Chatting With Noerdy, The Man Behind r/MemeEconomy And Meme Insider Magazine

he concept of a meme stock exchange is something that’s been toyed with by many over the years, including ourselves, but when the r/MemeEconomy subreddit was founded, it was largely just an amusing idea that had yet to become fully realized and functional. Noerdy is one of the individuals who popularized the idea of the Meme Economy, which treats memes as if they are commodities or assets traded in financial markets. With a fully functional website on the horizon, “Meme Wall Street” might become a reality in the near future. Noerdy is also a co-founder of Meme Insider and helped the magazine go from inside joke to real print publication. Now the team’s managing director, he and Meme Insider have big plans for the future, especially after becoming a part of the Know Your Meme family last year. To unearth the past and present of these two innovative endeavors in the meme world, we spoke with Noerdy to learn how they were created, and what we can expect to see from both in the years to come.

Q: Welcome, Noerdy. Thanks for joining us. To kick things off, I wanna start with some of your first forays into the online world. Where’d you get started exploring the internet, what sites did you frequent, and how did those shape your later experiences with the web?

A: I used to really be into Minecraft and made a bit of a name for myself becoming a prominent member of the Technical Minecraft community, creating a few concepts for Minecraft that actually made it into the game and becoming a staff member of the largest Minecraft server, Hypixel, for years. I started using Reddit mostly to talk about Minecraft and found it to be the best platform for discussion on any topic. There were not a lot of other forums that I was a part of besides Reddit, other than being an active user of macrumors.com and some other small, niche technology forums.

Q: Can you elaborate a bit on why Minecraft was a particular point of interest? I know it’s changed considerably since the original release. What concepts were those that made it into the game?

A: When I played Minecraft with friends, I always wanted to figure out ways to best exploit game mechanics. I really enjoy understanding games that I like playing on a more fundamental level, and see if I can create new machines that optimize the efficiency of mechanics. Most of my suggestions that made it into the game were technical improvements or quality of life changes, like middle-clicking in survival mode to get items or Nether Fortresses generating loot, which I suggested through /r/MinecraftSuggestions. Unfortunately, I haven’t played a lot of video games in the last four to five years due to time constraints and focusing on other things.

Q: What about your earliest experiences with memes and that specific culture? Do you remember any that were particularly important or sort of hooked you into becoming passionate about them?

A: There's a very vivid memory I have of browsing an old website that had memes and funny pictures in it, mostly just images of cats, and scrolling to the very first picture and seeing the “i can has cheezburger” image. It wasn’t until I co-founded /r/MemeEconomy and /r/WholesomeMemes in the same month that I started to get serious about memes and wanted to join in on them growing and becoming a huge movement. I also was big on YouTube, which helped push support for Meme Insider’s presence on YouTube, where we have collaborated with multiple large YouTubers, and released several feature videos.

Q: In those early years, can you tell me a handful of memes that were your favorites and what you liked most about them?

A: I really liked the I Should Buy a Boat Cat meme, just for the absolute ridiculousness of it. I don’t really take my memes too seriously, and a lot of my friends have said that the memes I like are “normie-tier” memes, but I think any meme that makes you laugh is a good meme. I tried to bring this inclusive spirit to the “WholesomeMemes” movement, and I am glad others share this same sentiment.

Q: As these once “obscure” corners of the internet have become more widely popular, what about memes and internet culture, in general, has changed the most since then in your opinion?

A: I think the ability for people to create their own memes has skyrocketed. Before, access to an image editor more powerful than Microsoft Paint was rare, but with the increase in mobile technology and use, a lot of people are moving to their phone to edit and create content, which has created a new wave of memes.

Q: At the same time, do you think that increase in availability for meme creation has resulted in a decrease in quality overall? Some would argue that a lot of memes these days are just rehashes of things we’ve already seen before.

