Tabish

podcasts, memes & marketing | sharing my fractional stupidity

[Tabish @TabishTold]

After creating 1000s of memes and consuming millions over the last few years, I've learned something epic.

Making memes is an art, but there is also a science behind it.

Here is a framework to create memes that break the internet.

Nothing is more annoying than seeing a boring ‘distracted boyfriend’ meme in 2024!

You can do a lot better, and here is how to do it -->

Memes are everywhere, and as someone once said, "The meme is the message."

Today, I am going to share:

The Meme Creation Framework:

Step 1 : Relatabilty Score:

Before we begin, one thing that sells the most in a meme universe is the relatability score of a meme.

If you show me a meme based on 'engineers,' I might relate to it more than if you send me a meme based on the life of a 'fashion designer.'

Step 2 : Identify Your Target Audience

Identifying who your target audience is plays a crucial role in the creation of a ‘hot meme’.

By understanding your audience's likes, dislikes, and humor, you can create a meme that they can truly relate to.

Figure out who they are:

Fitness Junkies, Book Nerds, DJs, School going kids or hyperlocal delivery partners

Step 3: The Most Important Step:

Find Out Pain Points & Desires

Now, the next step is figuring out what you want to talk about.

All the memes you'll come across online basically revolve around two things:

- Dreams and Desires
- Pain Points and Enemies

Everything else is just a mix of these two. You've got to discover what people dream about or what gets on their nerves. Pain points and dreams vary for different groups of people.

Let’s take an example

Working Professionals:

Dreams: Big salary hike, Long weekends, Promotions and Recognition

Pain Points: Excel sheets, monday, managers who micromanage , low salary, working on weekends and so on.

Engineers:

Dreams: Dream placement after college, Bug-free code, Zero Backlogs

Pain Points: Low Attendance, Backlogs, Constant Singlehood, Hostel Food and so on

Deploying these two, you can create an endless series of memes.

👉 Dreams and Desires
👉 Pain Points and Enemies

This varies for different target groups. For startup founders, the pain points could include unhelpful VCs or the challenges of the funding winter.

For doctors, the pain points could include long working hours, dealing with insurance hassles, or facing burnout due to high patient loads.

One Big Mistake:

While creating a meme, most people make a mistake.

They search for the meme they want to create first and then look for the idea.

The correct approach to meme creation is to identify the idea you want to express through the meme and then search for your ideal match.

Step 4: Now is the time to find those memes ->

Best underutilized memes are not in your Instagram feed, When a meme reaches Instagram then consider it to be almost dead.

The cycle starts in niche subreddits like r/MemeEconomy, r/DankMemes, r/MemeVideos or at places like 4chan and imgur

A goldmine for memes is subreddits like r/meme s.

If you're unsure about the meaning of a particular meme, you can use knowyourmeme{dot}com

Discord servers are some underutilized places on the internet; explore some Discord servers focused on memes and meme templates.

Step 5: Find and integrate your idea

Now is the time to integrate the whole idea into the best-fit template that you have.

You can create your template, but using an already popular template provides the additional comfort of not having to spend time explaining the idea.

The relatability score of your idea will determine how many people find it funny or apt.

Example 1:

TG: Procrastinators

Pain Point: they unnecessarily and voluntarily delay something and regret later

The Meme:

Example 2:

TG: Introverts

Pain Point: Struggling with small talk, making any social event feel like a punishment for them.

Mainstream Meme: Created for a broader audience, these memes are designed to be understood and relatable to most of us.

Niche Memes are tailored for a specific group of people, not everyone may get them.

Frequently on the internet, individuals' opinions or actions become memes, often due to their high relatability factor.

Want to make better memes?

Say what people want to say but are unable to due to laziness.

Bonus Tip : If you're just starting out, dig into an internet subculture or choose a niche for quicker results.

Remember, if you're creating for everyone, you're creating for no one!

Why Do Memes Work:

Memes work for one simple reason:

They help spread an idea in fewer words, with less friction.

Memes follow a path that involves lower focus compared to a 5,000-word blog or a 15-minute explainer video.

A meme helps you say what people want to express but might be too lazy to say.

Was this helpful and fun?

Share this on your timeline and give a hand to everyone working in the attention economy, making better memes.

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[Tabish @TabishTold]

Our insights and taste are getting borrowed, and that’s part of a bigger problem: everything is becoming increasingly the same, with no soul.

Original thinking gets flattened into volume-based output.

[Tabish @TabishTold]

Having a genuine worldview is extremely important when AI slop in writing or "Zoombie UI" are a topic of hot debate.

While the "building" part is getting democratised. H
aving a thoughtful POV, a fresh worldview, is getting extremely important.

[Tabish @TabishTold]

@paulg put this volatile economy and job market in best words

Don't give up on your dreams is a bad advice. This is a bad way to put it, because it implies you're supposed to be bound by some plan you made early.
The computer world has a name for this: premature optimization.

[Tabish @TabishTold]

As 'building' part gets cheaper and cheaper,
We will see judgement gets valued way more.

[Tabish @TabishTold]

A value-bomb session by The Creative Cult @owledmedia

Long form edits explained without jargons

[Tabish @TabishTold]

Most people love flow
They love business, when profits are flowing
They love creative work, when ideas are flowing,
They love relationship, when good times are flowing

But what proves your "love" is going inspite of rough patches.

[Tabish @TabishTold]

I will lose it If I hear the term “godfather of AI” one more time on the internet.

AI has 17 godfathers as of now and 2 godmothers

Such a priviledged child

[Tabish @TabishTold]

To make people feel something inside.

For the other days, keep your revolutionary, deeply philosophical, existential, and ahead-of-its-time stories close.

[Tabish @TabishTold]

Does all art have to be meaningful?

Should all cinema act as an agent of change?

I know there is a responsibility that an author feels when writing something, or a director feels when making a movie.

[Tabish @TabishTold]

But pseudo-intellectualism has led us to ask creatives not to make brainless yet heartful stories.

I believe not every story has to have a purpose.

Some should simply be told from a land beyond right and wrong.

[Tabish @TabishTold]

So that those in power have a sense of accountability towards those who have elected them (which I studied in the 6th NCERT textbooks)

[Tabish @TabishTold]

The lesser-known aspect of this protest and CJP movement has not been asking for someone's resignation, but the picture of young people coming on street who used to think 'if it's not happening to me, why should I care?'

This has proven that pattern wrong.

[Tabish @TabishTold]

People who have not appeared for the exam or are not directly associated have shown up for days.

This relentless habit of asking questions was the biggest win for me.

This should not stop here; it should go 10 fold in the coming month.

[Tabish @TabishTold]

I’m pro content and social media. But I also believe stories should originate in the real, physical world and then be told in an internet-native way.

Not the other way around, where conversations are packed with internet meme references but lack any real-world experience.

[Tabish @TabishTold]

I am not what I think I am,
I am not what you think I am
I am what you think 'I think I am'

[Tabish @TabishTold]

Outlive,
Outlive the fence around your own life that you've been calling common sense.

Once you've outlived all of it, you will find the lands you never ran over and the lane you never dared to step over.

[Tabish @TabishTold]

Outlive,
Outlive that voice inside of you that asks for more green light until it takes the first step.

Outlive,
Outlive that person inside of you that wants you to stay in bed & leave the pillow uneven

[Tabish @TabishTold]

Outlive,
Outlive the wise voice that asks you to stay in a boxed environment and never find your own voice.

Outlive,
Outlive the idea that everything great started with a picture-perfect plan.