The Memelord Cinematic Universe

Sup nerds,

I’m a creative dude. I need to be in my zone building my world as much as possible.

So that’s why I try to avoid any extra time spent on headaches like paperwork, accounting, and doing my taxes (wait, aren’t those optional….?)

Ok so you know how Marvel has the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

All the Marvel characters are part of the same “universe” where plots coexist. Some are more prominent than others (ie. Iron Man is more prominent than HawkEye or Black Widow) but they’re all part of the same universe, right?

The best brands do the same thing.They build their own cinematic universe full of characters, subplots, sets, stories, and lore. That’s the same thing I’m doing.

Your brand probably needs more lore.

Lore is backstory. Lore is myth. Lore is everything.

Think about Harry Potter.

The entire 7-book, 8-movie, multi-billion-dollar series is built on lore and backstory: Harry’s parents getting killed by Voldemort, Harry being forced to live with cruel aunt and uncle, the prophecy that Harry and Snape can’t live at the same time, James and his friends, Snape’s love for Lily, etc. The entire book is lore and backstory and that’s why people love Harry Potter so much to the point of getting tattoos. The lore brings you into the world. The best brands and creators do the same thing.

Where did JK Rowling write her notes for Harry Potter? On a napkin on a train. Where did Apple start? A garage of course. Did people call Elon a genius when he started building Tesla? No they called him crazy. What did Amazon start with? Books. How many beats a day did Kanye make? “5 beats a day for 3 summers”. How did $250B co Palantir get started? Because the PayPal team built an algorithm to track fraud.

The list goes on.

Lore is everything.

To build your own cinematic universe, you need lore. That’s step 1.

Then you need a universe full of characters.

The Barstoolification of Business

Love Barstool or hate it, they did a great job building a cinematic universe.

This is what I like to call The Barstoolification of Business. You’ve got a main character, supporting actors, a set, subplots, stories, and lore.

For Barstool, there’s Dave Portnoy. He’s Iron Man complete with a dramatic near-death backstory of going from rags to riches (Dave went bankrupt from a gambling debt in his early 20s and worked his ass off to build Barstool and get rich again). And of course, then there’s a bunch of other Barstool characters like the goofball Tommy Smokes and “Fat Cat”. Dave and all the Barstool Avengers all appear in sketches together, but at the end of the day it’s Dave’s show and everyone knows it. Dave is the main character of the Barstool Cinematic Universe.

Morning Brew did the same thing. Alex Lieberman is the “Iron Man” of Morning Brew (shoutout Alex, watch me and him talk about 20 unhinged startup ideas here) and his co-founder Austin Rief is like Captain America. Then there’s a ton of other Morning Brew Cinematic Universe characters like Dan Toomey, Toby Howell, Kyle Hagge, Macy Killiam, and more. The Morning Brew Avengers.

Pirate Wires is also doing the same thing. Mike Solana is the “Iron Man” of Pirate Wires (again shoutout to Mike, watch our pod together from last year here). But then there’s also dope side characters like the podcast producer Matt Marlinski (now my pod producer too), writers Kevin Chaiken, Riley Gaines, and Ashley Rinsberg—and they even did a “Pirate Idol” to see who would be the newest Pirate added!

Ok I know what you’re thinking.

“Barstool, Morning Brew, and Pirate Wires” are all “media companies”. Well folks, in today’s age every good company is a “media company”.

One of the best examples of a non-media company media company is Ramp, an extremely boring b2b finance SaaS that has become the hottest most talked-about startup in Silicon Valley thanks to the Ramp Cinematic Universe they built.

The Ramp Cinematic Universe has the main character founder Eric Glyman, but then there’s a whole cast of supporting characters: a young engineer on the team named Joowon who every single day tweets “Day #_ of asking Ramp for a raise”; Founders Podcast’s David Senra who starts every podcast with a Ramp ad talking about the importance of saving founders money; John Coogan and Jordi Hays from The Technology Brothers podcast that makes memes about Ramp and even wrote a hilarious song about Ramp; and oh yeah, this week they just added Saquon Barkley to the Ramp Cinematic Universe and dropped a Super Bowl commercial with him.

