Gary Vee

About

Gary Vee, also known by his full name Gary Vaynerchuk, is a Belarusian-American businessman and CEO most known for his inspirational Instagram and TikTok videos relating to business and hustle culture. He has a history of promoting the importance of social media management, engagement and advertising, as well as being a proponent of cryptocurrency and NFTs. In the meme sphere, he is most well-known for his oftentimes cringeworthy and overly dramatic motivational speeches that he posts on his social media pages.

History

Gary Vaynerchuk was born on November 14th, 1975.^[1] He was born in Belarus but moved to the United States, specifically to Queens in New York City, in 1978 when he was 3 years old. His family later moved to suburban New Jersey. It was there that they opened up a family wine store where Vaynerchuk worked throughout his high school and college days. Vaynerchuk continued to work at the wine store going into his early adulthood.

While working at the wine store, Vaynerchuk started posting a wine web show to YouTube. This would be the start of his social media hustle. As of 2021, Vaynerchuk is the CEO of his own social media marketing company called VaynerMedia, which he launched in 2009.^[22] The company is based in NYC and is currently labeled under a larger parent company that Vaynerchuk founded in 2019 called VaynerX.^[2]

Online Presence

WineLibraryTV

As stated, Vaynerchuk began his life in business working at his parent's wine store in New Jersey. It was there that he began filming a web series called WineLibraryTV, which he would post to YouTube,^[3] as well as to his own website.^[4] He uploaded his first episode on February 21st, 2006, to his own website.^[5] However, he later uploaded the episode to YouTube on May 17th, 2006. The video^[6] (shown below) received roughly 303,000 views and 6,000 likes over the course of 13 years.

His wine show was a major success, helping his parent's wine store go from $3 million in annual revenue to $60 million by launching the web show.^[7] The success of the show landed him on Late Night With Conan O'Brien on May 12th, 2008. The video can be accessed on Vimeo^[8] (shown below) where it has roughly 69,000 plays gained over the course of 13 years.

A turning point in Gary Vee's career was at the Web 2.0 Summit in New York City in 2008 where his speech on building a personal brand within the social media landscape led Vaynerchuk to a $1 million, 10-book deal with Harper Collins, according to Entrepreneur.^[2] This was then when he launched VaynerMedia in 2009 from this fame and prominence as a newly successful motivational speaker. At the time, his company dealt mostly with helping brands market on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr, which were the most prominent social media brands of the time.

Gary Vee On Instagram

Gary Vee began posting on Instagram^[9] in December 2012. His first post^[10] (shown below, left) was uploaded on December 12th, 2012. It received roughly 302 likes over the course of nine years. Gary Vee began posting inspirational text posts starting in October 2015.^[11] His most liked text post from this early era he posted on January 18th, 2016. The post^[12] (shown below, right) received roughly 4,800 likes over the course of five years.

February 2016 was around the time when Gary Vee began receiving his most amount of search interest according to Google Trends.^[12] This was mostly because of a viral video from his Instagram where he is filming himself talking motivationally to actor Jamie Foxx. The video (shown below) was posted to Instagram^[13] on February 17th, 2016, and received roughly 47,000 views and 2,800 likes over the course of five years.

In general, starting in February 2016, Gary Vee started reuploading motivational content of him speaking with the front-facing camera from his Snapchat account. An early example of this (shown below) received roughly 1,100 likes when posted on August 10th, 2015.^[13]

Gary Vee On TikTok

Gary Vee was an early proponent of the app Musical.ly, as stated in a blog post^[14] of his from 2016. He began posting on Musical.ly and TikTok around this time, mostly reposting Snapchat content to his account similar to how he began posting to his Instagram. He went on a hiatus from TikTok when the app merged with Musical.ly but began posting again in January 2019. His first post^[15] after his hiatus (shown below) was uploaded on January 7th, 2019, and it received roughly 31,000 plays and 1,500 likes over the course of two years.

Gary Vee's content on TikTok followed the same formula as his content across his other platforms, reposting clips and front-facing camera videos of his thoughts, philosophies and motivational messages. His highest engagement post on TikTok to date was posted on May 30th, 2021. In the video^[16] (shown below, left) he talks to a mom about college for her son, and it received roughly 30 million plays and 4.2 million likes over the course of four months. He also gained attention on TikTok when he gave advice to TikToker Charlie D'Amelio about her career in November 2019. D'Amelio tagged Gary Vee in a TikTok^[17] (shown below, right) on November 13th, 2019, and received roughly 30 million plays and 3.2 million likes for it.

Related Memes

Gary Vee Impersonations

Some of the earliest forms of Gary Vee memes circulated around impersonating his way of speaking and making videos. On December 9th, 2017, Instagram^[18] user @dannylopriore uploaded a video (shown below) making fun of Gary Vee. The video received roughly 35,000 views and 3,800 likes over the course of four years.

TikToker @aj_comedy also began impersonating Gary Vee starting in November 2020 around the time Vee began advising Charli D'Amelio. The first TikTok^[19] he did impersonating Vee (shown below) was uploaded on November 24th, 2020, and it received roughly 347,100 plays and 61,800 likes over the course of one year.

Gary Vee Reactions On YouTube

Gary Vee going into 2021 began to gain more traction on TikTok. More people began catching onto the absurdity of his advice and abrasive speech style, like using lots of curse words for added shock, among other tactics. One TikTok of his, in particular, garnered ironic attention for its absurdity. The TikTok was posted in May 2021, however, Gary Vee later deleted the TikTok due to backlash he got from it. The backlash mostly came from one TikToker, @zanage, who posted a Duet^[20] (shown below, top). This Duet received roughly 1.5 million plays and 212,000 likes over the course of four months. Gary Vee ended up responding to the video defending himself in a comment on the TikTok post (shown below, bottom)

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/6958184134153899269

This TikTok, in particular, garnered reaction videos from notable YouTubers outside of TikTok. For example, h3h3productions covered the video on their podcast, posting the clip from the podcast to their YouTube on May 9th, 2021. The video^[21] (shown below) received roughly 116,000 views and 2,700 likes over the course of four months.

Search Interest

External References