About

I Gotta Figure Out How to Make Money on This Thing is a line from "The Driving Crooner" sketch originally appearing in the Netflix comedy series I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson. On TikTok, the scene of Robinson delivering the dialogue achieved virality as the source material for memes.

Origin

On May 30th, 2023, episode one of season three of the comedy sketch series I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson premiered on Netflix.^[1] In one of the sketches, the character Andrew Tapecchino (played by Tim Robinson) is giving a ride home to his colleague. During the ride, it is revealed that Andrew has come up with a nonsensical business idea and is desperately trying to get money from it (scene shown below).

I gotta figure out how to make money on this thing, it's simply too good!

On July 2nd, 2023, TikToker^[2] @15econdreviews posted a clip of Robinson delivering the line captioned, "Millennials having literally any hobby." The video (shown below) earned over 726,000 views and 63,500 likes in one month.

Spread

In the following weeks, users on TikTok posted a cutout video of Robinson combined with humorous captions about people trying to monetize their hobbies and other things. For example, on July 19th, 2023, TikToker^[3] scootmotoadv posted a meme based on a drone video captioned "Every guy with a drone." The post (shown below, left) garnered over 475,000 views and 43,800 likes in eight days. On July 21st, TikToker^[4] childishly69 posted a video that received over 2.1 million views and 249,000 likes in six days (shown below, right).

The format maintained popularity on TikTok through late July 2023, also spreading to Twitter^[5] through reposts.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References