape
uh, uh, on Instagram and other platforms,
it's the people that have real consistency.
You know, two, three, four, five pieces of content a day,
every single day, 365 days a year.
Every single day we're coming up with new jokes.
The only time that I ever skip a day of posting
is if I have a meme that's, like, banging super hard
and I don't want to interrupt its traffic.
There is no skip days.
Every single day, I am posting
at least 20 memes on different accounts.
If you stop for one day,
you know, your engagement goes down.
Maybe someone will forget about you.
After a while, you learn what your audience likes,
and that does kind of inform
what kind of meme you want to make.
The more I've noticed, "Oh, they really like this type of meme.
Okay, I'm posting more female-based.
Oh, they like this caption.
Okay, I'll make my caption longer next time."
So one thing that people never understand
that I tried to tell them is that
the fans created the persona of Daddy Issues.
To make the perfect meme, you got to go inside yourself,
tell a story about what's going on in the picture,
and hope it lands.
I mean, animals do well.
Kids do well. Nature's out.
Let me not say that nature doesn't do anything
because there's some trees
that look like butts or whatever. [laughs]
Everybody likes dogs.
It has a dog in it, you press like.
The other thing people will do, uh, is they'll do, like,
just a random picture of a girl's butt.
[ka5sh] Popular memes like that,
like, the jokes get ran into the ground really fast
because everyone's trying to make the exact same joke
at the same time to get the most amount of likes
because everyone's also chasing
the content dragon of getting all the likes.
They've done, like, studies where getting likes
gives those spikes in your head.
What is this, serotonin?
I used to have my own mental, like, thing
that I would call LPM, likes per minute.
I need 1,000 likes in eight minutes
for it to not get deleted.
If you don't meet a certain criteria
in a certain amount of time, you have to delete it.
It means the meme's dead.
When a meme doesn't do well,
it's like-- it's like rock bottom.
I do delete it
because you're not gonna gain followers
if you have a shitty post up.
It has to be relative, you know.
Like, I have 10,000 followers. I just dropped this meme.
It's only getting 15 likes per minute.
Maybe it's not funny. You know what I mean?
Where if I got 15 likes per minute now,
I would kill myself. [laughs]
We haven't figured out the damn algorithm.
Like, no one really knows how it works.
Everyone has, like, their own, like inter--
like, conspiracies about what the algorithm is.
The Instagram algorithm is, like, the Krabby Patty formula
because nobody knows where to find it
or, like, how to access it.
I don't even look anymore, I just post and throw my phone
to the other side of the room because I don't care.
You never want to stop posting
because it could hurt your algorithm.
Somebody can post a meme and it'll do bad
just because of the algorithm.
And it could be, like, the best meme ever,
but if they post it at the wrong time
or if enough people don't like it initially,
it'll do horrible.
I know that the algorithm screws me.
That's what I know about it.
Normal people are like, "Why are you being quiet?
Why are you being, like, sullen?"
It's like, "My meme's not doing well."
Nobody would understand.
Like, you literally have to lie to people.
You have to be like, "Oh, I broke up with my boyfriend.
That's why I'm sad today,
not because my meme isn't doing well."
My performance on Instagram definitely drives
the way I feel, um, in life.
Uh, so if I have a bad post,
my family is gonna have a bad day.
[tense music playing]
There's always those nerves that come with
putting yourself out there to strangers,
and strangers on the internet are terrifying.
When they tell me to kill myself, which they do a lot,
they're not just speaking to some faceless organization.
They're-- like, I'm the one who sees that,
and no one else sees it.
The reason that I choose not to show myself
is mostly for safety of my family.
Had a brick thrown through my window.
Only thing written on it was, "Unfollowing, not funny."
People telling me to die. They hate it.
Um, I don't deserve to have a family
or children or any of that shit.
It's, like, really hard
for just, like, Black memers in general
like, because we face, like, a lot of fucking racism.
Uh, I used to get death threats,
like, on fuck-- fucking Facebook all the time.
It's weird.
Like, if you make a-- if you make a joke
and just be Black, like, people just hate you. [laughs]
The first death threat I took very seriously.
Couldn't sleep that night.
I've had, like, 1,000 since then.
The worst one was, there was a video of this bunny,
and it was just an adorable little bunny in a bathtub.
And, uh, the owner was splashing it,
and it went, like, up to, like, the bunny's, like, leg.
It was, like, the most harmless video.
It was a-- adorable.
And I posted it and went to bed.
And then I woke up the next morning
and I had, like, tens of thousands of DMs.
Like, uh, "You need to take that down.
What the fuck are you doing? Uh, that's animal cruelty.
That bunny is obviously in danger."
It's like, "What are you-- what are you talking about?
Like, nobody-- nobody-- nobody thinks that bunny's in danger."
I had, like, 60 death threats.
Like" We're going to come to your house."
My life is weird.
I have paid the price
for attaching my face to my page.
People telling me I look stupid.
They're going to come find me and kill me.
They hope I get cancer.
I look like a vape cloud with eyes.
I look like a beluga whale.
So I was getting,
like, 100 dick pics a day
Violet from Daddy Issues.
She's pretty vocal about being a girl
and she talks about dick a lot.
[laughs]
And it was kind of like, "Bro, you don't even know
who you're sending this dick to."
Some of them were very, um, creative,
you-- you know, next to, like, a Coke bottle,
a ch-- a beer bottle, champagne--
I mean, very creative.
And sometimes I'd be like, "Who's taking this picture?
Because both of your hands are holding stuff."
I-- I feel like you can't be in this business
if you're sensitive whatsoever.
Since we've been having this conversation,
I've probably had, like, ten DMs
saying the most horrific shit you can possibly think of.
Your deepest insecurities.
All day, every day, shouted at you.
I've had people try to get into this business
and then they left within a month
because they couldn't take it.