Building a cinematic universe is a must for a modern brand.

So obviously I’m doing it too.

7 ways I’m building the Memelord Cinematic Universe:

1. Sharing my adventures and backstory. Every TV show or book character needs a backstory to make you want to invest time and energy in them. So do you. I’ve shared all my failures and 10+ years losing online. I’ve shared the day-by-day play-by-play of how I quit my job and went founder mode. I’ve shared how I went viral in Paris and got turned into a meme. I share all my crazy adventures and stories. The good, the bad, the ugly. MORE LORE.

2. Do it for the plot. What weird subplot lines can you add to your “show” just for the hell of it? I’m not even talking about the normal day-to-day business stuff. I’m just talking about the weird plotlines that just make for fun content. I straightup acquired a goontech startup just because it would make funny content to promote my real money-making business Memelord Technologies. I literally committed to the bit so hard I acquired a startup.

3. Build the Memelord Mafia on X. There’s over 20 accounts (a mix of friends, employees, and partners) who have my memelord badge. Everyone with a badge is like a character in the Memelord Cinematic Universe. We’ve got a groupchat for coming up with dank memes, repost each other’s stuff, make memes with each other’s faces, and the girls in the group even started a memeladies podcast! MEMELORD CINEMATIC UNIVERSE!

4. Making clothes and merch. The Avengers have their superhero capes and costumes. The memelords got their Memelord Ventures vests.

5. Show behind-the-scenes. I filmed an office tour. I post screenshots from inside my team’s Slack and even blurred out email conversations with crazy customers. Show the behind-the-scenes of the “set” where the business is built and magic is made. The good, the bad, and the ugly and hilarious.

6. Bring up the same cast of friends. Rather than always finding new random guests, I bring my same friends on again and again. They’re part of the Memelord Cinematic Universe. Last week’s podcast with Jack Kuveke was his 2nd time on the show. We’re also doing a FREE workshop titled Memes, Schemes, and Millions on Wednesday! Memelord Cinematic Universe baby!

7. Design. From my newsletter Cyber Patterns’ cyberpunk design to my matching profile picture across socials to my retro Windows 95 design for Memelord Technologies to my YouTube covers, my brand is consistently cyberpunk internet. You’re in my universe. Build an initial brand concept (ex. cyberpunk, black and white, etc.) then build a world around it. Stay true to your vision and your world. The internet is like a movie set. Design it carefully.

How can your brand build a cinematic universe?

Thought experiment time:

• What lore can you share? I literally have a Notion page with all the crazy businessy stories from my life I can pull from. Do the same. Write down stories. Everything is possible content. The graveyard of business failures, the first time you made money online, all the good, the bad, the ugly. Share more lore.

• Who’s in your universe? How can you turn your investors, employees, and of course yourself into an entire cast of your business’s show? How can you help them grow on social media to help you build your cinematic universe?

Pretend you’re building a reality TV show around your world.

No one needs to know you think about it like that. In fact, don’t tell anyone because they might think you’re crazy or a narcissist! But start thinking of yourself as the main character of your startup’s TV show.

Don’t just post content, build a mofo universe.

Memes of the Week

MY MEMELORDS ARE MAKIN MOVES. Thank you Memelord Technologies!!

Thanks for reading nerds.

Create some cool shit this week.

Jason “The Memelord” Levin

Founder of Memelord Technologies, Author of Memes Make Millions

1  Yes it may look like I’m writing a lot, but what you don’t realize is I finally got the opportunity to do a big book proposal for a publisher and have been postponing it for months because of software. Writing is falling behind due to shipping. So it goes. The life of a memelord-writer-founder.