Dude, Where's My Fridge?

One day you’re posting pictures of strangers refrigerators online. The next day you’re throwing parties sponsored by million dollar brands.

That is the life of Dillon Shipper, creator and Chief Fridger of Instagram community Dude Fridges. Dillon started the meme page back in 2022 as a side project, grow it with memes, and turned it into a real life festival.

In his day job, Dillon is working with viral Instagram meme pages you definitely has seen before. He is a frontline witness how memes can make you millions.

I talked to Dillon about how he got the idea for Dude Fridges and how he uses memes to grow it (he’s a Memelord Technologies user), working and collabing with meme pages, his secrets to throwing a successful event, and advice for people with quirky ideas but too afraid to start.

Read until the end guys. It’s a good one.

Jovian: Are you in Colorado now?

Dillon: Well, I was supposed to get this elbow injury checked out—it flared up again. I’m not really sure what’s going on, but that’s why I’m headed to the doctor.

It stinks. The pain shoots down my hand, part of it’s numb. And I’m like, man, these are the moneymakers right here [flicks thumbs like texting].

Those are some million-dollar fingers alright. By the way, what’s in your fridge right now?

Right now I’m at my sister’s apartment, so… a normal fridge. Pretty standard stuff. But I will say this: there’s some Chinese takeout in there.

Okay, so that is a Dude Fridge.

Yeah, I guess that qualifies. I was impressed that they’ve got a big bag of shredded cheese, which is basically a Dude Fridges essential. I’d say the Holy Trinity is beer, shredded cheese, and pickles.

What’s the most interesting thing you’ve seen in a Dude Fridges submission? I saw one where someone had a pair of Converse in there.

Someone did that, yeah. Gave me the perfect caption: “Is your fridge running?”

Oh, that’s so good.

One that sticks with me.. someone sent in a photo straight out of a cartoon. He had a stack of pancakes two or three feet high. Like, Tom and Jerry level ridiculous.

And then there was one I found online where this guy had one of his fridge drawers filled with water and live fish.

Like, real fish? Swimming in the fridge?

Yeah. That one wasn’t a submission, I just stumbled across it.

So you started Dude Fridges in 2022 as a side project. Why fridges?

I’ve always been fascinated by how much a fridge says about a person.

You can tell if they like to party, if they’re health-minded, a gym bro, vegan—whatever. It’s a little peek into their life and what they consume.

Dude Fridges really took shape during COVID lockdowns. We couldn’t go to bars, so we just rotated between friends’ apartments. 

And every time I went to grab a beer or a snack, I noticed what’s inside. Some fridges were just beer, others had vegetables, or chicken and protein shakes.

I thought, this is interesting. What if there was a community where people submitted their fridges, and others could rank them, judge them? It could be an honor to make the page and have everyone either praise or diss your fridge.

When you started Dude Fridges, did you have a goal?

There really never was a goal. I always thought it was a good slash funny idea, and it just kept coming back to me.

I first thought about it during the COVID lockdown era in 2020, and finally started the Instagram page in 2022. It took me two years to actually make the account and start posting. I was so busy with my last job, so it was always at the bottom of the priority list. And the more burned out I got the more I kept thinking about this idea.

That’s the beauty of the page: it wasn’t making money, it was just something I enjoyed posting on and I loved every part of it.

My full time job itself…I wasn’t passionate about. Loved the people, but not the work. Dude Fridges made that job better because I had something on the side I cared about. Something that was fully mine. My baby.

So I always encourage people who have that creative itch or idea to experiment with it.

Maybe it won’t make you money day one, but it can give you a mental boost. That feeling of, “You know what? I’m good at this. I like this more.” 

That’s what happened to me. I realized I was funny on the internet

It’s so much better to pair something you enjoy with your day-to-day than to wake up dreading work. And all of that came from starting a little side page.

You too can make your job more fun with memes. Whether use it for a side project or actually convince your boss to use memes, Memelord Technologies is the tool for you.

Dillion also told me how he grew the Dude Fridges community with memes, and how it became a real life festival. Keep reading to find out.

So I scrolled back on the Instagram page, and by your third or fourth post, it’s basically just memes. How did you figure out, “Oh, I’ll just do memes to grow this page”?

I think part of me always wanted to be in the meme space.