A: The number of quality memes has not decreased, but the average meme is of lower quality. I think the quality of memes comes from human creativity, and there will never be a decrease in creativity. Think of it like when computers and digital cameras were introduced, there were a lot more photos and videos and books created by amatures, so the average quality photo, video, or book may have decreased, but there are still a lot of quality content, perhaps even more, as more people were exposed to creating. Memes are just another artform, and the more people who are creating them, the better.

Q: So I know you’re a big Redditor and active on the site in a number of ways, but how’d you get started on the platform? What subs did you frequent and how did you interact with it early on?

A: I had some friends who would browse the front page of Reddit, and I figured it would be fun to try and be on the front page myself when they looked at it. So I would post on Reddit at night, and by the morning, I usually had a few posts on the front page. I would mostly use cat and puppy pictures that were trending on Instagram, so while it was not technically original content, it was new to Reddit, and to most of the internet. I would mostly be on /r/gifs, /r/aww and /r/pics during my early Reddit years.

Q: Was your “Noerdy” account the first, or did you have any others initially? Also, where’d the name come from and does it have any significance?

A: My first account! Not a ton of significance, I just like how it’s simple and hard to forget. The owl came around the same time when I wanted to go with a symbol to represent myself.

Q: Your “Cake Day” on that account is October 31st, 2012. Do you remember that day and why you created your account on Halloween? What was your initial plan for it early on, or was it strictly just for personal use back then?

A: Totally a coincidence that it’s on Halloween! I remember the exact moment when I created it, I had just finished with something at 3 p.m. that day and created it right after. My plan was just to use it for personal use, but I found that sharing funny posts and commenting creative things was something I really enjoyed, so I did that for a year or so before I jumped into moderating.

Q: So you’re currently a moderator on quite a few subreddits, but I’m curious how you first got started in the world of being a mod, and why it was something you wanted to do.

A: The first subreddit I modded was /r/TechnicalMinecraft. I co-founded that as a place for people who wanted to dive deep into Minecraft, and the Technical Minecraft community has grown to a point where it is much more mainstream than when I first joined it. However, the subreddit really only had a few hundred subscribers when it began. I was lucky enough to help co-found both /r/MemeEconomy and /r/WholesomeMemes, so I joined at the very start of both subreddits. This helped kick off my “career” as a moderator, and I worked hard to help promote and build those subreddits until they were big. I would mostly attribute my success as a moderator to luck and knowing the right people. I don’t usually spend a lot of time on Reddit (maybe an hour a day or so), and actively avoid moderating subs I don’t enjoy anyway. I don’t really like the stress that a lot of moderating comes with, but I like to grow communities and make people happy.

Q: What are some things about moderating on a platform like Reddit that users don’t know about? It seems like there’s a big disconnect/tension between users and mods on almost every site, so I’m curious about your thoughts on that friction.

A: One thing that users don’t understand is the number of trolls that moderators have to deal with, which can often make them take their job less seriously then perhaps they should. A lot of times moderators have zero tolerance to rule-breaking and will permaban users just so they don’t have to risk dealing with them later. I think there are a lot of problems with the moderation system of Reddit, and I am actually working on creating a solution to this problem.

Q: Given the recent drama on Reddit lately where a list of the top subs and their mods circulated online, leading to claims that several of these communities were being controlled by a small number of people, what do you make of the whole debacle? Do you think some of this backlash is justified, or is that previously mentioned disconnect between users and mods the root of the problem?

A: I think the hate is definitely unjust, but it does reflect one of the flaws of Reddit, where only a few users do, in fact, control most of Reddit. The list that was circulated online is actually not even of the top moderators, but just of a few that are more public. I do not think that any backlash is justified, but I understand the concern of some users. I think that this is a systemic problem with the platform itself, not with individual users. I don’t really see a good solution besides an overhaul of the moderation system, which may not be possible on an established platform such as Reddit. On Reddit, it’s hard to become popular without becoming notorious due to the fact that with it, the loudest voice always wins.

Q: Following up on that, and given your personal experience moderating, what do you think is the best path forward? How can these types of issues be avoided in the future, or do you think they’re inevitable?