It's like everything we all do is putting ourselves out there.
And I think we all get shit talked to us all day long.
Being a part of the meme community,
it's kind of like we're all in the same struggles.
It's kind of like a,
you know, therapy group or something.
[heartfelt music playing]
So when I hit maybe 40,000 followers,
I identified a bunch of meme pages
that I was following and I liked.
And I created a group chat on Instagram that was like,
"Hey, guys, just to get us all in one spot.
I love what you're all doing."
And I put Sonny Side Up in it,
The News Clan, Black Humorist,
and Trevso Electric was also in that group.
-Trevso Electric. -Trevso Electric.
Trevso Electric who was the-- uh, the greatest.
He's the fucking Michael Jordan of memes.
If you ever feel depressed or lonely,
which we all do from time to time,
just, you know, take a breath and remember
that you could walk into Walmart
and fuck, like, any person in that store.
He was my absolute favorite.
And I saw his, like, basic white girl meme
and it kind of like paved out into, like, this crazy monster.
This is going to sound like such a crazy concept,
but he originated the idea of, like, the basic white girl.
He was known as the white girl whisperer.
The Starbucks...
the fall obsession, the pumpkins.
I came across him and after I was scrolled,
like, you know, 100 posts deep, I was like,
"Oh, this guy's making all of them.
This guy's a genius."
That was the first time I was ever even introduced
to the fact that there were people making originals.
Like, I kind of just thought
memes just came from somewhere out in the stratosphere
and they just sort of found their way on the internet.
I was small, I had, like, 400 followers,
and he started reposting everything.
So that's how I grew.
One day he was like, "No, you're actually funny.
You should just write your own stuff."
He said to all of us,
"Hey, you guys are reposting memes, which is fine.
But, like, why don't you make your own memes?"
Not even being a dick about it. He was just curious.
He's like, "How come you don't make your own memes?"
Some of us, we were like, "We don't know how.
We don't have any ideas."
He's like, "Yes, you do have ideas.
-Just make your own memes." -He'd made the best originals.
Everyone, if you ask anyone who's, like, the greatest,
many will say Trevso.
[somber music playing]
Trevso died. His name was Trevor.
Died of an accidental overdose.
Tank and I went to his funeral
and then we met in person for the first time.
We met and he was like, "Dude, you're tall."
I was like, "Dude, you're big."
When Trevor died, I met a guy named Brian at his funeral.
Brian runs an account called Black Humorist.
Brian introduced me to Adam, who runs Adam The Creator.
That was, like, the beginning of-- of it all.
[Sonny] Now we're at a point where a lot of big meme accounts
will network with each other to help each other grow.
You know, group chats, Instagram DM, Facebook chats.
The memers realized, "Okay,
if I-- if we help each other out,
it'll help me out and memes in general will-- will rise up."
And all these different groups of girls
that kind of, like, link up, they've got their crew.
You know, they all shout each other out.
The Flirty 4 and, you know, the Fab Squad.
So a very, very popular thing to do amongst memers
is the concept of a rotation.
So a rotation is maybe 15 accounts
and each day they'll shout out one account.
So you might have 14 people shouting out one person.
When your day comes in a rotation,
it's literally like Christmas.
The Funny Introvert kind of reached out.
He was like, "I like what you're trying to do,
but you're doing X, Y, Z wrong."
I wasn't, like, putting any hashtags on anything.
I wasn't putting my name on anything.
I think one of the first people to repost me was Shitheadsteve.
And, uh, I ended up talking to him and Skyping him.
Derek, who runs Champagne Emojis,
he posted one of my memes.
That's the nicest thing you can do for a small page
is post one of their memes
and say that this person is good.
[Derek] Tank reposted one of my really early ones.
That was, like, how I built
the beginning of Champagne Emojis.
Like, if you're going to tag me
in the picture of a-- of a meme that you made,
it better be funny, or, um-- you get one shot.
If I see a notification popped up
that you tagged me in something
and it's-- it's-- it's dog shit,
you're getting blocked.
I feel like we're, like, an underground society.
There's people that I talk to in DMs
more often than I talk to my family, so. [laughs]
Then your friends will be like, "Oh, where are you going?"
Like, "Oh, I'm just going to meet up with a friend."
And they're like, "Well, where do you know this person from?"
Like, you don't want to be weird and be like,
"Oh, they're a meme page."
My fiancé was like, "You talk to strangers?
You're inviting them over to our house?"
And I'm like, "They're not strangers."
This is where I live now.
[dog barking]
[gentle music playing]
[Tank] Are you going to be a movie star?
Look-- look at that-- look at me, hey.
I got to do your hair good. Otherwise, I'm a bad daddy.
No, you're a good daddy.
-Look at me. -Wait.
-All of your hair fell off? -Yeah.
-On the ground? -Oh, my God.
Look at your hair, dude.
-Wow. -[kid gasping]
Gordon Ramsay hair.
This is my last day,
um, as an employee at Victorian Fence.
I'm going right now to pick up my last check
to tie up any loose ends I have with contractors and jobs
and just make sure that I'm not leaving anybody hanging.
I'm always nervous.
Like, yeah, what's the difference with, like,
being nervous about this or being nervous about that?
I would rather be nervous about my dream not working out
than be nervous about a job
that I don't care about working out.
I'll keep in touch with these people, I'm sure.
The lie we tell ourselves.
Here we are.
Victorian Fence.
["The Barber of Seville - Overture" by Lorne Balfe plays]
-What's going on, man? -What's going on?
-What's happening? -Sit down.
You're going to want to sit down for this.
Man, this is your last check.
How's everything going so far?
This is half my last check, right?
I'm making a few deductions.
[both laugh]
So you guys going to be all right without me?
We're going to be better, George.
Better?
Always slightly a burden, being here.
You're a special kind of character.
