From a former Somalian refugee in Yemen to a Mexican-American computer repairman in Los Angeles, five of Facebook’s most popular memers open up about their personal stories and insights. This is the second installment of a two-part series about Facebook memes. Part 1 is How Memes Conquered Our Hearts And News Feeds.
After memes conquered my News Feed, I noticed that I was getting tagged in memes and saw the same memes by the same Facebook users over and over again, I started to recognize their names. They consistently posted memes that got thousands of likes and comments, and their pages, which were followed by thousands or millions, were becoming a normal occurrence on my News Feed.
Naturally, I became curious about who these people. But when I clicked on their profiles, I never gleamed more information about them besides one or two pictures of them (and some didn’t even use their real names). Googling didn’t help much (at all) either. It made me wonder, where do they live? What makes them so good at it? Why do they do it? Who are these semi-anonymous comedic masters whose content we see all the time?
Intrigued by these comedic geniuses, I interviewed a few popular Facebook memers: Shitheadsteve (220k+ followers), Benjamin Orozco (244k+), Mohamed Abdulkadir (715k+), Muhammad Usama Khalid “Usama” (1.8M+), and Alonzo Lerone (1.9M+). You might have seen these memes by them:
There didn’t seem to be any existing interviews with multiple popular memers, so I reached out to (virtually) interview these five memers and collect their personal stories and insights on memes and internet culture.
Backgrounds
You might have expected that prominent memers all fit the stereotype of the dank internet culture trendsetter — the nerdy, young white guy living in his parents’ basement. But the backgrounds of these five popular memers in this interview were surprisingly diverse. Shitheadsteve (Reid Hailey), born and raised in Atlanta, has been making and sharing memes full-time since early 2015. Alonzo is a social media personality and African-American actor from North Carolina who is replacing Orlando Brown as Eddie in the spin-off of That’s So Raven with Raven-Symoné. Benjamin is a Mexican-American computer repairman in Los Angeles.
The other two memers aren’t based in the US. Mohamed is a former Somalian refugee living in Yemen who currently works as an English teacher, and Usama is a social media publisher in Pakistan.
Beginnings
As per my claim that memes normalized on smaller social media platforms before taking over mainstream Facebook, some memers started out elsewhere first. Usama started by making and posting memes on Twitter, where memes had already been popular for years. Shitheadsteve started sharing memes on Instagram before Facebook (and is still more popular on Instagram than Facebook).
Mohamed initially started posting Facebook memes in German (his native tongue) until he switched over to English to make his content more accessible to more people. He also realized early on that the more “girly” content he posted, the more followers and likes he got, which led to his fan demographic being 90% female today.
Methodology
Generally, memers do both creating memes and curating (reposting) memes from other sources. Some create more, some curate more (Benjamin described himself as “the Simon Cowell of memes”).
Sometimes it’s methodological. For instance, Shitheadsteve spends hours a day looking at hundreds of pictures to find meme-worthy ones. Likewise, if Mohamed or Benjamin are considering reposting a meme, they always checks on Instagram to see how well the meme is doing to get a sense of how it will do on their Facebook pages.
For Usama, it’s more of a psychological approach that he calls “the concept of the problem,” or the idea that humor and memes arise out of any common life problem or frustration. He used the example of making a meme out of the common problem of being jealous of models’ bodies while watching the Victoria’s Secret fashion show. “Life is just like a meme,” he said.
But it seems like at the end of the day, memers rely mostly on intuition and spontaneous inspiration — they have a natural gift for knowing what will make thousands or millions of people laugh.
The definition of a meme
“A funny picture with a funny caption” was everyone’s answer besides Mohamed, who believes that there isn’t a strict definition of a meme because there are so many different types of memes, from videos to unlabeled pictures. “The most important thing is that it’s original and relatable,” he said.
Motivation
Even though the memers interviewed came from drastically different backgrounds and had different ways of approaching meme creation and curation, they all had the same motivation for what they do at the end of the day: making others laugh for the sake of laughing.
Overwhelmingly, memers aren’t in it for the money nor the fame, which is likely why there isn’t much information out there about these individuals (besides Alonzo, whose acting profession by nature caused him to have more information online). They truly love making millions of people across the globe happy through universally relatable content; they’re happy knowing that what they do makes others laugh. Throughout all my one-on-one interviews, this genuine sentiment was obvious.
In particular, some memers enjoy and are especially good at making life’s struggles into humor, and I suspect that this talent may stem from memers’ personal struggles (for example, Mohamed fled two wars in Somalia). These difficult past experiences might be the lens through which memers like Mohamed gain such a positive and humorous perspective on life today. As Usama said, “even the saddest moment can be a meme.”
But perhaps the focus on making life’s struggles into humor likely accounts for the volume of dark humor memes about serious issues such as depression, anxiety, and suicide that are popular on Facebook. As somebody who has struggled with schizophrenia in the past, Benjamin sees his dark humor mental health memes as a way to comfort those who are struggling with mental health issues. He receives on average one message a day from a follower who thanks him for cleverly addressing mental health issues in his dark humor memes. It’s something that he is extremely proud of, and messages like those are what keeps him motivated to continue creating quality content. “I don’t even care about the credit,” he admitted.
The future
Interestingly, even though memers generally thought that memes are here to stay (Mohamed told me “memes will be around forever”), there were more nuanced opinions about Facebook memes. For example, Shitheadsteve thinks that the future of social media is live video but memes will always be popular (“I guess it’s like the modern day comic strip and people like to laugh”).
On the other hand, policy restrictions on Facebook content on racism, sexism, etc. seemed to be a notable concern. For instance, Usama believes that memes do not have a long future on Facebook as long as Facebook continues to have content policies that restrict “freedom of speech,” which other platforms such as Twitter have noticeably fewer. The biggest factor that affects his meme creation is Facebook’s strict content policy. In addition, Benjamin listed Facebook’s strict policy around copyright as a factor that keeps memers from giving out personal information beyond just a name because of the fear of getting into legal trouble with reposting.
But as with the unexpectedness of practically all things social media related, who knows what the future holds for Facebook memes? Alonzo admitted, “At this point, I’m not even sure what the future holds.” I’m not, either, but I hope that memers continue creating content that makes the rest of us on Facebook tag, share, and laugh.