Meme Economy

2016subcultureclassic

Published September 6, 2026

Meme Economy is a satirical Reddit subculture where users discuss internet memes using stock market jargon, calling early trends a BUY and peaked formats a SELL1. The joke started on /r/MemeEconomy in September 2016 and grew into a working mock exchange called NASDANQ, a monthly magazine, and a fictional currency called GoodBoyPoints1.

finance memessubreddit origin memesinternet meta memes2016 memesmemetics memes

Overview

Participants treat memes as fluctuating assets, posting screenshots of trending image macros or reaction formats with commentary like BUY when a joke is rising and SELL when it feels saturated1. The bit trades on the sober tone of financial news, applying commodity-market language to an art form with no monetary value1. Because the group runs on a fictional currency called GoodBoyPoints (GBP), no real cash changes hands, and the point is to sound like a knowledgeable insider commenting on trends3.

The community grew big enough to spin off supporting institutions. A voluntary developer team built NASDANQ, a mock meme exchange with an algorithm designed to price memes based on popularity and growth1. A monthly magazine called Meme Insider began publishing market commentary in the style of Forbes7, and a separate group launched MemeTrades.com as a Facebook-login meme brokerage8.

Origin & Background

Platform
Reddit
Creator
killameme7
Date
2016

The first recorded instance of talking about memes like stocks came on June 11, 2012, when Redditor HomeButton posted 'Mad Karma with Jim Cramer' to /r/AdviceAnimals6. The image macro edited a CNBC ticker from Mad Money to list trending Reddit jokes, captioned 'Dump all your karma in pictures of feet' as a nod to a foot photo that had hit the front page the day before6. The post pulled over 4,300 upvotes before archiving6.

The subculture became a real community on September 28, 2016, when user killameme7 created /r/MemeEconomy2. On October 17, 2016, moderator LuckyCosmos pinned a FAQ thread laying out how meme trading worked, introducing GoodBoyPoints as the subreddit's mock currency3.

How It Spread

By November 11, 2016, /r/MemeEconomy had 31,941 subscribers5. Traffic spiked during the Meme Renaissance of Me_IRL, when the source subreddit was pushing new formats out too fast for traders to price them, and again around the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election5. On January 9, 2017, user deros94 posted a widely shared report calling the early-2017 meme scene a 'barren wasteland' of rehashed ideas9, and the Daily Dot picked up the story, noting January was historically slow for memes5.

A day after the subreddit's launch, on September 29, 2016, Redditor Darkpitt registered NASDANQ.com and announced plans for a working meme exchange4. The Verge profiled the project on January 10, 2017, covering a 12-person team led by Brandon Wink and Ron Vaisman that was trying to build an algorithm to assign prices to memes1. NASDANQ formally incorporated as an LLC on February 22, 2017, then launched a closed beta on April 12, 20174. Two companion projects also went live that year: Meme Insider magazine on January 25 and MemeTrades.com on February 378.

How to Use This Meme

To join in, users typically post a trending image macro or reaction image to /r/MemeEconomy with a BUY/SELL/HOLD call and a short blurb of pretend-analyst commentary about the format's growth curve. Common conventions include treating early-stage formats as undervalued (BUY), oversaturated formats as ready to short (SELL), and rehashed formats as dead stock1. Prices are quoted in GoodBoyPoints, not real currency3.

Frequently Asked Questions

Meme Economy

2016subcultureclassic

Published September 6, 2026

Meme Economy is a satirical Reddit subculture where users discuss internet memes using stock market jargon, calling early trends a BUY and peaked formats a SELL1. The joke started on /r/MemeEconomy in September 2016 and grew into a working mock exchange called NASDANQ, a monthly magazine, and a fictional currency called GoodBoyPoints1.

finance memes subreddit origin memes internet meta memes 2016 memes memetics memes

Overview

Participants treat memes as fluctuating assets, posting screenshots of trending image macros or reaction formats with commentary like BUY when a joke is rising and SELL when it feels saturated1. The bit trades on the sober tone of financial news, applying commodity-market language to an art form with no monetary value1. Because the group runs on a fictional currency called GoodBoyPoints (GBP), no real cash changes hands, and the point is to sound like a knowledgeable insider commenting on trends3.

The community grew big enough to spin off supporting institutions. A voluntary developer team built NASDANQ, a mock meme exchange with an algorithm designed to price memes based on popularity and growth1. A monthly magazine called Meme Insider began publishing market commentary in the style of Forbes7, and a separate group launched MemeTrades.com as a Facebook-login meme brokerage8.

Origin & Background

Platform
Reddit
Creator
killameme7
Date
2016

The first recorded instance of talking about memes like stocks came on June 11, 2012, when Redditor HomeButton posted 'Mad Karma with Jim Cramer' to /r/AdviceAnimals6. The image macro edited a CNBC ticker from Mad Money to list trending Reddit jokes, captioned 'Dump all your karma in pictures of feet' as a nod to a foot photo that had hit the front page the day before6. The post pulled over 4,300 upvotes before archiving6.

The subculture became a real community on September 28, 2016, when user killameme7 created /r/MemeEconomy2. On October 17, 2016, moderator LuckyCosmos pinned a FAQ thread laying out how meme trading worked, introducing GoodBoyPoints as the subreddit's mock currency3.

How It Spread

By November 11, 2016, /r/MemeEconomy had 31,941 subscribers5. Traffic spiked during the Meme Renaissance of Me_IRL, when the source subreddit was pushing new formats out too fast for traders to price them, and again around the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election5. On January 9, 2017, user deros94 posted a widely shared report calling the early-2017 meme scene a 'barren wasteland' of rehashed ideas9, and the Daily Dot picked up the story, noting January was historically slow for memes5.

A day after the subreddit's launch, on September 29, 2016, Redditor Darkpitt registered NASDANQ.com and announced plans for a working meme exchange4. The Verge profiled the project on January 10, 2017, covering a 12-person team led by Brandon Wink and Ron Vaisman that was trying to build an algorithm to assign prices to memes1. NASDANQ formally incorporated as an LLC on February 22, 2017, then launched a closed beta on April 12, 20174. Two companion projects also went live that year: Meme Insider magazine on January 25 and MemeTrades.com on February 378.

How to Use This Meme

To join in, users typically post a trending image macro or reaction image to /r/MemeEconomy with a BUY/SELL/HOLD call and a short blurb of pretend-analyst commentary about the format's growth curve. Common conventions include treating early-stage formats as undervalued (BUY), oversaturated formats as ready to short (SELL), and rehashed formats as dead stock1. Prices are quoted in GoodBoyPoints, not real currency3.

Frequently Asked Questions