[both laugh]
I know that I'm leaving you hanging a little bit.
Which sucks, but I have to, uh, I have to see what happens.
You know, you can't stay here
and keep, uh, pushing what you're pushing for
and-- and, you know,
have it burning inside you to get into something else.
And you need to chase that, you know?
Yeah. No, it's, you know,
you-- bro, you've known me for a very long time.
And you know I've had this bug for a long time.
And it's finally happening. You know what I mean?
Like it's-- finally actually I'm able to make a living
off of this nonsense that I've always had going on.
So that's why I need to get the fuck out of here
so I can get it going.
[upbeat music]
You know, the monetization of memes
is something that is developing on its own.
I think it's actually amazing to watch it happen.
Now we are seeing companies reach out to people who,
like me, make memes online.
And they're asking, "Yo, how do we reach your audience?
How do we make jokes?"
I think it speaks for itself.
We're out here drinking Fiji.
So we're clearly doing all right.
Well, unfortunately, you know, a lot of people who follow me
who are going to watch this,
my ads generally are fucking awful.
And they're just so cringeworthy.
And they're just really shitty.
So I'm sorry for all you guys who follow me
that see those shitty ads.
At first, when I was doing ads, any company that contacted me,
I would say yes to all of them just to see what happened.
And-- because I was broke.
My first ad was a dildo ad.
And it was like $125 to, like, post it.
I had like $30 in my bank account at the time.
I was like, "This is awesome."
I was the top dildo salesman in, like, 2017.
My mom was very proud of that.
I do a bunch of things to make money.
But kind of where the juice is, is branded content.
I do a lot of food, liquor,
movies, TV, things like that.
Things that I talk about.
Like, if I did a campaign with Nike,
it would make no fucking sense
because I don't even have a pair of sneakers.
I don't work out.
Um, but doing something with Smirnoff makes a lot more sense.
[indistinct]
I know for a fact that I've started,
like, a trend with going to Chili's.
I would say I was one of the first people
to really help Bumble, um, dating app blow up.
Hinge, this dating app, went from relatively obscure,
unknown dating app to one of the top three
dating apps on the App Store from memes.
My cousins are all lawyers.
They're, like, really good attorneys.
I have a surgeon in the family. And then I make memes.
I've been able to generate a good,
uh, a decent amount of money with ads and stuff like that.
Which was the goal because I was working
as a welder at my dad's shop.
I've had to learn, like,
business side of things in terms of, like,
how to do deals, how to negotiate.
Generally, I make between like,
I'd say on average, like 500 to like 1,200 a week.
So it's just enough, enough to pay the bills.
Getting arrested for, like, marijuana,
like, twice, both felonies.
For a while there, I was, like, pretty much unemployable.
So, like, making ads, I mean that, like,
sustained me for like over two years
when I just, like, couldn't do anything.
So thanks, memes.
It's just a crazy time to be alive
that you can do something like this and make a living.
I had an alcohol brand pay me $100,000
because I just fucking swung for the fences and they paid it.
I would say to anybody who's, like,
wants to do this, do not settle.
Ask for as much as you possibly can.
The brands have it.
I think that people are starting to accept
the fact that memes are not going anywhere.
-[newscaster] Right. -They're not.
People thought it was a fad.
Humor is never going to go out of style.
So, in the '80s and '90s,
sex was what sold, now it's humor.
I was in the finance industry.
Um, I have a finance degree. I was writing mortgages.
I was like, "Well, I don't need to be here."
You know, I was making, like, over a million dollars a year
from memes at that point.
Big companies are going to start paying, like,
some of their department people to, like,
make memes, and I just think
they're not going to come out, like, that well
because they're people who don't really know memes.
Brandon Wardell is a hilarious comedian.
Made a sheriff emoji that said,
"Howdy. I'm the sheriff of sucking you off."
And then that meme got retweeted 30,000 times.
And then Papa John's made one that said,
howdy, I'm the sheriff of pizza.
Brands that try to engage with internet culture
often run the risk of looking cringe
or out of touch or lame.
Like they're trying to be cool.
There's even a whole meme about it called,
"How do you do fellow kids?"
It's based off a scene from 30 Rock.
How do you do fellow kids?
Young people can sniff out
when it's people trying to appear young.
"Okay, so these things are lit
and we'll just have tacos flying around with cats
and lasers coming out of their eyes."
By the time something in our zeitgeist
gets to the head of an advertising agency,
it's not cool anymore.
Damn Daniel became talk of the internet.
[man over video] Damn, Daniel.
Damn, Daniel.
Back at it again with the white Vans.
Two kids in high school fucking around.
One of them is filming his friend
who's always wearing Vans.
All these brands are jumping into the conversation.
They don't know what's actually funny about it.
You know, "Damn, Daniel back at it with
the insert their brand here."
Pretty much all of them are these companies
that have no idea what they're doing.
They just see your numbers.
They don't know what your page is.
They're like, in the email,
it's like, "Hey, you have beautiful pictures.
I think our product would work great."
I don't actually vape in real life.
Which I have my own flavor, which is hilarious.
A company made it, put my face on the bottles.
Like, I've promoted it a few times,
but, like, I don't actually vape.
So, it's, like, hard to get behind something
that you don't use.
You-- I don't know if you know who Near East is.
They're like the biggest manufacturer of rice pilaf.
And I reached out to them and I was like,
"Yo, I make-- I run this meme account,
the Side of Rice Pilaf.
What if you guys sponsor me and just--
but instead of paying me money,
just, like, pay me in boxes of rice pilaf.
It'll be so funny."
And they wrote back to me like five minutes later
and they were like, "Nah.
Nah, we're good."
I think that they have a lot of rice pilaf-oriented
meme accounts reaching out to them,
I-- I guess, that they don't need me.
I kept on messaging Bagel Bites
to see if I could become their meme person.
