How to get rich making memes
Is it possible to monetize your memes? How easy is it to make money from memes? Does your dank stash represent a hitherto untapped revenue stream? What’s the secret to making fat profit from the magic of memes?
At first glance, the notion that anybody can make money from meme creation sounds too good to be true. Memes are fun! How can something so enjoyable put food on the table?
Memes for sure can make you rich. We all love memes, they’re an integral part of modern communication, an indispensable wellspring of laughter and wisdom in the 21st century.
Put it this way – somebody’s making money out of them.
But how? Here’s a few ways you can kick off your lucrative career as a modern day meme baron.
MAKE MEME MERCH
A great way of turning your talent and enthusiasm for memes into cold hard cash is to make actual products, and sell them. Best of all, in this day and age, that doesn’t even involve you having to technically make a damn thing yourself.
That’s right, no need to build a factory! Or hire a load of workers in a dubiously-ethical sweatshop situation! Just upload your meme designs to print-on-demand sites like Redbubble, Zazzle, Spring, or Spreadshirt.
Or do mugs, phone cases, or even books via e-commerce platforms like Amazon or Etsy. Creativity can totally pay the bills.
Meme copyright law is a deeply fascinating topic in itself. As a rule of thumb, you’re okay sharing memes on social platforms, as long as you don’t make money. Obviously, you’re here to make money. So try and adapt the meme.
Make a parody. Reference the original in a subtle, but unmistakable way. Don’t just cut and paste. Be imaginative.
That’s how you get around tiresome lawsuits, basically. With humour and cheekiness. That’s the essence of life as a meme hustler.
SELL DIGITAL MEME PRODUCTS
If you don’t fancy getting into the world of physical products – fair enough, the planet has more than enough superfluous crap floating around – you can still make some coin with digital-only wares.
Your skills as a ninja memer are in demand buddy! You can set up a course on websites like Udemy or Skillshare, or write an eBook revealing your deep insights into the dos and donts surrounding the art and science meme manufacture.
And hey, there’s always NFTs! Easy to mock, maybe, but they’re probably due a bull run any day now. The next big thing in NFTs will succeed not because of ‘use cases’ or some dry nerd reason like that. It’ll be because it’s a a good meme.
The doge one sold for $4million, just saying.
BECOME A CORPORATE SHILL
Memes have been described as ‘the lowest hanging fruit in marketing’. Companies love memes. Why? Because instead of paying creative agencies crazy money to develop original artwork and book expensive time on traditional media, they can just hire a witty Gen-Z kid to meme on their behalf.
Wendy’s is a great example of this phenomenon at work, so is Ryanair, and SlimJims.
There must be a company in your area – or anywhere, frankly – who could benefit from having a dank-ass meme-lord like you on the team. Pitch your services, offer to take over their social channels, and get them to give you a bonus once they reach (say) 5k followers.
CREATE YOUR OWN MEME CHANNEL
Honestly, this is a great place to start. Find a niche – what do you love? What do you know about? Is it music? Is it fart jokes? – create a page on TikTok or Facebook or whatever and post, post, post!
Once you’ve built a respectable following, you can market your followers products (see above). Or run affiliate links.
If you’re on YouTube you can make $3 to $10 per 1000 video views, which soon mounts up.
Remember – there is absolutely loads of money to be made! The Disaster Girl meme changed hands not long ago for $500,000. Overly Attached Girlfriend was sold for $411,000. Make your own, and who knows, you could be rich as Elon purely through the magic of memes.
Hey, IS STEALING MEMES ILLEGAL?
While we’re here, does anybody know IS IT PRONOUNCED GIF OR JIF?