All right, let's do it.
Meme this.
We're here with three of the top meme
masters on Instagram and putting them to the test.
How would they help this picture of Donald Trump
become a meme sensation?
Don't worry.
I got us, B. Read the whole thing.
And the likely winner?
When your stepdad comes and drags you out of the party.
Making memes is what 25-year-old Elliot Tabelli
does for a living.
He created the now famous Instagram account.
That four-letter word we can't say, Jerry.
I'd like to post things that people normally
wouldn't say out loud, and you read it
and super strangely relatable.
Like when you're feeling fat after a long weekend,
or when you're at work checking the time.
All those posts heard around the internet
got their viral start here.
In five years, his Instagram account
has amassed nearly 10 million followers, which
has helped turn his memes into money
with those corporate-sponsored posts.
He says it's all about relatable content.
Like the post I just posted today, I was like,
when you flip the pillow over to the colder side,
and it's like the owl, it's like having orgasm.
In one minute, we had 2,079 likes.
It was pretty good.
That's not really something you say out loud,
but everybody does it, and it's the best feeling.
Stuff like that.
Relatability.
And what's even better, some super famous followers.
Bieber, The Rock, Kendall, Khloe, Katy Perry.
These are people that are Elliot's most active followers
based on who has the most followers
and who likes and interacts with his posts the most.
Ben Kaplan is the director of business
for the growing meme empire.
Three to five units, can you do that?
Ideas come from all over, sometimes even fans weigh in.
This poor girl sends us emails all the time,
like took another photo of Chris Lee coming out of the shower
and thought you might want to post it.
Their office is tailor made for fun,
and plenty of those iconic party cups.
How many posts do you put around a day?
Sometimes I don't post any, sometimes I post like six,
but three is like the sweet spot.
This post has the most likes in the past couple of months
as 468,000, and it's a Pokemon meme.
It all began five years ago,
when Elliot says he was bored
and started posting pictures to his Tumblr page.
I was just at home chilling on my laptop,
watching Seinfeld.
I love Jerry Seinfeld, I love Seinfeld,
but I don't know why I called it a f***ing career
to be honest with you.
I never planned on it to be popular,
never planned on it to be a business.
Like you said, I want to lock it in now
so we can put it in the plan.
Now a social media empire,
headquartered here in New York City
with 10 full-time employees,
including his childhood friend and partner, Ellie Ballas.
Kind of all have our role in the company,
which I think makes us really efficient,
so all content decisions, you know,
Elliot takes care of, and all kind of anything
that involves being really smart,
Elliot takes care of, and then all the easy stuff I do,
so together we kind of each have our role.
Even Elliot's wife, Jessica, joined in.
She's busy running the wildly popular
Instagram account, AgeCardigan,
which has a wider female audience than Jerry,
but here in their offices, memes equal big money.
90% of their followers are between the ages
of 16 and 35 years old.
Experts estimate top social media influencers
like Elliot and his team are making upwards
of $75,000 per branded post on Instagram,
but those branded posts still have to be funny,
like the ones they made for Bud Light,
Totino's Pizza Rolls, and FanDual.
It's pretty good. Okay, there.
But their first foray into paid content
was this one, for Burger King,
a tense moment for the team
who didn't know how the audience would react.
So I was definitely reading every comment,
making sure anyone would say,
I'll sell out all that good stuff,
but it turned out great.
Hey!
In two years, they've worked with more than 50 brands.
How much are they paying for this?
We like to not necessarily disclose these numbers,
but it's definitely enough to be considered
a serious player in this media business.
This is just like the staple tea.
Still sell a lot of these.
They also launched their own online business, Jerry's World.
There's a page cardigan on the page cardigan,
on the page cardigan.
Selling everything from $55 flip flops
to a $40,000 dog,
even a $500,000 indoor swimming pool.
Has anyone bought that?
A few people, actually.
Well, actually, not really.
Yeah, we sold a few of those.
Serious?
No, I don't want to go back.
I'm kidding.
And they let us in on another joke,
the memes they're creating
for Rob Lowe's Comedy Central Roast.
This?
Yeah, center off.
With a tattoo on his face?
Forget the tattoo, just that smile.
Just one more opportunity,
these social media influencers have found to make money,
along with their latest venture.
A disaster girl.
A card game, funded by Kickstarter,
called What Do You Meme?
This is kind of the cards against humanity,
the two point out version.
The meme version.
You're gonna pick a photo card
from a deck of 45 photo cards.
Everyone else playing goes through their seven caption cards,
and they try to decide what the funniest combination is.
When you're proving a point via text
and see those three little dots appearing and disappearing,
because you're right.
That's good, yeah, that's good.
No one's off limits.
Meme this.
The meme magic continues to another presidential contender.
When he tells you he loves you after the second date.
It's the date, guys.
Proving your worth one meme at a time.
Thank you.
Whoa, right at that.
For Nightline, I'm Rebecca Jarvis in New York.