I saw the proof early on. Posting memes was what got me followers and helped the page grow. 

I grew up following meme pages Doing Things owns now, like Shithead Steve, Trashcan Paul, FuckJerry, Grape Juice Boys, Boys Who Can’t Cook…

One of my favorites is Rad Dad.

That’s an account I’ve worked with too.

I’ve been consuming memes forever. When I started Dude Fridges, I finally had the perfect vehicle to post and make them. 

I’ve always loved memes, so it’s no surprise I was quick to add them to the page.

Are you always the meme guy in the group chat?

I’m one of them. I’m in group chats with people who are way funnier than me. We do a lot of home-cooked memes.

We use Snapchat a lot. It makes it easy to do quick Photoshops, like putting people’s faces on things. I get inspired by my friends and family all the time. My sister’s hilarious too. I credit a lot of my surroundings for me being funny.

When you say home-cooked memes, you mean it’s not just grabbing a template and adding captions. You’re doing crazier stuff with it.

Oh yeah, a lot of face-swapping, really going in on each other. We’ll put your actual face into the meme.

High-effort memes. You’re committing to the bit.

I have one friend who will go absolutely crazy with it. Full detail, just for the bit.

How different is the content creator brand partnership landscape back in 2022 and now, in the year of our lord 2025?

I can only speak from my vantage point. The difference now is that, with Dude Fridges being bigger, I’m in a position where people are asking me for collabs. I’ve kind of hit that point where the page is legitimized—big enough that people are more willing to work with me.

I’m not sure if the overall landscape has changed that much, but the downstream, really fun part of t getting big is using the page to connect with other memers, becoming friends online, and then working together.

A coworker of mine has a New York–focused meme page that we just collaborated on. I also connected with another guy who runs a music-focused meme page, and we collaborated too. He just hit 100,000 followers.

It’s shifted from me asking people, “Hey, can I pay for a collab?” to, “Hey, let’s connect.” Then we become friends, and eventually we work together. You can tap into my community, I can tap into yours, and maybe there’s some crossover.

It also challenges you to be creative. It makes you think: how do you intersect a music meme page with a fridge meme page?

Speaking of collabs—what was your first paid sponsored post or collab? Was it Hungry Jack?

Yeah. It wasn’t even paid though.

Oh, really?

Yeah, that was all outreach and totally free. They were just down to do a collaboration giveaway with the page. I did get some free Hungry Jack stuff, but no check. Still, it was my first brand collab.

How do you set the price for paid collabs?

Honestly, it depended on the vibes. The meme space is kind of the Wild West—even now.

I’d do some market research by asking friends in the community what they charged, but everyone is different. So pricing came down to: what’s my time worth?

Sometimes I’d go cheaper if it was a bigger brand I wanted to hook in, because there’s value in attaching their name to mine. But i’d be lying if I say there’s a formula or rhyme to it. It’s just what both parties can agree on, and that’ll look different for every brand.

Part of why I started the Dude Fridges was to promote brands I’m genuinely passionate about, and to work with up-and-coming ones too. I’ve worked with Hidden Valley Ranch, Arizona Tea, Twisted Tea, Grillo’s Pickles… and then there’s this new hummus company called Habiza.

It’s founded by a 23-year-old who’s iterating on his grandma’s recipe, and honestly, it’s the best hummus I’ve ever had.

He gets the meme space, he’s very online, and I think that’s what’s going to separate him from the rest. 

He’s hungry, and I think he’s going to destroy other brands.

That’s been a fun brand to work with, and one I’ve given lower pricing to because I believe in them.

The product's great. They get it. They're cool people,

If you could create a new parody account from scratch, what would you start?

Well, I actually did start one called Dude Rooms, but I ended up canceling it.

That’s a really good idea.

I grew it from zero to around 13 or 14k in about a year. I liked it, and a lot of people already saw me as the “Dude Guy” through Dude Fridges, so it made sense to try. But it became too much to build that alongside Dude Fridges.

I decided to go all in on the one that was already making money. With my other job, where I also manage pages, I just don’t have the time and resources.

I know you interviewed Charlie Light, who’s constantly spinning up new parody accounts. I have a lot of respect for him because it’s hard.

I think he’s actually a schizo so that’s what exactly what his mind is like.

