How To Make A Meme (Serious)
A embarrassingly earnest experiment in crafting inside jokes online
One of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me came from a college fling. The specific quote is buried somewhere deep in my Tumblr archives, but the gist of it was that I turn everything into an inside joke and that’s why I’m able to make friends so quickly. High praise from a boy who matched with me on Tinder and then watched as I stole his entire friend group…and also an incredibly kind thing to say to a 19 year old who honestly assumed everyone secretly hated her.
I’m telling you this not only to brag about a nice thing someone said to me once, but also because it’s relevant to something I experienced on social media this week that I think might be useful to you as you experiment and try in public.
On Monday, I shared a meme dump on Instagram. It’s currently sitting at 20k+ likes, and this morning I woke up to the ultimate confirmation that a post has gone viral — a text from another college friend:
For this month’s Observations & Inferences experiment, I want to help you make a meme of your own. When I teach copywriting or content strategy classes, I always come back to exercises like this, mostly because I think getting good at making memes is one of the best ways to “show, not tell” people who your ideal audience is.
Those of you who were good at Twitter probably won’t need this, and might even have a worm in your brain that says thinking so methodologically about it is a kind of cringe cardinal sin. To that I say: Sorry, but this is who I am. And since social media is a meme-driven content factory farm, I hold that it’s a worthwhile thing to be candid about — especially when I’m literally always just trying to help artists get good at the Internet.
If you never got into the habit of thinking in one-liners, my hope is that the prompts below help you experiment. Memes are short sentences. In a lot of ways, they’re hooks. Being good at making them strengthens your ability to get more followers or sales or whatever else it is you want to do online. And you even get to add a layer of irony to your trying, which to this day is still the best social rejection defense mechanism I know.
In your corner,
But first, the latest from members of The Study:
From Elyse: Vision Casting is a month-long creative journey to slow down, reconnect, and map your 2026 with clarity and intention. 50% off until December 10!
From Amber: Rewire your thinking the easy, playful way with Journal Doodles.
From Ashlee: Get some first impressions feedback on anything you use to talk about yourself (About page, LinkedIn bio, homepage, elevator pitch, CV, executive bio, etc.) at my public About You Audit on Dec 18.
From Chelsea: I’m training to become a speaker on stage and giving my first talk at a showcase next Friday, called “Blow Up Your Life.”
HYPOTHESIS
If you get in the habit of sharing memes your dream client/customer/reader deeply relates to, then you will attract more of your dream clients/customers/readers to your virtual front door.
PROCESS
To start, you have to acknowledge that memes are referential. They’re mimetic, layered, and typically a call-back to something else. Which is me acknowledging why my carousel was mostly a collage of other people’s Tumblr posts combined with stills from movies and TV.
This bring us to one of your options, a practice as old as the Internet itself: Find existing posts you relate to or laugh at, and reshare them. Chani does this with every major astrological shift, and it works. Making these posts is pretty easy — just go through your screenshots or likes folder until you find a few posts that made you laugh, then gather them into a timely and/or relevant gallery. Don’t crop out the watermark.
Your second option is to craft something yourself. It’ll never be entirely new because that isn’t the point, but it’s still a good exercise in how well you know your audience. Try answering these questions:
What are the everyday annoyances that your people experience?
What is “in the air”? What is everyone talking about? (When in doubt the answer is usually “doomscrolling” or “hating work.”)
What’s funny about how it feels to have the problem your business/offer solves? What silly things do the people you make things for do or say or think?
If you were watching a sitcom, what would a character have to do for you to be like “Yeah they’re one of us”?
Concrete example: My audience of small business owners is always going to relate to spending 12 hours reorganizing their Notion, abandoning a craft after 3 days, and forgetting to answer emails. Hence one of the most shared slides in this week’s meme dump:
Once you have your #relatable experience locked in, the next step is to combine it with something recognizable. This is why memes work — and yes, I consider lip-syncing a trending sound and then adding hyper-specific inside joke text on top a practice in meme-making. Your options here include:
Finding an image of an animal that would probably say that, too. If your audience includes 20-something women, baby deers are going to be huge here.
Sourcing pop culture stills your audience is exactly the right age to be nostalgic for. Many will say Snoopy’s moment has passed, to which I say: Fight me.
Crafting elaborate visual poetry as a way of illustrating your point (see: #girlblogging)
Tapping into whatever sound/phrase is currently everywhere. I like Later’s blog of trending TikTok sounds as a quick reference, but scrolling until 2 am works too.
Essentially, you’re trying to either make a callback or express a completely unoriginal thought in a new vehicle. When in doubt, ask yourself: What would my people immediately DM to their best friend?
A secret third option is to be earnest and sincere, to express something true while still making it “fit” the moment. These “deep thoughts over coffee” style posts are still everywhere.
Most of the platforms we use to connect (Substack Notes included) offer you a vehicle, so as usual I say just throw spaghetti at the wall until you figure out what sticks. No one cares how often you post, because no one reliably sees everything you post anymore. And so you might as well have fun.
OBSERVATIONS & INFERENCES
In conclusion, I can show you better than I can tell you. Below are some of my favorite memey posts as of late.
Some recent links from my Desktop Organizer Second Brain database:
I’m very obsessed with this Dear Data project and excited for the book!
A database of “fractional” (read: contract) jobs
I loved this episode of Good Hang with Quinta Brunson, especially the conversation around improv + trying in the early Buzzfeed days:
Loved reading this!! Any chance chelsea is here and can share how her talk went. Bummed to have missed it! Also curious about her experience in Star Power
Ciao Lexi! I made a meme of my own (my first!) last week, but hasn't resonated how I expected, how can I share it with you so you can let me know why it didn't work? Thanks!