And they would answer me and be like,
"We're not looking for somebody right now, sorry."
And they threw me away.
So I made like 20 anti-Bagel Bites memes in a row.
I was like, "You're not going to let me join you.
I'm going to take you down."
The worst kind is the corporation
that doesn't get it.
That's the worst kind.
Okay. So as we get ready for Halloween,
there's, I guess you could say,
funny meme going around on social media.
Have you seen this? Take a look at your television.
So it is a picture of a Dole mini salad.
[Adam] The concept was on Halloween,
everyone wants the good candy.
What would be the worst candy?
[newscaster] Little mini salad packs.
This is a joke.
It was posted on Instagram by Adam The Creator.
[Adam] In the Dole press release,
they put out a cease and desist that was a veiled threat.
It showed sort of the old corporate mentality.
And it's a shame because it wasn't anything
uh, I think that was negative about the brand.
You know, the right company knows
how to spin that into gold.
The best, like, collab I ever got to do was with Gucci.
[Black Humorist] It just made sense how the hell Gucci did it.
It wasn't like the Gucci corporate entity
serving up a meme and trying to be cool.
They said, "Okay, here's--
here's this collaboration with an artist."
[Champagne Emojis] They, like, paired us up
with, uh, visual artists.
So you'd make your caption and the concept.
And then there was some visual artist
that would go create the actual image
that you're going to be memeing.
Cabbage Cat made a great one.
He-- his was probably the best out of the whole bunch.
I'd never owned anything Gucci
and I would not wear anything Gucci on a day-to-day basis.
I don't like to wear expensive things.
It gives me anxiety.
And I've been wearing a white t-shirt for three years.
I just, like, I try to keep things simple, you know?
Memes are making brands more human.
It's a constant reminder there's a person here.
During the 2020 election, uh,
Bloomberg famously hired a bunch of meme accounts
to post pro-Bloomberg memes.
This is one from Adam The Creator.
Something that Bloomberg campaign
has--has paid this man to create.
And Adam Padilla is with me now.
First of all, it was very nice for Bloomberg.
You know, 50 of that million went to me for that meme.
So it was really, I think it was a good spend.
-Uh, it was-- -[indistinct] I'm like, "What?"
I'll take a billionaire's money
any day of the week to post a meme.
He didn't ask me to kill anybody.
I got a call from Tank and he's like,
"Hey, man, would you ever do a political ad?
You may have to, like, sell out a little bit.
I was like, "Yeah, you had me at political ad.
I don't wanna do it."
And it really kind of blew up the internet for a few days.
With media and advertising
and the meme space especially,
I think we're the new medium for delivering content.
If you want people to know about something
that you're doing or a product you have,
there's literally not a better way to do it than memes.
We're seeing, you know,
CEOs of major companies embrace memes.
There is more marketplace like understanding and knowledge
and it's more mature and brands are,
like, proactively, like, "What's our meme campaign?"
Now, if it's, like, 5% of companies,
soon it will be 75% of companies, I think.
So I think it's just starting.
This past couple of years have been,
particularly last year, it was meme city.
-Meme city? -Yeah.
There was one time that I got reposted by The Rock.
It was, like, the most exciting--
Like, I remember my wife told me we were pregnant.
I was like, "That's great, honey.
You know, that's great. We're going to have a child."
When The Rock reposted me,
I was like, "The fucking Rock reposted me.
It was in the middle of the night, 12:30.
I woke up my wife.
She was like, "Uh, the what?"
Joe Jonas was the first celebrity to follow me.
And then he got his whole family to follow me,
which was really cool.
And I remember it was the first time
when I saw that he followed me.
I texted my best friend
while I was in my little accounting cubicle.
And I was like, "Holy shit, Kylie,
I'm quitting my job, I'm famous."
I got Eric Andre, which I was super stoked
to see because I love his show.
Snooki follows me, which is weird.
Ellie Goulding. Um, let me think.
I got one. January Jones.
That's probably my favorite follower
because she likes everything.
Katy Perry. Chloe Grace Moretz.
Ed Westwick. Chuck Bass.
Yeah, Melanie Iglesias,
who I've had a crush on since like the ninth grade.
I'm most proud of the fact that Harry Styles follows me,
not only because he's a personal hero of mine,
but because I think he's really hot.
Samuel L. Jackson. That's a weird one, right?
[Violet] Samuel L. Jackson follows me.
And I'm just like, really? You like this?
Kate Beckinsale. That's fancy.
Paris Hilton, Nikki Hilton.
It's really, like, shallow of me to say,
but it's by far my favorite part about being a girl
with no job is being able to have this, like,
one degree of separation between me and Kim Kardashian.
Do you know what I mean?
My favorite meme of me is when I...
[funky music]
I didn't even know there was memes of me. [laughs]
[reads text on screen]
And it's with Screech.
[Bryan reads words on screen]
"Fuck this, I'm selling meth."
[Mario] There's another one where I got a split in my pants.
It says "power bottom."
It's when I ripped my pants in Vegas.
That was a rough weekend.
Why y'all fools are laughing over there?
Have you seen these? These are funny.
It's like me throwing a pitch out at the Mets game.
I got a full on baseball card,
like, a real baseball card.
♪ Here we go ♪
For the worst pitch ever,
but my arm looking like it's broken.
Just got excited.
Tried to throw the ball a little too hard.
And damn near killed the cameraman.
I noticed that there was this paparazzi guy following us.
So I was like, "Oh, I don't want him to-- to recognize me.
So you know what I'm going to do?
I'm just going to put a ton of sunscreen on my face.
And then he won't know who I am."
But that, um, that-- that backfired.
Um, that-- that-- I really--
I really should have thought that one through more.
Yeah, no, that's fair.
That's just-- that is way too much sunscreen.
Happy to give the internet some laughs for that.
