Hello? Meme Support? I Need to Get Viral

At first I saw him posting a barrage of unhinged memes and getting a reply from Elon Musk, and the next thing I know, he’s doing a livestream with me talking about memes in a balaclava.

Piet is a force of unhinged nature. The fastest finger in the West when it comes to combining the hottest online topics with trending meme templates. I once told him it blows my mind he doesn’t have 100,000+ followers yet.

Now he’s the Head of Meme Support at Memelord Technologies, and his mission is to help millions around the world be unhinged and make money through our affiliate program.

But what is Piet like as a person? How is he this funny? What advice does he have for others who want to become a Memelord?

I talked to Piet about his time writing comedy skits at a radio station, sharing memes as quality time with his wife, and prank calling Miss South Africa.

Jovian: [sneezes]

Piet: You still have the flu?

It's actually better now but yeah it sucks.. Okay let’s start, what's the oldest internet meme you can't remember?

Wow I have to dig deep… Let me think. It’s probably the troll face. Remember that?

That is old.

Oh yeah, yeah. That's very old. it's like from 2008 I think? so plus minus, but yeah, obviously, before then.

I think it’s like 2010 maybe?

When did the iPhone came out?

That's really good question. I think it's around 2007-2009? Golden age of memes I swear. Where did you use to browse memes back then?

It was Facebook and Twitter. I joined Twitter very early, when I was just out of school, and I actually had a different handle.

I used Twitter for like, a month or so, and then I eventually left it because there was no one from South Africa on it.

That is like, really early days.

Yeah, I signed up again in 2020 when the rumors started of Elon buying it, I think, if I'm not mistaken, but I actually only started posting around September last year.

Before that, did you post memes just for fun on any other platform? 

No, then it was just like a thing of group chats and friend.

I’m always the meme guy, I’ve always been the clown in the family. It started when I was a little man, I recorded my own news programs and stuff on a tape recorder. 

Oh really? What kind of news programs are we talking here?

I would make up my own news bulletins and stuff like that.

I wanted to become a journalist when I was in school. I wanted to cover wars and stuff, you know, like a war zone journalist.

As you can see now it didn’t happen [laughs]

After school, I went to England to work for two years, doing all these shitty jobs, and then I came back to South Africa, and then I played in bands, worked in a bar and stuff.

During this time, did you do any funny, humorous stuff?

Yeah, I brought my guitar with me to England and there were a lot of other South Africans there, and I did song parodies and stuff like that.

We got drunk, we sang, and just did silly stuff.

Was that how you got a job at the radio station?

Yeah exactly. I was a songwriter, guitar player…and I did it with another guy. We wrote songs together. He was pretty big, and I played guitar for him.

And then, like, at the end of shows, when we were all drunk or whatever, I’d do this little 15-minute set with parody songs and stuff like that.

One night, at one of the shows, a DJ from a radio station saw me and offered to have me start doing stuff with them on the radio. That was once a week. I think it was 2010 or 2011.

And by 2012, it became a daily thing. I did that until around 2017.

What was a typical day like?

It was a drive show..so the show was at four o’clock to seven at night.

My daily life was: get up around ten, sit around, wake up properly, then head to the radio station around noon. That’s when we’d start prepping for the day.

We’d go through the news, you know, start putting together segments. I did everything—parodies, prank calls, skits, all kinds of stuff.

Were you the broadcaster since the beginning? Or did you start by working backstage?

I was just part of the team. Every day we did something different.

Mondays were news roundups—real news, but we’d joke about it.

Tuesdays were for parody songs. Wednesdays were skits or prank calls. I pranked quite a few famous South Africans… like Miss South Africa at the time.

You pranked Miss South Africa?

Yeah. The prank was… I tried to bribe her to represent another country at the Miss World competition.

It was the day after she won Miss South Africa. And obviously, us radio people had all the contacts. You could pretty much phone anyone.

So I called her and said I was a representative from Miss Mauritius, and I offered her money to represent Mauritius instead of South Africa.

That’s fucking hilarious. What was her reaction?

Yeah, she was getting pretty irritated, and then she handed the phone to her manager.

This was a weekly thing. Like, every Monday I’d prank famous sports coaches and players.

I also once pranked a well-known South African rugby coach—told him we were selling timeshares, and if he lost, he’d get a weekend holiday or something like that.

Fun times.

