Martin Shkreli smirking at a congressional hearing

Martin Shkreli

2015notorious internet figureclassic

Published September 5, 2026

Martin Shkreli became one of the internet's most reviled figures in 2015 after his company Turing Pharmaceuticals hiked the price of the HIV drug Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per tablet, earning him the nickname 'Pharma Bro.' His trolling antics that followed, from buying a one-of-one Wu-Tang Clan album to harassing a Teen Vogue writer on Twitter, turned him into a recurring main character of the online news cycle for years.

villain memes celebrity nickname memes trolling memes scandal memes mid 2010s memes

Overview

Martin Shkreli is the hoodie-wearing former pharma CEO who the internet crowned as the archetypal greedy villain of the mid-2010s. The 'Pharma Bro' label stuck after Turing Pharmaceuticals jacked up the price of a decades-old anti-parasitic drug, Daraprim, by roughly 5,000 percent in September 20151. The nickname wasn't just about the price hike, it was about the smirking, unrepentant persona he leaned into every time cameras or a Twitter feed pointed his way3.

The Shkreli 'meme' isn't a single image macro so much as a running character. Screenshots of his smug facial expressions, clips of him pleading the Fifth before Congress, and his stunt tweets attempting to buy Kanye West's album or interrogate Ghostface Killah became reaction fodder across Twitter and Reddit3. Journalists began describing anyone hiking drug prices as being 'Shkreli-like,' and pharma industry lobbyists eventually spent millions on ad campaigns trying to distance themselves from him4.

By 2017 his online persona had shifted from smug executive to full harassment case, culminating with a Twitter ban after he sexually harassed a Teen Vogue writer2. Even from federal prison he kept generating memes, running a business on a contraband cellphone and reportedly arguing with cellmates about grammar3.

Origin & Background

Platform
News media / Twitter (viral spread)
Date
2015

Shkreli launched the @MartinShkreli Twitter account in June 2011 while running the hedge fund MSMB Capital Management, quietly building a following of around 56,000 over the next few years3. The catalyst that turned him into a household name came on September 20, 2015, when The New York Times reported that his newly founded Turing Pharmaceuticals had bought the rights to Daraprim, a life-saving treatment for toxoplasmosis in HIV patients, and immediately raised the per-tablet price from $13.50 to $7503. The story went viral within hours, and Shkreli defended the hike on cable news and social media rather than backing down.

He doubled down on the villain role by launching a YouTube livestream channel on November 4, 2015, where he ranted, played video games, and gave off-the-cuff financial takes to viewers3. The 'Pharma Bro' meme fully clicked into place around this time, with Twitter users, news outlets, and even PhRMA lobbyists using the phrase as shorthand for pharmaceutical greed5.

How It Spread

On December 9, 2015, Bloomberg Businessweek revealed that Shkreli had won the auction for the sole existing copy of the Wu-Tang Clan album 'Once Upon a Time in Shaolin' for roughly $2 million, which fed the internet a whole new round of jokes and outrage3. Just over a week later, on December 17, the FBI arrested him at his Manhattan apartment on securities fraud charges tied to MSMB Capital and Retrophin, with U.S. Attorney Robert Capers accusing him of running his companies 'like a Ponzi scheme'1. Wu-Tang fans lit up Twitter the same day when a federal official noted no seizure warrant meant the album stayed with Shkreli1.

His meme-generating output kept accelerating through 2016. On February 4, 2016, he sat before the House Oversight Committee, smirked through questions, and pleaded the Fifth, producing GIFs that circulated for years3. A week later he publicly offered Kanye West $10 million, then $15 million, to buy the rights to 'The Life of Pablo' and shelve it, then claimed someone named 'Daquan' had scammed him out of $15 million in Bitcoin over the deal3. That August he announced a rap album, joked on Twitter that he had shot Harambe the Gorilla, and floated a poll asking whether drug prices should rise to fund the ape's resurrection3.

The next wave came in January 2017. Teen Vogue writer Lauren Duca posted a screenshot on January 5 of Shkreli DMing her to invite her to Donald Trump's inauguration, replying that she would 'rather eat my own organs'2. Three days later Shkreli swapped his Twitter avatar and header for a Photoshopped image of himself next to Duca and lyrics from All-4-One's 'I Swear,' prompting Duca to tag Jack Dorsey with 'how is this allowed'2. Twitter suspended his account hours later. Weeks after, on January 23, he launched a bare-bones website called Pharma Skeletons to accuse PhRMA member companies of worse price hikes than his own, writing that Marathon/Ovation 'invented price increases' and telling PhRMA CEO Stephen Ubl to 'look in the mirror'6. Fortune, Stat News, and Mediaite all covered the site within 48 hours45.

How to Use This Meme

The Shkreli 'format' is usually a reaction image or clip pulled from one of his high-profile moments: the smirking congressional hearing shot, the hoodie-and-headphones YouTube pose, or a screenshot of one of his more unhinged tweets. People typically deploy him as visual shorthand for corporate greed, smug punchable rich guys, or anyone accused of gouging customers. Quote-tweeting a story about drug prices with 'this you?' next to a Shkreli photo became a common convention, and the 'Pharma Bro' label often gets applied by news outlets to any executive caught doing a Shkreli-style price hike4.

Frequently Asked Questions