# Meme Economy 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 SELL[1]. 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 GoodBoyPoints[1]. ## Origin 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/AdviceAnimals[6]. 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 before[6]. The post pulled over 4,300 upvotes before archiving[6]. The subculture became a real community on September 28, 2016, when user killameme7 created /r/MemeEconomy[2]. On October 17, 2016, moderator LuckyCosmos pinned a FAQ thread laying out how meme trading worked, introducing GoodBoyPoints as the subreddit's mock currency[3]. - **Platform:** Reddit - **Creator:** killameme7 - **Date:** 2016 ## 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 saturated[1]. The bit trades on the sober tone of financial news, applying commodity-market language to an art form with no monetary value[1]. 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 trends[3]. 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 growth[1]. A monthly magazine called Meme Insider began publishing market commentary in the style of Forbes[7], and a separate group launched MemeTrades.com as a Facebook-login meme brokerage[8]. ## How It Spread By November 11, 2016, /r/MemeEconomy had 31,941 subscribers[5]. 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 Election[5]. On January 9, 2017, user deros94 posted a widely shared report calling the early-2017 meme scene a 'barren wasteland' of rehashed ideas[9], and the Daily Dot picked up the story, noting January was historically slow for memes[5]. A day after the subreddit's launch, on September 29, 2016, Redditor Darkpitt registered NASDANQ.com and announced plans for a working meme exchange[4]. 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 memes[1]. NASDANQ formally incorporated as an LLC on February 22, 2017, then launched a closed beta on April 12, 2017[4]. Two companion projects also went live that year: Meme Insider magazine on January 25 and MemeTrades.com on February 3[7][8]. ## How to Use 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 stock[1]. Prices are quoted in GoodBoyPoints, not real currency[3]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Meme Economy? A Reddit-born satirical subculture where users discuss internet memes using stock market jargon, treating trending formats like commodities to buy or sell[1]. ### Where did Meme Economy come from? Redditor killameme7 created /r/MemeEconomy on September 28, 2016[2], though the first meme-as-stock joke came from a 2012 image macro called 'Mad Karma with Jim Cramer'[6]. ### What does Meme Economy mean? It refers to treating memes as fluctuating assets, using calls like BUY and SELL to signal whether a format is rising or oversaturated, all priced in a mock currency called GoodBoyPoints[3]. ### How do you use Meme Economy? Users post trending meme formats to /r/MemeEconomy with financial-jargon commentary, or trade on mock platforms like NASDANQ and MemeTrades where memes are priced by an algorithm based on popularity[1]. ### Is Meme Economy still popular? The subreddit and its NASDANQ mock exchange were most active around 2016 and 2017, with news coverage from The Verge and the Daily Dot during that window[1][5]. ## References 1. [https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/10/14223264/meme-economy-reddit-stock-market]() 2. [https://www.reddit.com/r/MemeEconomy/]() 3. [https://www.reddit.com/r/MemeEconomy/comments/57xxdy/]() 4. [https://www.reddit.com/r/MemeEconomy/comments/54xrqt/]() 5. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/meme-economy]() 6. [https://www.reddit.com/r/AdviceAnimals/comments/uxlfa/]() 7. [https://www.memeinsider.com/]() 8. [https://memetrades.com/]() 9. [https://www.reddit.com/r/MemeEconomy/comments/6608r6/]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/meme-economy Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library