Let’s talk about your job at Doing Things. Did you get the job because of Dude Fridges?

100% yeah. Dude Fridges was basically my resume.

The big timeline goes like this: I started Dude Fridges, then at the end of 2022 I got laid off from my real estate job.

After being laid off, I decided not to rush into another corporate job. I wanted to learn the meme business landscape—who the big players were, who was making money, how they were making it, and who the actual people behind these businesses were.

By the end of 2023, the page had about 40–50k followers, I’d started doing partnerships, and I was making money.

With those brand deals I thought, “Alright, if brands are coming to me at these price points, there’s a real business here.”

I met the co-founder of Friday Beers in Austin. I never applied there, but we had a great conversation and I learned their story. I got in touch with the FuckJerry team, interviewed for a couple roles, and even though it didn’t work out, I gained a lot of respect for them.

Through my research I found Doing Things Media and realized how many pages they were running.

Dude, I was looking at Doing Things Media’s landing page and thought, “Wait, these are the pages I follow on Instagram.”

Exactly. They run household, huge names. It’s been so fun to be part of that. You mentioned Rad Dad, that’s a newer page I’ve been helping on, and I think at some point I’ll do even more with it. 

What I love about the company is it’s full of people who are funnier than me, super creative, and genuinely nice. 

They all have their own meme pages, which makes total sense—why not hire people who’ve already built their own communities?

So how did you meet with the Doing Things team?

Long story short, I had a mutual connection with one of their team members—through my sister and a friend. That led to a meeting with her and her boss, Sam, one of the VPs. It was really just to chat about Dude Fridges and potentially working together.

My goal in that meeting was simple: I want them to know that I exist.

We ended up signing an agreement where they could pitch my page for brand deals if needed. I still fully own the page. It’s a small thing, but I achieved my goal: “Alright, they know who I am. They know I exist.”

Fast forward to when I got laid off. That same girl posted about some corporate jobs at Doing Things Media, and I thought this would be cool. 

I applied for those roles, went through the interview process, didn’t get them—but I got to know the team better, and they got to know me. I wouldn’t call those rejections failures.

Later, a creative role opened up. It was a part-time branded team role at first, then a more permanent full-time position. I just attacked that and got the gig.

So yeah, I got the job by learning the meme and business landscape, figuring out what I wanted to do next, and using Dude Fridges to get that clarity.

Now you’re working with different brands and pages, have you ever had a brand partnership that didn’t work well?

The nice part is, most of my meme collaborations have gone well. It’s more when you incorporate a giveaway that things sometimes don’t work out. 

I don’t think giveaways are the best growth strategy, but they’re something you can have in your arsenal.

My advice, if you go that route—and I’ve had partnerships not work out because of this—is make sure the brand actually invests in a good giveaway prize. If you’re going to do a giveaway, make it something cool that people actually want.

Think about it: do you really want to take time out of your day to comment for a koozie and a hat? If you’re doing a giveaway, make it cool. Make it big. I’d rather less money go to me and have more invested into the prize.

If I’m doing a giveaway for s, it would be a really nice mini fridge, customized with a brand. People would love to repost and leave a comment for that. it’s a cool room accessory. 

It’s actually on my list to explore one day: making a s fridge. Maybe with secret compartments or something like that.

Hold on, why is a giveaway not necessarily your favorite growth strategy for meme pages?

I just think it could potentially attract not real fans. You get people that follow you just to win a fridge or whatever it is you’re giving away.

It can be nice to bump those metrics and numbers up, but at the end of the day, if you're a good brand, it's really more so about engagement than views. 

Who actually engaging with the community? Who's liking, and commenting? What rate is that going at? 

If you just look at follower count, you're kind of behind on the times. It’s still a way to build followers, but would you rather have followers or fans? 

Why are meme pages so successful? Because people love to engage with funny stuff. It’s like having inside jokes with a

Want to get loyal fans with memes? Subscribe to Memelord today.

If you can make someone laugh, you can make friends.

When I met you for the first time, my impression was: “Oh, this is an event guy. A community guy. A man of the people.” Then I learned about Fridge Fest. At what point did you think, “There should be an event based on this Instagram meme page”?

If I’m being 100% honest and transparent, it really started because I just wanted another fun new way to get drunk with my friends.

As a company expense too.

