Create like a child, market like a scientist

7 childish marketing tactics that actually worked

Author

Jason Levin
June 22, 2025

“Create like a child, market like a scientist”

Sup nerds,

Whenever I show someone the behind-the-scenes of my operation they can’t believe it.

“I thought you were the silly meme guy.” 

Well, I am.

Yes I make memes for a living, but the only reason why I’ve been able to build a multi-million dollar business around silliness is because I take it so seriously.

Let me explain.

Last week, this clip from Tyler, the Creator went viral.

Tyler’s been a hero of mine since I was 15.

I partied at his festival in LA when I was 19.

The dude embodies “create like a child, edit like a scientist”. He dresses in goofy outfits. He drops jokes in his music. His music videos are absurd and borderline schizo. But his music is also Grammy award winning bangers. He’s been dominating music, fashion, and business for a decade and not stopping anytime soon. I think it’s that childish joy of creating that keeps him going. When you’re playing, you never want to stop.

During his Igor tour, he wore this wig during every show

Like Tyler, that mindset for me has solved so many things.

When I’m writing or making memes or filming videos, I’m playing. I’m in the moment having fun coming up with crazy ideas, not thinking too much about the final version. But when it’s time to edit or work on growth or monetization, it’s all business baby. I can flip the switch from goofball to intense motherfucker real fast (it scares people lol).

So that’s how I think about marketing.

Play like a child when you’re coming up with the crazy ideas. Then be a scientist when it comes to execution and tracking.

A few examples from my work:

#1 That time my dog was my CMO:  

So you know how dogs all pee on the same poles because they smell the urine?

And you know how when your dog is peeing, you have 30 seconds just standing around doing nothing. Well, I arbitraged on that boredom.

I followed my dog around New York to any poll he peed on and then posted stickers with funny dogs on them saying to check out my memes while your dog was peeing.

We saw signups to my meme software from it using link tracking software Dub.

Boom. My dog was officially my CMO.

#2 That time our posters for Duofucko went viral

Ok so you know how I built a fake app called Duofucko?

Well, I bought the domain duofucko.com and redirected it to the YouTube video for our first episode of Silly Valley Ventures.

Then I posted flyers all across Washington Square pointing people to try the new app at “Duofucko.com”. Then here’s the kicker. I spent $5,000 distributing the videos of us to meme pages hanging the flyers to different meme pages to push people to the domain all tracked using Dub.

The result?

Our YouTube series got a killer start (and we profited because we landed tens of thousands of sponsorships thanks to that vid!!!)

#3 Silly Valley link tricks

Ok as you can tell, I love playing with domain links.

For my show Silly Valley Ventures, I bought the domain “sillyvalley.vc” to make people think I actually had a VC fund.

Then I put it in my bio (boom).

THEN I assigned a few memelords to add it in their bio as Silly Valley Venture Fellows. If every VC firm can have a VC fellowship, why can’t my fake VC fund have one too?

The best part?

sillyvalley.vc goes right to our latest YouTube video.

How do I do that?

Again, another dirty automation with Dub. Every time I upload a new YouTube video to the Silly Valley playlist, a Zapier switches the sillyvalley.vc domain to the newest video’s link. It’s a quick way to get eyeballs on the newest vid every time new people click on the link in my bio.

#4 Silly Sponsors

Most businesses treat travel as a write-off.

Cool, you save money on taxes.

But wanna know what’s even better?????

Making money off your travel.

If you have a YouTube channel and can send cold DMs, then every business trip can be profitable with a quick sponsorship.

For example, I was on my 1-year anniversary trip to Sedona, AZ and I got a lead for a sponsorship that would’ve covered the whole trip. So I asked my wife if it’d be cool if we filmed for a day. Boom! We filmed a hilarious episode and it covered the whole trip.

Another example.

I just hired a engineer to Memelord.

He was at my place 2 weeks ago and we were talking about how we both wanted to go to the hacking conference Defcon in Vegas (it’s a big fucking deal). I said “I bet I can get a sponsor to pay in under 48 hours”. He didn’t believe me. Nailed a cybersecurity startup sponsor in 12 hours to cover the whole trip for us to film an episode!

Silly videos, smart business behind it.

#5 Free Tool Marketing

Remember the JD Vance meme craze?

My free JD Vance meme maker was behind 1000s of those memes. This free tool led to a) some percentage signing up for Memelord Technologies b) everyone getting added to my newsletter (maybe you???)

This is free tool marketing.

While these tools may seem silly, they’re just free ways to get new customers. It’s why every software company has 100 links at the bottom of their homepage (most are just free tools for SEO).

I’ve built a ton of other free tools that drive signups like:

If you want to build free tools, I wrote a good piece for HubSpot here about free tool marketing.

#6 Eating Smuckers jam for signups

For the last 3 years I’ve been working with startup Jam.dev.

Because their company’s name is jam, I decided to eat jam for everyone who followed the brand account.

For everyone who says viral stunts don’t get long-term users, read this tweet (someone found Jam from my stunt and was a user a year and a half later)

#7 LinkedIn shitposting

If you’ve been following my LinkedIn recently, you know it’s devolved into madness.

Why?

Because it fucking works lol.

I come up with silly ideas then I edit them like a scientist.

Then I see signups galore for Memelord Technologies and new watchers and subscribers for my YouTube series.

LinkedIn is the comedy platform of the future.

Remember: create like a child, market like a scientist.

I bet my entire career on silly marketing.

I wrote the book Memes Make Millions, I built a meme marketing software Memelord Technologies, I wake up and live it everyday with silly stunts.

But just know behind the silliness, there there’s a science to turning silliness into millions billions.

“ create like a child, market like a scientist.”

Memes of the Week

Thanks for reading nerds.

Create some cool shit this week.

Jason “The Memelord” Levin