[Bryan reads words on screen]
I haven't seen this before.
I love people making fun of me.
The harder you can kick me, the harder I'll laugh.
David Spade will say some funny shit in my comments.
And, like, he'll, like, roast the shit out of me too.
David Spade was mean to me when I first started my meme account.
He-- he doesn't admit it, but it happened.
And I-- I remember I kept saying,
"Um, I'm finally going to 'come out.'
Like, just two more days, I'm going to reveal my face."
And David Spade was like,
"Who cares what you-- like, no one gives a shit.
Just, just enough with these ads.
Just keep posting memes. God damn it."
Something like that. And I got so offended.
I was like, "David Spade is so mean to me.
What the fuck?"
But then years later, we became friends.
He sends me voice notes all the time.
I've literally, like, made memes with John Mayer,
which is, like, mind-blowing to me.
Like-- and he actually has, like, a secret account.
He probably wouldn't want me to talk about it,
but he has a meme account.
Once you start growing
and you start developing connections
with people you normally would never have the access to,
that sort of raises the stakes a little bit.
At that point, it crosses the borderline
from memes into, like, something a lot bigger.
[Jessica] So you nervous?
What are you thinking about?
-Um... -I can't imagine.
I'm definitely glad that I'm not you.
Yeah, well, you are me 'cause we're one.
I know, but at least I'm not the one who has to go out there.
DJ, come here. Give me a hug.
Don't ruin the shirt. Hey.
-Bye, honey. -[indistinct chatter]
Being out here in Malibu is symbolic because when I lived
out here in 2009, this was before memes.
This is before my family. This is before everything.
I literally had no job.
I had no money in the bank at all.
And driving down the same shore right now,
coming from New York where it's freezing cold
and gray and rainy...
I don't know, it's--
I don't know if it's metaphorical,
the trans-- transformation or the transition,
but definitely something feels like
it's going right here.
And I don't know, it's hard to put my finger
on what exactly I'm feeling right now.
[newscaster] So is it George or Tank?
You call me whatever you want.
No, what do you like to be called?
Do you call-- do you get called--
-Tank is more fun, obviously. -Yeah?
Yeah, George is very reserved.
How did you come up with Tank Sinatra?
-I'm huge and I have blue eyes. -[laughter]
That's it. Yeah, it's a moment.
Uh-huh, yeah.
So how did you get started in this?
Umm I mean, I'm a huge comedy fan.
I've loved comedy since I was a little kid.
So when memes came about,
I was selling fence on Long Island
and I was good at sales, so I had a lot of free time.
And I would just drive around in between appointments.
I would find pictures
and I would put these captions to them.
I'd see pictures that would remind me
of something that happened in my life.
And I would just write a caption.
It started to get really big really quick.
And I was like, "Maybe fence is not my destiny."
[Ellen] Um, all right, so we're going to show you
some pictures from this show.
And then you're going to tell us, uh,
what-- what you would put on here, okay?
Meme on the spot? Okay.
Me-- me-- meme on the spot.
All right.
[laughter]
I would channel my inner child and say, um,
"Mom, you've got to stop showing up
to the PTA meetings dressed like this."
[laughter and applause]
Oh, that's good.
That's good. Let's see another one.
-[laughter] -Oh.
Um, this would be "When you get tickets
to the worst possible 12 days of giveaways."
[laughter]
"You're going home with silky smooth legs and trauma."
Oh. You get one of Twitch's hairs
and you get one of Twitch's hairs.
[laughter]
All right, let's see another one.
[laughter]
This-- [laughs]
This would be like a narration.
Um, and I would say, "It was at this moment
that Robert knew he was a little different."
[laughter]
[Ellen] Oh, that's good.
[cheers and applause]
All right.
-[man, indistinct] -A little.
Like, there's more [indistinct]?
-No, that's it. -[woman] I love it.
[indistinct]
[Tank] I love making memes and sharing them with the world.
With the help of some funny friends,
we're tackling today's
trending photos and memeing them all.
This is Think Tank.
-[cheers and applause] -Yeah.
We're all going to see an image or video
and then give it our best meme.
-Oh, oh, oh. -[Kirsten] No way.
[Tank] This is Kanye, by the way.
I would just say, "He's literally gone platinum."
[Kirsten] Yeah, I guess.
That's dead on.
This is me when I go into Sephora and I say,
"I just want, like, a natural look."
And the Sephora clerk is like, "Done."
-Got you." -[Monica] Yeah, "I got you."
[booming]
[hip-hop instrumental plays]
Tons of beef in the meme world.
I don't know why. I don't know.
Beef, beef, a lot of beef.
Yeah. Sides of beef, slabs of beef.
I don't play with, like, the beefing part of it.
People get jealous of each other.
I'm not competitive outwardly.
Inside, I'm kind of like,
"Oh, fuck, this guy just passed me."
Everything's a competition to me
and I want to be the-- the best at it.
There was a lot of small accounts
who were getting mad that I was growing faster than them.
They were constantly trying to bully me
and it was so much weird drama.
One of these girls called me out
for not liking her post quick enough.
She's like, "Also that shout out you posted
for me was kind of weak."
I'm like, "Bitch, I didn't need to shout you out."
Sometimes a good meme beef is what is needed
to make someone better.
Uh, because you do realize,
"Hey, what-- who is this guy, who-- who does he think he is?"
Like, yeah, "I'm just going [indistinct] him
and make something better than he does."
I had run-ins with pretty much everyone.
I'm not very well liked.
There are some meme pages out there right now.
They go around stealing.
But no one's really saying anything about it.
I'd be that kind of person to say it.
Oh, geez, dude.
When somebody steals your post, there's literally nothing.
Because there's nothing you can do.
Once it's on the internet, that's it.
It's gone and anyone can use it.
You just have to accept the fact that...
ten million people are seeing your meme
and you have absolutely no credit for it at all.