Yes, and have a brand pay for it [laughs]. Jokes aside, it’s also a genuinely fun new way for a brand to promote a product they want to push.

For me, it started with, “I want to throw a party. How can I make it happen?” Dude Fridges was the perfect avenue. I could do something fun, different, and unique, while promoting a product in a way that didn’t feel cringe.

For the first Fridge Fest in 2023, Duke’s Mayo was the title sponsor. No one had ever seen a mayo party before, with DJs, free drinks, a bar tab, and a fridge theme. It was so different that people were instantly intrigued.

I’ve done it the past two years, and the growth has been crazy. The first one had around 180 people. The second was 500 something.

I’m fine if it stays around that size, but I just want to keep making it a unique, fun night for people and give brands a chance to promote a really cool product.

2025 Fridge Fest coming soon?

I’m hoping it is. I was just talking with Jason about it. 

Yeah, I want to make sure it happens this year. Whether that’s with Memelord Technologies being a partner, or having a fitting brand on the other side. 

I think it makes the most sense to have some kind of food, condiment, or beverage involved. With it being a fridge, it’s such a natural promotion.

I don’t want the right sponsor to feel forced. Y’all and Memelord fit perfectly, and pairing that with an actual physical product would be really cool. We’ll see what date it lands on, because I don’t want to rush it. I want it to happen the right way.

The other part is…I love AI and I use AI. I’m all about embracing it. I think it’s like our generation’s internet or personal computer. If you’re not learning it, you’re falling behind.

But the one thing AI can’t take away is the in-person experience. That feeling of celebrating, meeting someone, connecting. 

Yes, there’s VR and other ways to meet people, but it’s totally different face-to-face. That’s why I like to stay involved in throwing events like this, because I think it’s important in the age of the AI boom.

Yeah, ChatGPT cannot replace getting wasted with the boys. 

Exactly.

What do you think is the key to a successful event?

For me, the mentality I try to keep with a lot of things I do is putting myself in either a follower, friend, or potential customer’s shoes.

What would I actually want to spend money on or come to? It’s keeping that mindset of what’s actually cool.

I think some people just go through the motions of events and parties and have pizza because you’re supposed to have pizza at parties. It’s just so common.

With my events, it’s about creating environments. Like, who are some music people I actually want to hear?

Last Fridge Fest, I flew out a DJ from New York that had somewhat of a big name, but itreally didn’t draw much of a crowd. I could have re-budgeted that DJ money into making the event even crazier.

I always hated parties where there’s a dress code or you have to wear this or that, so my parties are more focused on the venue being themed and on creating the environment.

You come how you want to come, but here are the cool features that are going to be there—like getting a brand to pay for the bar tab. I’ll come for free drinks too. Who doesn’t like that? 

That’s been a big incorporation at my parties: cool merch, free drinks, good music. I had food trucks at the last one, so if people wanted to take a break and grab a bite from a truck, that was a really cool feature. 

Instead of just getting pizza delivered, we had actual trucks outside.

So that’s just my long way of saying, I think the key is just keeping the mindset of, “What would I actually want to come and see?” as opposed to following the typical party common rules.

I think marketers always have this worry of, “Will people come to my event?” Do you still have that kind of anxiety?

Yeah, it’s funny,I still get that for sure. 

I think it’s always there. But there’s a lot of psychology with how this stuff works, which I’ve started to learn from other event guys.

There’s a guy here in New York I befriended whose entrepreneurial business is running his own event series. He’s fully immersed in the event side of things, and he’s been a huge resource for me.

One thing I learned from him is that the best way to get rid of that worry is by actually selling physical tickets, as opposed to doing free RSVP events. Even if it’s just a $10 ticket, there’s a fee associated with it.

With free RSVP events, there’s more anxiety because it’s free. It’s very non-committal.

It’s easy to say yes, and it’s easy to say no.

Exactly. But if you pay 20 bucks, people start thinking, “Do I really want to let that 20 bucks slide? Maybe I can at least bring someone for half an hour…” It creates some commitment.

With Fridge Fest, I’m still at the stage where I prioritize throwing a kick-ass party over making money. So for the first Fridge Fest, I was like, “Let’s make it free! I want people to come!”

But my friend Ryan was the one who originally advised me: “I get that, but you make it easier for people to bail. Just make it super cheap.”