Piet has now channeled his radio days unhingedness into the interned with the help of Memelord Technologies.

Guess what? You can do it too.

He also shares how he’s using the app to get meme inspiration. Keep reading and we’ll get to that.

You worked at the radio station, writing and performing comedy bits for like 7 years. Do you feel like you're more of a comedy writer or a performer now?

I’m definitely more behind the scenes—that’s what I enjoy. I don’t want to be in the public eye.

That’s why all my memes are anonymous. I don’t put my face online.

I see myself more as a writer. I’d never want to perform… unless I’m really drunk.

I feel like memes are a micro-version of comedy writing in a sense. Would you agree?

I would say yes. It’s a funny thing. It’s keeping my creative brain going, keeping it exercised.

After I left radio, I think my brain got a bit lazy. I went into business—very boring businesses—and it went fine. But it’s a whole different thing from being on air every day, thinking on your feet and all that.

So now, my creative outlet is memes and shitposting. I just post and don’t worry about it.

How would you describe your sense of humor?

I have a very niche sense of humor and I’ve made peace with it. I’d say it’s very, very dry satire. Like The Office, David Brent…

God, I love David Brent. Freelove Freeway is my jam.

Did you see his Princess Diana song? It’s pretty good. Anyway, that’s my sense of humor. I’m not a big slapstick fan, to be honest.

Interesting that you’re not a big slapstick fan. Because you’re really good at memes—and memes are kind of slapstick, I think.

I don’t really know. I mean, memes can be dry. I’m trying to think of my memes… yeah, it’s probably slapstick. I think we’re both right. Some of them are just stupid. Some of them are more layered. And that’s the stuff I like.

“My creative outlet is memes and shitposting. I just post and not worry about it."

Would you call yourself a software developer?

Yeah, I’d say so. During COVID I built an app for my own business. It’s a vacation rental app, just for internal use. All the lodges we manage are there. I built everything for the business myself.

Why did you decide to learn programming?

I had a lot of time.

That’s a pretty good reason.

Yeah. After I left radio and started my own business, I worked a lot.

I had a couple of restaurants in between as well. I’d work from five in the morning until eleven or twelve at night. Just repeat, repeat, repeat.

Then COVID hit. We were closed for probably four months. We reopened for two weeks, and then the area where we were locked down. No one could get in or out. So we were closed again for another month and a half.

At that point, I just thought, I’m not going to sit around and do nothing. So I started building stuff and learning.

I signed up for Coursera. I did a iOS course, and that’s how it started. Never built any fancy apps though.

Did you ever build any silly products? Just for fun?

No, it was all very serious shit.

Was that also when you started going back on Twitter?

Yeah, kind of, but I’d go through phases.

I’d read stuff and find memes on Twitter for a bit, then disappear for three or four months, then come back again. Over and over until 2024.

That’s when you found Memelord Technologies, right?

Yes. I saw Jason's viral tweet about him quitting his job, and then I signed up. I don’t think the software didn’t exist back then…

It was launched when he quits, but yes before that it’s just a newsletter called Meme Alerts (which still exists as part of the product by the way).

Yeah that's when I signed up, just because it was fun. You receive a newsletter where you see funny memes and shit.

I only started posting memes two or three weeks after Jason’s tweet. And then I started using the app.

A meme a day keep the doctors away. This is well proven and indubitably true. That’s why we’re replacing health insurance.

Want to avoid getting sick? Subscribe to Memelord today to get access to daily Meme Alerts on email, text, or Telegram.

How did you get in touch with Jason in the first place?

Well, I started posting more and more memes, we just tweeted at each other, and he eventually DMed and asked if I wanted to be a Memelord affiliate.

Another lesson here: you can just DM people.

Yeah and it was a really easy ask for me. I just put the link on my bio. I didn't really care about the affiliate money or anything. I just think it’s fun making memes.

Additional lesson here: you can just ask things.

How does that conversation come about you becoming our Head of Meme Support? 

He tweeted that the team was looking for engineers that can talk to girls. 

I saw that tweet, thought about it for like two weeks, and I messaged him.

I told him, you know, if he needs help, I can help him. I can do it with a new challenge. A new creative outlet. I don’t even actually need it. I just want to help.

However the is already talking with a real cracked engineer at the time, so we talked about how I can help.

And we came up with this Head of Meme Support role, which I enjoy doing.

What does a Meme Support do exactly?

Simple: we help you become a Memelord.