It's tough when you do the work to come up with the concept,
you create the thing
and another bigger account takes it.
If I spend, you know, two hours photoshopping something
that's beautiful and, like, really detailed
and then somebody crops my watermark
or even worse, puts their own watermark on it,
it's like, wow, it's like, it's just a jerk move.
I mean, it's one thing to, like, re-gram something,
but it's another thing
to make it look like you wrote it.
So I'm very sensitive to that,
especially knowing people like Tank and,
you know, I get all, like, protective.
I'm like, "You can't do that."
You can't just post a meme like that.
Especially if I've already seen it
in someone else's page and I know they wrote it.
I'm like, "Um..."
You know, obviously no respect for people
stealing and it's kind of like, "Why did you get into this?"
A lot of people build a following
with just other people's memes that they find on the internet,
but at the end of the day, to the person looking at it,
you know, to the millions of people
seeing these things every day, I don't think it matters to them
because they-- all that matters is that they like that one meme.
And if they have, like, three million followers
and they're posting five ads a day,
$500 an ad, that's $2,500 a day.
That's crazy money, especially when you don't pay taxes.
Cut that out, okay.
I found a picture of the Pope.
It was like,
had all these flashing lights around him.
So I posted that and it, like,
instantly started blowing up for me.
And literally 20 minutes later,
Fuck Jerry stole my meme.
[newscaster] Making memes is what
25-year-old Elliot Tebele does for a living.
He created the now famous Instagram account,
that four-letter word we can't say, Jerry.
Top social media influencers like Elliott and his team
are making upwards of $75,000 for branded posts on Instagram.
Fuck Jerry's like, yeah, this guy's gotten, like,
legitimate money swiping stuff off of the internet.
They've had 50 other people message them with the same,
"Hey, my name's on there, can you credit me?"
[newscaster] The expectation, luxurious accommodations.
The reality, more like a disaster relief campsite.
[newscaster] Last week, a judge approved a request
to subpoena records from Kendall Jenner,
among other models, performers,
and social media influencers who were collectively paid
more than $5 million to build buzz
for the now failed festival.
One of the influencer companies
named in that subpoena, Jerry Media.
ABC News reached out to Jerry Media for comment
on their involvement in promoting the festival,
but have not heard back.
After Fyre Festival, they were able
to really just control that narrative
and sort of obscure their own involvement in Fyre Festival.
So this hashtag, FuckFuckJerry was born.
And it was a kind of a big, trending thing.
[guest] Lost $500,000 in, like, a weekend.
-Really? Is it, really? -It's a significant amount.
Last time I looked, it was 14.7, then it was 14.1.
-I haven't looked today. -Wow.
What they ended up doing was apologizing
and saying that they'll always reach out,
always get permission.
And it became a really big deal and it became this thing
in the meme world where everyone was like,
"Okay, you can't just post something and go.
It's important to credit people's ideas
when you're using them."
All right, we begin with a scandal
that is rocking the Internet.
A social media star being called out for plagiarism.
The man known as The Fat Jewish.
Some people criticize you and say,
"Hey, this guy is taking, like, other people's work
and then he's using it and claiming that it as his own.
-[man] Yeah. -Thoughts?
Well, first of all, like, you gotta understand,
like, the internet is like--
uh, the internet is like a giant weird orgy
where, like, everything gets shared.
It's kind of like
we're all on ecstasy at a giant rave.
People started noticing that he was taking
other people's tweets, cropping off their handles,
posting it to his page, not tagging them.
They thought that he was coming up
with all this stuff, and he wasn't.
And he was taking ideas from comedians
and they got really upset.
So it created this huge wave of backlash.
He apologized and said he would begin crediting.
I think that's iffy.
He's reposted me with and without credit.
It's a little fucked up not to-- not to see that credit.
I called him out, I printed an email of him, like, saying,
"Oh, Fat Jew doesn't credit," or something.
And he got really pissed over that.
And, like, I think I forgot what he said back.
But after then, like, he just, like,
wouldn't tag me or anything.
And just, like, he was just super salty about it.
One of the first memes I posted that went viral,
The Fat Jewish reposted it without giving credit.
And it was a meme I created. And I emailed him.
I was like, "Hey, can you please give me credit for it?
I'm a new meme account, blah, blah, blah.
I really look up to you."
And, uh, he didn't respond.
He started posting memes that I was sending him
and crediting me, which is really weird
because he's known for not crediting.
But he took a liking to me.
So one day I had this idea.
I said, "You know what?
I'm going to make a plain text post that says,
"If this post gets one million likes,
I will get a tattoo of a meme on my body."
The post did really well.
So like two or three days later,
I see that post come up on my feed.
And I see The Fat Jewish.
And I hadn't read the caption yet.
My first thought was, "Wow, he's helping me.
Cool. What a guy."
And then I see his caption says something like,
"I'm crazy, you know, I'll do anything.
I don't give a shit.
I'll get a fucking tattoo on my body, blah, blah, blah."
And I was like, "Oh, my God, he took this idea?"
I told you guys if I got a million likes...
that I would get a meme tattooed on me.
You think that I was joking?
You thought this was a joke? It's not a game.
It was the first time in my entire history with him
that I actually felt, like, violated.
I was like, "Man, you really don't...
God, you don't care about anything or anybody."
It's just such a permanent decision
to take from somebody else's brain.
One of the chances what you've just given me
is just a blizzard of bullshit.
I mean, that shit is, like, fucking pathetic.
Like The Fat Jewish and Fuck J--
I don't know if Fuck Jerry is a thief.
I feel like I can be on both sides of it.
If you get to the top, people want to see your fall.
And they'll try to take advantage of any moment
they have to suddenly try to bring you down.
Fat Jewish is doing just fine.
He has his own wine company. So he still came on top.
