A decade ago, had you told someone that making memes would earn you money, they would have laughed in your face but now it is becoming a serious reality.
A meme is defined as a piece of virtual media (usually a photo with text) that generates laughter by using a social concept or cultural symbol. By now, most people would be familiar with memes considering their mass popularity on the internet and social media. However, memes did not become super-viral forms of internet entertainment overnight. Internet memes began as a concept in the early 1990s when short clips or GIFs were shared on online chatrooms and only with the advent of mass internet access and social media did memes begin to pick up steam. The creation of YouTube is attributed as one of the most important reasons for as to why memes became popular. YouTube users would release short videos which would go viral and become memes, as they were often shared and viewed among friends and family for example the Charlie Bit My Finger video which became popular in 2007. In 2008, 9GAG launched its meme platform where memes would be created at a mass-scale and since these memes could be shared on increasingly popular social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, memes began to gain significant momentum as a means of entertainment.
At the same time, Reddit was another social media platform where users could post a range of virtual media and it was slowly rising in popularity. The ease with which one could register and post information or virtual media on Reddit meant that it slowly overtook 9GAG as a platform for original meme creator to post memes and for existing memes to be reshared. Many experts who study internet and meme culture also state that the quality of 9GAG memes did not evolve to the quality of those on Reddit, hence 9GAG lost popularity to Reddit.
Despite the rise of internet leading to greater following of memes, experts identify that memes are inherently meant to become viral and popular. Memes are created with the intention of making a person laugh which releases dopamine in the human brain. Laughing is a positive human emotion that makes people feel good due to the dopamine release, so people crave for more of it and hence memes have gathered a large and loyal following. In addition, memes are a means of socializing and connecting with others over the internet and in real life. Memes can be shared and shown to friends or family during conversation, and they can laugh together viewing them.
At the moment, avenues to make money off memes are narrow but it is expanding slowly. Primarily, meme creators can make money off memes by creating accounts on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Gaining a huge following on these social media platforms by sharing memes means that content creators can allow advertisers to pay them for post advertisements. According to various statistics, on average an Instagram meme account with a million followers can allow its owner to make close to $7000 per month if advertising is done right. Twitter and Facebook statistics regarding paid post advertisements have shown similar earnings, but the differentiating factor for Facebook is that Facebook now pays content creators for videos that go viral based on the number of views and watch time of the videos. Consequently, meme videos and compilations have been massively popular on Facebook and it has caused an increased supply of memes in the form of video across the internet. One of such video memes which became popular because of this was the recent Ghana’s dancing pallbearers meme which continues to trend across social media platforms.
Another way in which meme creators make money is by setting up a YouTube channel where they can make money off Google ads, or opening their own website/blog where they place ads through Google or recruit advertisers themselves. But since YouTube and the blog marketplace are both highly competitive, very few meme creators can successfully make a living off these methods. In addition, some businesses have begun to hire social media managers that require experience in creating memes or have specifically hired meme creators to make memes. One example of this would be Netflix who regularly post memes on their Twitter account to entice their audience to view their content. Netflix’s model of sharing memes on social media with their followers has meant that interest in their original shows and movies increases with many of them going viral. Netflix’s Birdbox, Mindhunter and Tiger King have all become hugely successful thanks to Netflix’s strategy of connecting with its subscribers and followers through memes.
Moreover, meme creators and other content creators create their own merchandising including T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, and hats which display memes or meme references. This is an increasingly popular trend with big content creators on YouTube who make a major chunk of their revenue from such merchandising. Furthermore, experts estimate that the popularity of memes will be used by artists, musicians, actors, and professionals from various other professions to make their content go viral in the future. Experts cite that the ‘Harlem Shake’ trend in 2012 led to massive popularity of the song track used in the trend and it lifted off Bauer’s career (musician who created the song). Content creators will see this and many other cases where memes helped the careers of people and try to use it to their leverage in the future, hence demand of meme creators will increase.
Considering the viral nature of memes and lack of control or regulation on the internet, meme creators are often left uncredited or unable to make much money off their original memes. Memes can easily be reposted by any user of a social media platform, so memes originally created by an official creator are reposted on other platforms where other users make money off the work. Copyright laws are put in place to avoid this, but many platforms do not have a suitable system to stop this breach of copyright laws. Some meme makers have tried to combat this by placing a watermark on their memes but even then, today’s editing software can easily remove such watermarks.
Additionally, memes are constantly and quickly evolving on the internet so one of the biggest fears of many meme creators is the adaptability factor. A meme is considered dead once it gets overused and due to frequent reposting of memes, a meme nowadays becomes dead quite quickly – within a matter of a few weeks or months if the meme is highly popular. For example, at the beginning of the year World War 3 memes which included an image with some text were trending due to the increase in tensions between Iran and US, however for the past couple of months, the Ghanaian Pallbearers meme has become trending which requires usage of videos along with other multimedia. As a result, meme creators need to be up-to-date, versatile and multiskilled to survive in the tough meme climate.
Meme-making and monetisation of memes is still in its early phases and right now, online platforms are trying to find ways of efficiently reducing copyright law breaches of memes. Additionally, memes without a watermark can be difficult to report for copyright as the exact origin and creator of the memes are tough to pinpoint or attain. After an effective system to deal with copyright issues is placed, online platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter may begin to share ad revenue with content and meme creators based on its virality. However, these are just predictions based on how internet content has evolved and previously been monetized – neither of these corporations have officially announced any plans regarding this.
Creating memes as a professional line of work or full-time job could become a reality one day but it is difficult to ascertain when and exactly how. Currently, there are some jobs which are indirectly linked to meme-making skills, but they do not pay as lucratively as other online monetisation jobs such as making YouTube videos. Whatever the future may hold for memes and the potential of making money from it, for now memes seem to be a fun hobby or part-time job for meme creators to make some extra money.
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