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Alex Taub , a longtime founder with multiple exits under his knock , believes it ’s time to cut off the meme industry .
“ I have this big thesis that meme tech is going to be the next heavy family , ” Taub secernate TechCrunch . “ Like , there ’s health technical school , there ’s proptech , there ’s adtech , there ’s fintech … I think meme technical school is about to have a big minute . ”
Taub might voice like he ’s spent a fleck too much time in the oceanic abyss of the capacity mine . But he has a point . If you want to send your friend the arrant SpongeBob meme , what are you conjecture to do ? Google “ mr krabs confused meme ” ? meme are a key component of our online communications — fromboomers put up minionsto gen alpha posting abouttoilets — and yetfew companieshave essay to do anything new .
To be unmortgaged , tech innovation is n’t always good or necessary . No one needs to own asmart icebox , or for that topic , aHumane Ai pin . But there ’s been almost no institution in how we coordinate and deal memes for more than a decade : On Tumblr in 2009 , it was common practice to have a chemical reaction gif folder on your calculator background ; now , the most organize among us have meme folders on our phones . It ’s basically the same affair . Similarly , even though your iPhone can quickly catalog all of your pictures of a cat named Plover , iPhones do n’t know who Mr. Krabs is , forget a bit to be desire in terms of meme efficiency .
“ If you intend of what meme tech really is right now , it ’s essentiallyGiphy , but it got acquired by Facebook , and then got sort of shuttered off to Shutterstock . There ’s some OG company like Know Your Meme andCheezburger , but those company are actually media companies , ” Taub said . “ I ended up realise there ’s an chance here for meme management . ”
On Wednesday , Taub launchedMeme Depot , which he aspires to build up into a comprehensive archive of any meme conceivable .
“ You have collections , which are like subreddits , visually , ” he explains . If you ’re looking for a Kim Kardashian meme , for example , there would be a Kim Kardashian collection that you may voyage to . “ And visually , they ’re very prosperous to look through , like Pinterest . ”
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That ’s all well and good , but society ask to make money . Here ’s where Taub might lose people : The business sector simulation orbit around crypto .
“ I ’ve been in crypto in one way or another the last 12 years , and I think it ’s very misunderstood in terms of the hypothesis and the risky actors , but it ’s also just a new agency to reimagine the cyberspace , ” he said .
Inspired byFriend.tech , Meme Depot has a characteristic called meme party , which turn specific meme categories into community . Using cryptocurrency , users can corrupt depot passes to join the meme political party , which is fundamentally just an short-lived , cursor - based chat . But for people who do n’t need anything to do with crypto , it ’s not necessary to pay money or open a crypto notecase to engage with Meme Depot in any room . It allow other offer bearer of a meme ingathering to clear a bit of money as more people join it .
Taub is well mindful that this tactics could spark debate .
“ There ’s a lot of disceptation about like , who is tolerate to monetise memes ? Is it the creator of the meme , is it the individual in the meme ? ” he said . “ If this takes off the way I retrieve it will , we might tote up a new wrinkle to this , which is a good matter . You want people to peach about it . ”
These same questions were raised during the NFT boom of 2021 , when the subjects of viral memes likeScumbag Steve , Disaster GirlandOverly bind Girlfriendsold their iconic images as NFTs . This was often the first time that these people earned any money for being the subject of viral memes — Disaster Girl , now in her twenty , pull in the combining weight of $ 500,000 in ETH at the prison term , though that could have depreciated importantly depending on what she did with the cryptocurrency .
Then there are memes likePepe the Frog , which develop from an unacquainted cartoon to an alt - right symbol , and back again to a Twitch emote and crypto meme . When an image is so divorced from its origin , it could belong more so to the populace than its original creator .
“ People can monetise the community around the meme without monetise the meme itself , ” Taub say .
Meme Depot is part of Truth Arts , which operates with a mixture of speculation funding , royalties from theGoblintownNFT collection and money from sell past ventures like SocialRank , a social medium analytics companionship . For some line - disposed folk , the question may persist : why memes ?
Taub ’s answer is simple : “ meme are culture , and acculturation is entertainment . ”
update , 5/29/24 , 1:20 p.m. ET with elucidation on the nature of Meme Depot ’s backing .
