About

Creating Shareholder Value refers to memes that present the process of providing value for shareholders as the primary goal of any individual's life, with any minute spent not doing that being considered as time wasted. The memes are a parody of the corporate mindset and hustle culture, often incorporating various business jargon.

Origin

In corporate jargon, creating (also providing or delivering) shareholder value means increasing the wealth of the company's shareholders, which is achieved through contributing towards the rise of the company's stock price. In memes, "creating shareholder value" usually translates to "working hard for the benefit of shareholders of the company one works for."

On August 9th, 2023, X^[1] user @personofswag posted a How I Sleep Knowing meme about "delivering value to shareholders" (shown below) that gained over 60 reposts and 1,000 likes in two years.

Spread

In the following months, the meme saw viral spread online. For example, on September 4th, 2023, Instagram^[2] user wallstreatoasis made a repost that garnered over 17,300 likes in two years.

On September 21st, 2023, X^[3] user @netcapgirl posted another parody meme about "providing shareholder value." The image caption meme (shown below) received over 2,100 reposts and 26,000 likes in two years and was widely circulated online.

On April 8th, 2024, during the 2024 solar eclipse event, X^[4][5] users @litcapital and @tobydoyhowell both posted viral memes about shareholder value, which received over 4,100 reposts and 58,000 likes and 910 reposts and 24,000 likes in eight months, respectively (post by @litcapital shown below).

Following the posts, the parody meme saw viral spread on X / Twitter through the rest of 2024. For example, on December 4th, 2024, X^[6] user @SxarletRed posted a joke based on a popular quote, which gained over 24,000 reposts and 208,000 likes in one month (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References