Dear shitposter, Gaut here. Welcome back to all 2,400+ humor enthusiasts of Shitposting Works, a weekly email where I cover the week's best trends, memes, and the topic of shitposts across the internet. 

☣️ scroll past this thought-boy section you just want to see this week's memes ☣️  

Post of the Week: Do Anons make better memes?

💡 The rise of the Anonymous memelord.

WTF is an "anon"?

Anonymous individuals, also known as "anons" are people that take part in discussions on the internet, but without revealing their real identities. Examples range from those that post on Blind and Reddit, all the way to people that create entire personas and characters far from their original "real" selves on platforms like Twitter.

We've also seen the rise of a different flavor of anon, the "pseudoanon," or someone that obfuscates a few layers of their identity, maybe just through their online name or without revealing their appearance, but sometimes still doxxing* themselves or making it relatively easy to trace back their real identities. 

*doxxing – revealing the identity (typically used in the context of "doxxing someone else" i.e. revealing their identity without that person wanting you to)

Why are we talking about Anons?

I think anons and pseudoanons have their part in the rise of the internet's meme culture (sometimes negatively so), and I spent some time unpacking it for this issue of shitposting works.

Anons often make great content creators

Anonymity comes with many perks. It allows the content creator to truly practice their "freedom of speech" (at times far too much, if you ask me), and lean into their ideas. In turn, this generates stronger debates, brings to light more complicated issues, and allows people to speak their truth. The blind app (where employees can anonymously post about their experiences working for a company) is a perfect example of that.

In the context of shitposting and memes, Anons/Pseudoanons thrive: 

1. Their persona takes the lead of the brand: The fictional identity can really take a life of its own - oftentimes far different from the creator's real-life identity. Almost like the creator can explore different perspectives and roles without having to take a stance from their real name. This allows the persona to have its own opinion, form its own history, and drive the image of the content that is being published. They can build tailored content for a tailored audience.

2. They can be controversial: In this case, "controversial" in the sense that they can more freely spark debate. Opinions aren't lacking, but someone to spark the debate is. Anons don't fear of bringing up a controversial topic (without necessarily taking a stance while doing so), and are most often the ones that do.

3. They create lore and intrigue: The phrase "don't meet your heroes" is what I have in mind here. The anon shitposting memelords are most likely very different in real life than what you think they are. People love mystery and intrigue. If the content is good, the persona behind the content will often see lore built around them by the community.

4. They create communities: At scale, these anon creators will literally create spaces for their followers to organize around the niche they cover. I'll share some examples of anons in this post.

Some anons have created fascinating things. Think Satoshi Nakamoto with Bitcoin, Banksy with street art, the "Anonymous" hacker/activist group.

Anons also come with their obvious risks

It's no surprise that anonymity is both a blessing and a curse from the standpoint of online communities. They are double-edged swords. 

Things like harassment, cyberbullying, fraud/scams, misinformation, and stalking all come to mind when thinking about anons. With privacy comes the ability to do things people would never do without their real names attached to them.

It's my personal opinion that I much prefer pseudoanons because they still have the personal brand reputational damage to defend – rather than just people who can "get away with anything" by hiding behind complete privacy. Although today, I suspect even the most privacy-savvy folks would have difficulty not leaving a perfectly clean trail.

What are some examples of anons/pseudoanons creators?

• VCBrags: calls out Venture Capitalists who are bragging on the internet. Easier to piss off the entire VC category without them knowing your real name.

• Inversebrah: notorious for being tagged in any funny event in the crypto ecosystem. People will follow this little green creature for the sole purpose of keeping up with the space and interactions between people.

• ParikPatel: hilarious creator that has done an elite job at building a persona that everyone knows and loves.

• Shl0ms: an artist that has used pseudoanonimity to push the boundaries of his craft.

• Reply to this email: Who's your favorite anon?

☣️ this is the end of the thought-boi section ☣️  

🐦 Tweets of the Week

SEC coming down on Church. 

In case you missed it, the SEC sued a Mormon Church - You can assume what happened next, the memes:

OpenOpenAI?

Daniel is one of the two masterminds behind the viral twitter layoff video that caught the media last year. He's also a deep thinker as exemplified by this tweet.

Elon remains a god tier shitposter

Love him or hate him, at least he's honest and good at shitposting.

In the name of science

Just.. go see the quote tweets on this one.

Monetize everything

I love Jordan because he takes the creation to the next level. Literally made it live on his iPhone instead of a lazy figma mockup (like mine). 

I hope this is a shitpost?

Just.. read the tweet. You'll understand why.

I'm desperately trying to not include Soren, but the tweets are too good.

I just imagine this notification pop up on my phone. I think I would let the dasher take a bite. 

Bear market

Things look rough for everyone out there these days, even the Four Seasons.

Swing and a miss

This account is full of hilarious posts. This one caught my eye this week.

📈 Creator on the Rise

@Jack_Raines

Jack Raines is awesome. Besides having an amazing finance newsletter (which I recommend checking out here), Jack is also the pioneer of Linkedin shitposting. Example below: 

I made this one a bit longer, what did you think? Also, who are your favorite anons?

A bit of a chunky-er read this time around, with more memes as well. Was it enough? Too much? Let me know by replying! See you next week, my dear memers.

Keep on Shitposting,

– Gaut