Thats How Mafia Works

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Thats How Mafia Works is a caption meme built around a suited cartoon businessman from Instagram ads for the mobile game Mafia City. Australian YouTuber Slazo pulled the line out of the ads in a December 2018 video, and his audience turned it into an ironic Reddit reaction template through 2018 and 2019.

catchphrase memesadvertising memesmobile game memesdeep fried memesreaction memes

Overview

Thats How Mafia Works is a caption meme built around a suited cartoon businessman from Instagram ads for the mobile game Mafia City. In the ads, the character points at scenes of in-game violence and delivers the line "That's how mafia works," which viewers turned into an ironic reaction template 3. The image works as a mock-serious punchline, often slapped onto anything considered edgy, tough, or absurd 5.

The format usually pairs a "level" progression joke with the businessman's declaration, riffing on Mafia City's own tiered ad style 5. It also became a fixture in deep fried memes and shitposts, where the low-res ad clip fits the pixelated, over-compressed aesthetic those communities favor 3.

How It Spread

From r/slazo the caption jumped to bigger communities. Redditor mat383 submitted a "That's How Mafia Works" post to r/memes 2, and Redditor ThatCandianJacket released a clean .png version that made template edits easier 3. That version fed the deep fried and shitpost circles, where recut variants kept surfacing.

Not long after, user GopnikMihail posted a version to r/dankmemes that pulled over 11,000 upvotes and 150 comments within days 4. The catchphrase ended up glued to the wider Mafia City meme wave, showing up in the comments of "level" jump edits and other Mafia City jokes 3.

How to Use This Meme

The typical build places the businessman screenshot at the bottom of a "before/after" or "level up" progression and adds the caption "That's how mafia works" underneath 5. Users often pair a low-tier example with a high-tier one, or drop the line as a sign-off on a Florida Man post or an edgy clip 3.

Frequently Asked Questions

Thats How Mafia Works

2018image macrodeclining

Thats How Mafia Works is a caption meme built around a suited cartoon businessman from Instagram ads for the mobile game Mafia City. Australian YouTuber Slazo pulled the line out of the ads in a December 2018 video, and his audience turned it into an ironic Reddit reaction template through 2018 and 2019.

catchphrase memes advertising memes mobile game memes deep fried memes reaction memes

Overview

Thats How Mafia Works is a caption meme built around a suited cartoon businessman from Instagram ads for the mobile game Mafia City. In the ads, the character points at scenes of in-game violence and delivers the line "That's how mafia works," which viewers turned into an ironic reaction template 3. The image works as a mock-serious punchline, often slapped onto anything considered edgy, tough, or absurd 5.

The format usually pairs a "level" progression joke with the businessman's declaration, riffing on Mafia City's own tiered ad style 5. It also became a fixture in deep fried memes and shitposts, where the low-res ad clip fits the pixelated, over-compressed aesthetic those communities favor 3.

How It Spread

From r/slazo the caption jumped to bigger communities. Redditor mat383 submitted a "That's How Mafia Works" post to r/memes 2, and Redditor ThatCandianJacket released a clean .png version that made template edits easier 3. That version fed the deep fried and shitpost circles, where recut variants kept surfacing.

Not long after, user GopnikMihail posted a version to r/dankmemes that pulled over 11,000 upvotes and 150 comments within days 4. The catchphrase ended up glued to the wider Mafia City meme wave, showing up in the comments of "level" jump edits and other Mafia City jokes 3.

How to Use This Meme

The typical build places the businessman screenshot at the bottom of a "before/after" or "level up" progression and adds the caption "That's how mafia works" underneath 5. Users often pair a low-tier example with a high-tier one, or drop the line as a sign-off on a Florida Man post or an edgy clip 3.

Frequently Asked Questions