Some people might still not come, but it puts them on the hook. When you’ve actually paid, it’s harder to skip. I’ve seen about 85 to 90% of people who bought tickets eventually show up to the party.

Do you actually sell physical tickets? Or just digital?

We use (online ticketing app) Posh. It’s great for this.

Having paid tickets really helped with the anxiety of wondering if people will show up. Because if they’re paying for tickets, they’re more likely to come.

My mentality with ticket sales has changed from RSVP to, “Alright, you can make it $10… or $18,” which is my favorite price because it’s a big number in Judaism.

Alright, that’s a good segue. You’re also starting another community in Austin, with the Schmooze Club. My boss is Jewish, so he’d love this plug.

[laughs] Yeah, for sure.

How do you think about growing this community? It’s a hyperspecific community, so to speak.

Building this comes from me being super passionate about my Jewish identity. Both my parents are Jewish. I went to a Jewish day school until eighth grade. I’ve been to Israel twice. It’s a big part of who I am, and I credit a lot of the good in my life to being Jewish.

For me, it’s been a fun way to bring something I’ve always thought about to life. In Austin, the landscape is such that the only Jewish communities are run by older people or directly tied to a big organization. No one was really serving the 20–30-something demographic with cool events.

So we wanted to step in and make something we’d actually want to go to, because no one else was providing it. It was hard to do that when I was at my old job, but now that I’m working online, I can schedule things more fluidly.

Similar to building Dude Fridges, with Schmooze Club I’m doing something that energizes me, and I don’t feel so dead by the end of the day.

It’s also a way of giving back and making my community better. So we’ll see what happens.

I think a lot of people are currently sitting on a quirky, slightly weird idea for content or community, like you had for Dude Fridges. What would you say to them?

I’m by no means a pioneer in saying this, but sometimes the clichés are just so damn true: if you have an idea and don’t know how to start it, just make it exist first, then make it better.

I remember how I started the page: I woke up one day and got the handle. Then it hit me: it took me two years just to do that part, to sign up and get the handle.

After I got the handle, I stopped again because I was trying to craft it perfectly. I kept pondering on, “Alright, how do I want this to look?” But I wasn’t posting at all for a couple of weeks.

Then my sister’s friends texted me: “Dillon, I followed this account and there’s nothing there. You’re not posting.” And I was like, damn, you’re right. I’ve gotta just start posting one thing, the same way I just went and got the handle.

I didn’t know that memes were good for growing the page before I posted my first meme. From there, I learned, “Oh, that does super well. I should be incorporating more memes on the page.”

You’re not going to learn until you just start doing. With Dude Fridges, I sat on it for two years trying to perfect it. It was always, “Oh, I’ll worry about this next week,” but time really goes by. 

I’d go through stages of asking friends and family, “Is this actually funny?” And it would just keep coming back to me. I even mentioned it during COVID, and people started sending me fridge pictures before the page even existed.

For me, I got to the point where I thought, if I don’t try this out, I’ll be on my deathbed wondering, “Why didn’t I just try it?”

Sometimes it hits you. You start thinking, “Man, I need to try this out”, because you just never know.

I mean, I am where I am today because I literally posted refrigerator pictures on the internet. 

I’m so grateful I tried, because now I get to wake up every day pumped about what I’m working on with Doing Things, pumped about building Dude Fridges and working with the brand partners there, pumped about building Jewish communities with Schmooze. I have three different things I work on every day that bring me joy.

That never would have happened if I didn’t just make this crazy idea exist first and make it better later. 

Just try things out, and the worst that happens is it doesn’t work out and you move on to the next one.

That’s a great message. Thank you so much Dillon. Can I join the Schmooze club by the way? I’m Asian but I’m Jewish at heart. This is the whole goal of this conversation.

Hell yeah we'll take you.

That is how Dillon Shipper paved his way into the million dollar meme industry by posting fridge pics online.

Are you currently sitting down on a meme page idea, but not sure where to start? We’re building the tool to help you do what Dillon does. Pro tip: don’t wait two years to get a handle.

You can follow Dude Fridges on Instagram to see what new fridge memes they’re cooking.

If you like this piece, I’d love to hear from you! Follow me @jovvvian or hit me up on LinkedIn if you’re nasty.