Meme pages are hugely popular on social media. One of the world's largest, with more than 1.8 million fans, belongs to a 27-year-old Austrian.
Fabian, he doesn't want to give his last name, runs two meme accounts on Instagram with a total of almost two million followers.
Fabian E. is a social media star, his Instagram account is followed by more than 1.8 million people. He has about five times as many followers as Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and even surpasses the officially most successful Austrian on Instagram: fitness influencer Johannes Bartl with his 1.7 million subscribers.
Fabian's fans also include international stars such as Hollywood actress Chloë Grace Moretz, top model Barbara Palvin and the musician and “Major Lazer” front man Diplo.
But most of his followers did not know until recently that a 27-year-old Austrian was behind the profile. Because on his account called @ClassicalFuck Fabian only distributes memes. He recently announced his first name, and since the beginning of the year, Fabian has also been self-employed and is now living from his Instagram accounts.
Fabian chose his own approach five years ago. During a visit to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, he had an idea: He began to photograph classic works of art and underlay them with texts that, above all, should reflect the world of his generation in an ironic way.
He started to share these pictures on Instagram – at that time his page was called “Classical Art Memes” . At the time, however, earning money with it wasn't even the goal.
“I just had fun creating content and watching how it was shared by people from all over the world,” says Fabian about the KURIER. “I knew from the start that this would work particularly well in the USA, as there were already large meme channels there. That's why I've done everything in English on my website. “
Most subscribers in the US
Even today, most of his followers, more than 20 percent, come from the US, followed by the UK and Germany. That's what makes memes so special: that they appeal to young people across almost all national borders.
The fan base grew and grew, so that at some point Fabian decided to rename the site and move away from the images of classic works of art – “Classicalfuck” was born. In 2018, due to the high number of female subscribers, he created another meme page tailored to women: FemBible.
From now on, Fabian was able to react more quickly to current events because he was no longer tied to pictures of works of art. “My content is based on what is happening in the world every day or what concerns me personally,” he says. “My day-to-day work as a 'meme creator' therefore begins right after my alarm clock goes off with checking all social media channels and ends when I close the Instagram app before falling asleep.
How To Make Money With Memes
The enormous reach potential of memes has of course not remained hidden from the marketing world. Companies are often willing to pay four-digit amounts for product placements in memes. This is also the case with Fabian: “In fact, the first inquiries came very quickly. However, these were only really serious and interesting from around one million subscribers. “
This is mainly because memes appeal to a diverse audience. “The followers are not as specifically classified here as with a fitness influencer. He can of course start promoting sports nutrition much earlier, for example, as the probability is high that this will appeal to the majority of his followers, ”says Fabian.
But above a certain size, meme pages offer one thing above all: reach. For example, during the US Democrats' primary election in 2019, a number of memes popped up targeting US billionaire Michael Bloomberg.
In truth, his campaign paid royally to the operators of the meme sites to make their candidate more popular with young people. Bloomberg ultimately lost to future US President Joe Biden. Meme fans also usually react negatively to such obviously bought content.
Every now and then, however, Fabian also posts a sponsored meme. That's enough for the 27-year-old to make a good living from it today. At the beginning of this year he went into business for himself and founded his company “No Front Media”.
“The financial possibilities that are now available to me definitely exceed those of a normal nine-to-five office job,” says Fabian. “It should be said that fewer advertising deals are more in the end. It's more important to me to keep my subscribers happy and give them what they follow me for: memes. “
