Recognizing this need, some apps have emerged in recent months to corner the market. “I’ve made maybe two memes total on my phone.” It’s the most straightforward paint app that you could possibly use,” he says. “On your phone, you’re never going to be able to do as much as you could as on a computer,” says Noam, who memes under the account who memes under the handle mspainttrash, is part of a group of meme makers that works exclusively in MS Paint. In the meantime, some memers have found the current suite of mobile applications so lacking that they choose to create their memes on desktop computers instead. I hope everyone's having a great weekend 😘😘Ī post shared by Beaux Berto on at 6:04pm PST It becomes really time-consuming.” PicsArt, another photo-editing tool, is a mainstay for many memers who use it to watermark their work, but is notorious for its distracting pop-up ads. “Sometimes things will shut down and be gone and I’ll have to start over.

“Losing my work has happened to me constantly,” says Andy, who has also relied on an app called InShot. Phonto, one of the most popular apps for making object-labeling memes, has a steep learning curve and is plagued with bugs. “Those big meme pages would make fun of us or call us weird niche members with the kooky fonts, but the whole scene has grown a lot in the past year,” says Loren, also known as Whiskey.rat.īut to create in this new genre of memes means to rely heavily on apps that were not built with meme creators in mind. “I’m 20, maybe because it’s a new thing, but I think younger people are into more absurd, surreal humor,” says Chris, who creates highly visual memes under the handle oung_nobody. “The average person has viewed so much of this content, their ability to understand the nuance within newer meme format has increased.” “The biggest difference is there’s way more information packed into most memes today than Impact-font memes,” says Cindie, who runs the meme account males_are_cancelled. Meme accounts that post more complex, artistic memes-including object-labeling memes, creative photo-editing memes, or memes with lots of text-have begun to gain popularity and online clout, and thousands of amateur meme accounts have sprung up, copying their style.Ī post shared by heck off supreme on at 10:48am PDT But over the past several months, there’s been a sea change in the meme community, according to several top memers. The most popular format for large meme pages is still one that looks like a tweet with an image attached: a photo or video on the bottom, Arial-font text on top, and a white background. I don’t think anyone is designing these apps to make the kind of weird post-dank memes that are being made now.” “It’s funny that there’s been this regression to something that’s actually less efficient because the style of memes has changed. “You’d only use one of those now to be ironic about how terrible they are,” Terry says. Unfortunately, as memes have evolved, the majority of top meme-making apps in Apple’s App Store have failed to adopt to more modern formats, rendering them semi-useless. Years ago, when classic macro-memes with Impact font-like Success Kid, Condescending Wonka, and Business Cat-became popular, there were tons of easy online meme generators. “You know the term bricolage? It’s basically making due. “It’s ad hoc,” says Terry, who runs the page socialpracticemafia and has used a slew of photo- and video-editing apps to make memes. “There’s not one app I can go to for everything I need, not even close.” “I use four apps to make a meme,” says Andy, who runs the Instagram meme page heckoffsupreme. As memes become increasingly visually complex, they’re forcing meme makers-from professionals who run massive pages, to amateurs, to those just starting out-to rely on a patchwork of unreliable photo-editing tools. Many large accounts on Instagram treat Twitter as a content-management system for laying out images with text, but that comes with huge limitations. “But for people who care enough about having memes perfect, it makes a difference.” (Like all members in this story, Alex runs her pages anonymously, and asked to be referred to by her first name only to protect her privacy.)Īs memes have increasingly dominated social platforms like Instagram, the methods for making them remain largely rudimentary.

“I don’t want to say it’s a competitive edge, because at the end of the day that’s not really what determines if a meme does well,” says Alex, whose pages have 5 million collective followers. She spent $3,000 on the project, which she says has saved her hours of time and frustration. Last year, Alex, a 19-year-old in California who runs a network of Instagram pages dedicated to publishing memes, became so frustrated with the current apps for making memes that she hired a developer to build her own.

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