Dear shitposter, Gaut here. Welcome back to all 1,800+ shitposting 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: Memes are Culture

💡 How ideas spread through memes.

Why I care so much about humor, and you should too.

WTF is a meme?

The word meme originated with evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976. By Dawkins’ definition, memes are cultural ideas that spread and repeat themselves across society. Fast forward ~50 years later, the Internet and the ever-changing sense of humor gave rise to the Internet meme, which serves as a mode of communication, a reflection of collective mindshare, and a tool to express critical thoughts.

Millennials might have invented memes, but they aren't *that* original.

With modern times come modern solutions – but satire and humor have been around for a while. Ancient Greeks were already doing it in their plays. Orwell, Voltaire, Dickens, and Banksy all figured it out too. The Internet just brought new methods and formats: images with text, videos, GIFs, and hashtags, and or even just phrases (like "that's based," as cringe as it sounds).

Information sUpErHiGhWaY

The speed at which they get created, and travel, has only increased. Within seconds of Will Smith slapping Chris Rock, hundreds have saved the moment, added a caption, and posted it across Twitter and Reddit. Within minutes, millions have seen the video, and caught on to the action.

Memes have superpowers:

1. Agents of change: Memes call things out for what they are. They are funny because they surface the truth. Basically "this is what everyone is thinking" but now it's out in the open for people to discuss, process, and change. Once you realize thousands or millions are thinking the same as you, you're more likely to be able to influence change.

2. Critique of the Status Quo: Some problems are hard to address, because they are very serious issues. Memes allow for that discussion to happen, and for the ice to be broken. They lower the barrier for anyone to participate in that discussion. It's not just reserved to high-brow society.

3. Thought Provoking: Memes give a fresh perspective on ideas, they might even help you change your mind on something. Memes carry a lot of information in context, but are dead simple to consume in just about a few seconds.

Congrats, you're doing your part in improving society by enjoying shitposting.

🐦 Tweets of the Week

Elon got pissed his engagement went down

There's something about people successfully faking they are Twitter employees. Jordan's tweet was seen by more than 7M people - so bad that the tweet got fact checked.

Nuclear Backpack

Artificial intelligence might just be taking your job soon - and Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI (the firm that created ChatGPT), is well aware of that.

Turns out even honest takes can become shitposts.

This is not even a shitpost, but Kevin O'Leary single-handedly created a new format for twitter memers by posting a god-awful take. Whenever the quote tweets surpass the number of retweets, you know you're in for a new copy-pasta. I'd recommending reading the QTs:

RyanAir frequently breaks out the shitposting

Not a single brand does it better than them. If you missed it, Sam Smith dressed up like this for the BRIT awards.

Not Financial Advice

Financial freedom is pretty simple, according to Vanessa.

Outsource your love

Jack Raines never fails to show Linkedin can also be a platform for the greater good.

📈 Creator on the Rise

@Ericzhu105

Eric is *literally* shitposting from the toilet. This 15 year old has grown to close to 10K followers on his Twitter account by posting on VC, startups, and tech trends. I would recommend you hit follow – give him a few months and he'll be on your timeline whether you like it or not.

In other news

Shitposting so good, it got fact checked.

Last week, I wrote about Soren Iverson, who grew from 1K to 30K followers in a month. Well, one of his shitposts on Uber offering the "hotbox" option blew up so hard that Reuters felt the need to fact check it. (screenshot of the article below)

Reply to this email: what makes a good shitpost?

Let me know your thoughts, I'm very curious for your opinion.

In the next posts, will be interviewing Shitposters that have accomplished stuff because of their memes. Let me know what type of content you'd like to see more and less of in this email!

Keep on Shitposting,

– Gaut