Fuck Jerry has like 100 employees.
Fuck Jerry is not even, like, a meme account.
He's more like a consumer goods account now.
There is a difference between Fuck Jerry
and kind of, like, what all of us do.
When there's somebody that's going to blatantly steal
from you like that, it's like, you're not one of us.
I've never really cared about people stealing my content.
If somebody's using my meme and somebody's using my joke,
that's amazing to me, you know?
And if somebody has the balls to fucking go on there
and get rid of my watermark
and-- and do that, more power to them.
You know, that's really funny to me.
I think someone needs to steal from somebody
and then bump into that person and get their ass whooped.
So I've had a pretty crazy couple weeks meme wise.
This is one of the working files.
That's the real baby, right?
So cute.
But I said, "How funny would it be
if this guy is looking at him?
So I had to find Kevin Hart isolated
where just his head was in a similar place
and he's looking to the side.
Yeah, you're [indistinct].
Sexiest Daddy in the world.
Man, him posting that, I was like, yes,
that must be what it feels like.
You hit a home run or something like a major league game.
Half of the thing isn't just
the fo-- [indistinct] the followers.
It's who's looking at it.
The Rock's posting it, that means Kevin Hart's
looking at this laughing.
And, you know, that's-- that's the-- the dream.
The dream is as somebody who makes humor and comedy,
that-- that comics and humorist that you admire
are enjoying the work.
Because of some of these memes I've been making,
I was nominated for a Shorty Award
for Best Meme Account
alongside Daddy Issues, Fuck Jerry, some big names.
The Shorty Awards are already going viral
and dominating the social conversation everywhere.
The Shorty Awards are social media awards.
They're basically the biggest thing now.
That's like a cool thing to win.
Wow, thank you.
That was, uh, pretty cool.
And for me to be nominated as a meme account is cool.
Like, I had no idea. I didn't submit myself.
It's like, it's anonymous.
They just nominate you.
So I got this kind of paisley joint on clearance.
Uh... [laughs]
...it was, like, a $400 blazer on clearance for like 50 bucks.
And I watermarked it...
the way I watermark things
because I don't use an at symbol.
I use this font.
Adam The Creator.
So the idea is...
when I put it on...
and you see me with-- in it...
that if I'm in the background of a photograph,
it's going to look like
the photo has my watermark on it.
[upbeat music]
I'm here to represent original meme accounts.
It's about making your own content
and it's about having a lot of fun.
[indistinct chatter]
Good evening and welcome
to the tenth annual Shorty Awards.
Here are the finalists for best parody or meme account.
Adam The Creator.
Bros Being Basic.
Daddy Issues.
Fuck Jerry.
And the Shorty Award
for Best Parody or Meme Account goes to...
Oh, I can say this without getting in trouble.
Fuck Jerry!
Thank you so much. This is awesome.
I had a really, really long speech,
but, you know, you guys said keep it brief.
So thank you so much, Shorties.
-Thank you, everybody. -[cheers and applause]
[booming]
♪
I started the page, Influencers in the Wild,
literally because I was shooting a video
on 38th Street and Eight Avenue,
and I felt insane.
Influencers in the Wild is basically
just a satirical look
at how people act in the world.
Influencer, in my mind,
is some douchebag,
provide no value,
standing on the steps of a private plane,
looking out into the horizon, going nowhere.
They probably are not even are getting on the plane.
It's just, you know,
they asked to take a picture on it,
and they're trying to portray some kind of lifestyle
that they're not living.
Anyone who takes a picture at any point in time,
for any reason, is taking the picture
because they want to post it somewhere.
And the people who go the furthest with it
and who are the most out of place with it,
wind up on the page.
♪
So the videos that I look for are people
who are overdressed,
underdressed, out of place.
Everyone around them is uncomfortable.
They look ridiculous. They look silly.
Those videos do really well.
I've never tried popcorn before.
I'm so nervous.
[boy talks gibberish and whoops]
Ow! Ow!
Oh, my fucking God! You son of a bitch!
The page took off so fast on its own.
It went from zero to 400,000 in a week,
and then it went to one million in three weeks.
Then it felt like, "Okay, maybe I do know
what I'm doing on the internet."
I think I was the last person to see it in my life
that maybe I had a handle on how the internet worked.
[booming]
["Faith" by EMAN8 plays]
♪ Living by faith I'm gonna lift up the praise ♪
♪ It's a beautiful day for my soul to be saved ♪
It's a good feeling when people, when you make people happy,
and, like, you'll see the comments on it, like,
"Wow, this made my day," or like,
"Ha, ha, ha, I just laughed out loud in front of everyone."
It's, like, good to bring some laughter.
My followers are amazing.
They're insane.
They're fucked up in the head, and I love them.
Honestly, when I get messages from people that say
they were having a tough day, or they just-- you know,
their-- their son is sick,
or their wife just divorced them,
it sounds crazy to say that memes can reach people
like that, but I'm not making this up.
I mean, I'm not-- I'm not--
this is, like, real stuff that happens.
We get these messages all the time.
When I have somebody, like, send me a direct message,
and I respond to it,
and they, like, kind of fanboy on me a little bit,
and they're like, "Oh, my God, I can't believe you responded."
I find myself just thinking
how crazy it is that there's people
that are so ecstatic that I respond to them.
I'm just like a doughy white kid from upstate New York
with way too much free time on his hands.
It does help people.
I get DMs all the time on the dog page saying like,
this page saved my life.
All the memes I see make people laugh,
make people want to share it with their friends,
make people want to have a good time.
And when you start to smile, it releases certain endorphins
in your face, releases to your brain.
Obviously I love when people tag their friends,
and, you know, you, like, read this,
or it's like, "Let's all have a digital hug."
I think we're doing God's work.