A: There is definitely a better solution for platform moderation, and the simplest answer is just to have administrators do it, like how Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram run it. However, this is not cost-effective, and Reddit would need to hire a lot more staff to do this. There is another solution which I am working on and will hopefully post as a blog in the next few weeks on my Twitter. It describes the problems with content moderation, along with a self-moderation system that is resistant to abuse, and how to fix the problem of the “echo-chamber” you see on platforms such as Reddit and Twitter.

Q: As we’ve seen with other big sites in the past like Digg, do you think the future of Reddit is bleak, or will the platform continue to adapt and remain relevant in the years ahead?

A: I think that Reddit as a core is definitely much more aware of their platform than many people might think, and they are definitely willing to adapt with the times. I feel Reddit, as a platform, may be able to shape itself into the next generation of social media, but it will likely come with some growing pains.

Q: Alright, let’s circle back to more of your history with the platform. Could you tell us about some of the subreddits you personally created or were involved in launching? What goes into starting a sub, and why’d you choose to create your own?

A: The majority of subreddits I moderate I co-founded. As I said above, I don’t really have an interest in collecting subreddits to mod, more of an interest in growing my own. Several large (over a million subscribers) subreddits which I helped found include /r/MemeEconomy, /r/WholesomeMemes, /r/WatchPeopleDieInside, and /r/TopTalent. The other subs I moderate are either smaller or were created by friends who added me so I can help with some events. When creating a sub, you need to find the community that will be most active in it and prop them up without degrading the rule of law. It is easy to add users as moderators, but it’s hard to find mods who are active and willing to make the subreddit a great place. Those are the people you want to find. Another trick is simply to find a subreddit that people want to post in but does not exist. Reddit is still fairly new, and it is not hard to create a new subreddit. Many of the subreddits were just created as a joke for a single thread and became active communities after that.

Q: Personally, I find r/MemeEconomy to be the most interesting sub you’re a part of, so can you tell us how it was founded and what the concept for that was? Where did the idea for a “meme stock exchange” come from?

A: /r/MemeEconomy was started as a joke when people on Reddit were asking for a place to be able to buy and sell their “Rare Pepe” memes in 2016. It has become a haven for people to be able to post and share content relating to tracking the popularity of memes. We even put in a bot on the subreddit that uses actual Keynesian market mechanics to build a rudimentary economy. The Meme Stock Exchange idea has been around for years as well, and many people have tried to create their own platforms. Last year, I got serious with the idea and created https://meme.market/home, still a beta website, where users can track the bot on /r/MemeEconomy. We hope to be able to let users buy and trade from the website soon. I never took the bot too seriously, which is why I am unable to guarantee specific timeframes for things (as myself and all the other developers are volunteers), but we hope to get it going as soon as possible! “SoonTM” has actually become a big meme on /r/MemeEconomy thanks to me using it so much.

Q: So within a few months of that subreddit starting, you and the community there posted a fake magazine, called “Meme Insider,” that began as a joke, but eventually transformed into a real print publication. Could you explain how it went from just a funny concept to ultimately becoming a real mag?

A: The idea was first posted about in 2016 by /u/DigitalizedOrange on /r/MemeEconomy as a joke cover of a magazine called “Meme Insider.” I and a few other members of the community banded together to create an actual magazine, and we have been putting out monthly print issues ever since. It has definitely been a struggle, but our amazing team has always come together to continue to crank out more and more content that keeps getting higher and higher in quality. Hiring developers, designers, writers, and artists wasn’t something I had experience with, but I learned quickly because I had to. It was amazing to watch something that started as a joke on /r/MemeEconomy turn into a real thing!

Q: What was the initial reception like for the magazine, and why do you think there was a need or demand for such a concept?

A: The initial reaction was usually the same reaction that we have every day working on it. Utter astonishment and bemusement that someone took one of the most antiquated forms of media, a magazine, and filled it with the newest form of media, memes. We think that this irony from the absurdity of the idea has made us stand out, and all of the work that we put into each magazine really shows that we are dedicated and able to adapt to any circumstance.