I will help people with anything related to affiliate program and Memelord itself.

If you got a issue with the app or not sure how to use some of the features, I’ll jump on a call with them to help out.

Right now I’m also doing a Weekly Meme Roundups to highlight the best memes of the week, and streaming Meme Therapy with you.

My goal is to to be really hands on with our affiliates, so we can all grow together.

Let’s say I’m a new Memelord affiliate. How should I get going?

It’s not that complicated: just start tweeting.

I wish I had started tweeting earlier. It was easier to grow the following five years ago than it is now. It’s more saturated these days, I think.

That’s why you need a tool like Memelord Technologies to help you really stand out. It’s a dog eat dog world out there.

But yeah, my advice is simple—just tweet. Just post whatever comes to mind.

Eventually, you’ll find your corner of the internet. You’ll find the people who get your sense of humor.

Instead of scrolling past a tweet, get used to replying. especially if you’ve got something funny, relevant, or insightful to say. Make it muscle memory.

There’s no complicated strategy here. It’s just about posting and replying to whatever pops up in your feed. The bar is lower than you think.

Jason had a post yesterday about building cool shit and meeting cool people.

That’s it. Build more, talk more, meet cool internet friends.

“Eventually, you’ll find your corner of the internet. You’ll find the people who get your sense of humor.”

Let’s get even personal here. You post memes all the time. How do you find time to post memes? You have a wife and a baby now.

I mean, with my wife—before we had the baby—we’d sit at night and talk about the news.

I’d show her something on Twitter, she’d show me something on TikTok.

We’d share stuff, share memes. That was just normal for us.

Now it’s a bit different. We sit with the baby, and either she or I will try to get the baby to sleep or feed her. We wait until the baby’s asleep, then we go back to sharing memes with each other.

That’s sweet. Meme quality time. That’s true love right there.

Yeah, definitely. We share a lot of memes.

Do you have a process for making memes? Is there a structure in your head?

Not really. For memes, my process is just logging into Memelord.

We’ve got this Meme Alerts on Telegram, right? if I see something I like and a joke or caption pops into my head, I just post it.

Again, I try not to overcomplicate things. I just post.

Or if I’m busy, I’ll go back and scroll through the memes later when I’m more chill. I’ll look at the memes, try combine it with the news or whatever’s happening right now. This is usually a recipe for bangers.

If I’m really blocked, I’ll scroll through old classic memes just to get my brain going.

Sometimes I even make memes and don’t post them. They just sit there in my Twitter drafts.

Doing it for the love of the game, I see.

Exactly.

Some of our readers are probably thinking “I want to be funny on Twitter or LinkedIn”. Do you have any advice on how someone can do that?

I think it’s a very... how can I say it... natural thing?

If you watch and consume a lot of comedy and memes, it will start to come naturally. The more you consume, the funnier you’ll get.

When I was in high school, I bought this book called The Comedy Bible by Judy Carter. I used to read it a lot. It teaches you the more technical stuff—theory about comedy, layers, timing, all that.

Do you think that helped?

Yeah, a little bit. It taught me the theory side, formats and structure.

But I think everyone is different. If you’re just being yourself, you don’t really need theory to be funny.

You need to actually practice that muscle. Keep making memes. Keep shitposting.

Have you ever had that kind of “Memer’s block,” where you don’t know how to meme something or what template to use?

Yeah, sometimes. That’s why the context button in Memelord is so useful. It gives you context and examples. You just check how other people are using the memes.

Okay last question, what is the favorite meme you ever made?

My hardest banger is the Bill Bellichick meme about Klarna. It has all the ingredients: a trending meme template, a hot topic in the news, and speed. That was my magnum opus so far.

That was a banger, Piet. Got any quick words for folks still on the fence about becoming a Memelord affiliate?

It’s genuinely one of the most lucrative affiliate program on the internet right now.

You literally can make some extra cash just by making memes and getting your friends to join in on the fun.

That’s our interview with Piet, our Head of Meme Support. Now that I know he used to do prank calls, maybe we should do it but to tech founders. Or better: VCs.

Want to become a Memelord affiliate? Sign up here.

If you want to see how hilarious Piet is or want to ask more about our Memelord affiliate program, you can find him on X at @piet_dev.

Any suggestions on which Memelord we should interview next? Let me know at @jovvvian or hit me up on LinkedIn if you’re nasty.