♪ Today feels like a walk in the park ♪
♪ I got this blank canvas, wonder where I should start ♪
I feel that some of the great comedy writers
of the next, uh, decade are going to be the--
the hundred-million-dollar media empires
of the future built on meme culture.
And now we're seeing some absolutely wild figures
like the Daquan meme brand being acquired for $85 million.
With the way money is made and the opportunity
of putting stuff out there and having people respond to it,
that that's only going to get stronger to the--
to the point that TV shows will become
about these kinds of things.
Somebody's going to come out with a meme movie one day.
I could, uh, see Adam Sandler, somebody like that.
Will Ferrell coming out with a meme movie.
Memes are comedy, and comedy is not going anywhere.
So it's just going to keep flowing
with these platforms wherever these platforms go.
Uh, memes on your forehead
in, you know, the Metaverse, I have no idea.
You can't watch the news without seeing some reference to memes.
You can't read news articles without references to memes.
My dad, he sent me a text the other day
and he-- from, uh, from AAA Magazine
that they're doing, uh, a meme contest.
Even my parents share baby boomer memes.
They don't always know what it means.
No, I can't read it.
There's no-- there's no words on it.
There's no words there.
What does that mean? I don't know what that means.
Memes are just beginning.
Short-form crowd created content is not going away.
It's the future.
Memes are the language of the internet.
And if you don't know how to use them or don't understand them,
then you're going to get left behind.
I got this $100,000 TV at my house.
I don't even watch it. I'm on my phone on Instagram.
I have a lot of teacher friends
and they incorporate memes into their lesson plans.
To all the meme haters, like, I wouldn't be surprised
if your kids are reading about memes in textbooks
and that's how they're getting their education.
You say, "I'm gonna put this with this
and this and write this."
And then, see, um, a gazillion people posted it.
You know, and he's like, "See, I did that."
And this is why we don't find a shortage of it
because there's this validation
in seeing everyone appreciate something that you do.
This young group of people have learned
how to empower themselves without giving their power away,
which is, I don't really need a massive deal
in order to put out my content.
I can put it up with me and my friends,
a few people like me in my circle,
and next thing you know, I've reached millions of people.
We're much bigger than people think we are.
I mean, it starts with us and then it's everywhere else.
In one day, I can get, like, 100,000 shares and then in,
like, less than a week,
it's already, like, three million shares.
So it's like even the thought of, like,
oh, it's going to three million and then it keeps going,
then it can be 20 million shares.
And you're just like, "Holy shit,
20 million people saw this one picture that I posted."
Reaching millions of people is something
that most people will not do in their lifetime.
I wanna be the manager of memes, memers.
I wanna be the guy that's, like, the cultivator of memers
and you gotta go through me.
I'll do it, I'll start wearing suits.
I'm no longer funny.
I got tight suits on and I got a BMW.
It's nice, my pants are short.
I'm always impressed with, like, non-professional comedians
coming up with a really good, fast joke.
I think this movement and this new art form
is gonna go into every aspect of our lives.
I never knew what M-E-M-E stood for.
Memes, nobody-- nobody even know what that means.
Virtually, it's spelled meemes, M-E-E-M-S.
Not M-E-M-E, that's me-me.
I don't wanna be me-me.
Can't deny what is the truth.
And... [chuckles] ...memes are the truth.
Once you're aware of memes,
you realize that they are driving
everything that happens in this world.
For some people, it's their lifeline,
their art and their lifeblood.
For others, it's something to look at on the toilet.
Mark Zuckerberg and Adam Mosseri,
the CEO of Instagram,
were doing an Instagram Live talking about new tools
that they're gonna roll out for creators to be able
to monetize and make more money on the platform.
Somehow, this happens.
Humor's been around since people could grunt.
You know what I mean?
People would point at something and be like...
[grunting and laughing]
You know, so humor's always gonna be something
that I think attracts people to whatever platform it is,
whether it was books or newspapers, TV, radio.
Now it's Instagram, Facebook.
As long as the world keeps turning,
the memes will keep churning.
I've spent my entire life living in two worlds.
One is where I work and support myself.
The other one is where I'm able to be creative.
And I've always had those two,
and none of the creative stuff has ever worked out.
Except for this. Looks like it might work out.
I'm still not sure, but I feel confident
at this point that at least I have some good momentum going.
And it really is wild.
I went from selling fence to having a direct line
to Mark Zuckerberg.
I have enough money in the bank. I have more than I need.
My kids are happy. They're healthy.
I spend a lot of time trying to accomplish stuff
and achieve stuff and just do my best professionally
and, like, outwardly.
But none of it matters
if I don't have the ability to enjoy it.
And I enjoy it the most when I'm with my family
and they let me know what's important.
["Swish List" by Flaming Vito plays]
I feel like I'm gonna die.
-It's very possible. -[indistinct chatter]
It's so hot, dude.
[man] All right, we rolling?
-Yeah. -We're rolling.
We're rolling.
So, uh, George, talk.
Uh...
[clicks tongue] Hold on, there's a guy...
[Brian, indistinct]
...that lets his dog shit on my lawn every single day.
Look straight ahead while you're driving
and just talk about what your job is.
I can't stop thinking about that guy right now.
Because that guy looked like an asshole
and his dog looked like about the size of the dog
that would drop the shit
that they drop on my lawn every single fucking day.
No, but I want to go back there.
-Go back where? -To my house.
For what?
To see if there's shit on the-- on my lawn.
-Dude. -Brian, if it was happening
at your house, you wouldn't want it.
Now? You said it's been going on for two years. [laughs]
I know, and I've never seen somebody walk past my house
with-- with a dog.
So that's what's going on right now?
In my mind, that's all I'm thinking about, yeah.
I've been wanting to turn around since we pulled off the block.
Bro, we're going to be in the car for 20 minutes.
-It's hot. -Three minutes gonna--
Are you rolling?