Q: Do you recall a specific moment the Meme Insider team realized there was actually potential for the idea and what kept it going? No stranger to the print magazine world myself, I know it’s no easy feat to successfully launch or run such a publication, especially since a lot of people today think “print is dead.”

A: I think the team has always realized the potential for the magazine, which is part of the reason we worked so hard on each issue. It was certainly a lot of work to keep the magazine up and running over the years, but the brute force of our team has allowed it to happen. We are eager and ready to continue scaling now that we have proven our reliability.

Q: All these years later, how has Meme Insider evolved and transformed since that first issue? What are some of the biggest hurdles the team has overcome to get the mag where it is today?

A: Every few months, we try to mix up the formula a little bit while staying true to the values behind the first issue. We have been very lucky to have our staff volunteer for each issue of the magazine for most of its history, and it was not until recently when we were able to start compensating staff members. This has allowed us to work with a very slim operating budget, which has alleviated many traditional hurdles. We are currently working on one of the biggest changes to the magazine, the introduction of online articles, which is coming soon.

Q: So what does the future hold for Meme Insider going forward? Where do you see the publication in the next few years, and what other projects under the brand is the team currently working toward?

A: Once we move into focusing on online articles, I see us growing into a much more mainstream news outlet, able to focus on covering all sorts of topics that we would not typically be able to do. It’s my hope that the magazine will continue to grow and start to appear in retail stores ultimately.

Q: Shifting back to yourself, what are you currently doing and what’s in store for Noerdy in the years to come? When does “Meme Wall Street” break ground on a physical stock exchange?

A: I am spending time working on myself professionally and gaining more work experience before I potentially go to grad school. I’m interested in politics and medicine as well and hoping to dive into both realms in the next few years too. I definitely like to stay busy! Meme Wall Street will break ground as soon as the New York Stock Exchange goes fully virtual, and maybe then we will move to the NYSE trading floor. Anything to keep in the spirit of using the latest memes in the most antiquated places! On Reddit and online, I hope to expand into the nonprofit sector and work with advocacy groups, helping people discuss their problems more openly online in a less stigmatized way. More info on that coming soon too.

Q: Given your knowledge of the meme economy and that landscape, what do you think the future of memes will look like down the line? Got any insider trading tips you care to share with us?

A: I think memes will continue to be mainstream and lose their niche value, except in specific communities. I think memes surrounding current events will dominate, as those spread the fastest (politics, TV shows, sports, etc.). Definitely invest early and diversify your portfolio, that’s what I recommend!

Q: Specifically with politics and memes, we’ve seen those two worlds really start to collide in the last few years, even more so in 2020. What role do you think memes will play in the future of politics, especially in the upcoming election?

A: Memes are a fantastic way to get people interested in politics and the political landscape, and I see them as a way to help eliminate barriers that many people face when trying to become involved with politics, such as confusion or not totally understanding a concept. Memes are a great way to share information between people, and even if that information may not be complete, it can lead to insightful and meaningful discussion.

Q: Any final word or additional info you’d like to add?

A: I just want to say that it is such an exciting time to be a part of the internet. So much is left to do, and there is enormous space for improvement. I am very fortunate to be born in a time where I can help contribute and be a part of improving the future of all of humanity. Life is short, and I want to make the most of it! I want to thank the entire Meme Insider team for the effort they make each month, along with the entire online journalist community who has supported us throughout this process. There are a lot of exciting things happening in the future, and I can’t wait to help grow them! Make sure to follow me @TheNoerdy on Twitter, or contact me on Reddit as /u/Noerdy. I will be posting updates there about social media moderation, meme.market, Meme Insider, nonprofit work, and more.

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Noerdy is a co-founder of r/MemeEconomy and Meme Insider magazine. You can check out his Twitter or Reddit for more. Follow Meme Insider on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or YouTube to see more content, and find out how to get your very own copy of the magazine here.