How to Market Music with Memes

Internet humor and trends are increasingly becoming an essential part of creating a popular artist.

Written and illustrated by Mark Yoder

When a tweet goes viral on Twitter, the original poster usually plugs their Instagram, their Venmo, or in many cases, their Soundcloud in an attempt to leverage their fleeting time in the internet spotlight into some kind of return. This common phenomenon acts as a microcosm for the current music industry. Artists burst onto the scene and disappear even faster, while trying to get as much as they can out of their fifteen seconds of fame. But the ways artists propel themselves into the public eye is constantly changing with the new ways people use the internet. In the current ecosystem, entertainment and clicks are being valued more than talent. Being able to effectively create an internet moment worthy of retweets and memes, and then leveraging that into an enduring fanbase and streams, is becoming an essential tool for artists hoping to break into the mainstream.

One of the best blueprints for using the internet to jumpstart a career is Soulja Boy. Soulja Boy wanted to become a rapper, but it was hard to get attention from a label in his small town with a population of under 10,000. So, in 2005, he turned to the internet and started posting his music on a site called SoundClick. From the beginning, his music had a unique comedic tone that set him apart and began to gain some traction on the site. Soulja didn’t have a marketing team, but he was able to get his own hardcore fans to market the music by posting funny videos of his life and jokes for his audience, creating a friendly dynamic with them. This relationship was key to how he grew in popularity, as his rabid fanbase would spread his videos and music all over the internet. 

His big break came with his song “Crank That (Soulja Boy),” which was accompanied by a YouTube tutorial of how to do the song’s dance. The song started to get huge, and his fans began a trend of people doing their own versions of the dance. Soulja Boy also released a music video where he dons an amusingly large shirt and makes fun of old people who don’t understand the internet or his popularity.

The obvious successor of Soulja’s method of attaining fame  is Lil Nas X. He first built up a decently sized following on Twitter by posting funny tweets and memes and then supplemented this comedic content with various songs. The songs did okay, but what ended up being his big break was his hybrid between country and rap: “Old Town Road.” “Old Town Road” became big on the app Tik Tok, when kids started making short videos with the song in the background, turning into cowboys when the beat dropped. 

The song ended up taking over, and Lil Nas X knew exactly how to capitalize. He stayed very active on his Twitter account with comedic content relating to his new hit, and then he created a long string of remixes with artists like Billy Ray Cyrus, Young Thug, Diplo, and Mason Ramsey (another notable walking-meme-turned-musician). He also released a music video with many big cameos, including Chris Rock, Vince Staples, and Haha Davis, with a fittingly humorous tone. All of these moves by Lil Nas X helped keep Old Town Road at the top of the Billboard charts for a record-breaking 17 week stretch.

But what is perhaps the most perplexing and most worthy of investigation is the bizarre case of Danielle Bregoli. Unlike in the cases of Soulja Boy and Lil Nas X, who slowly built their fanbase through internet humor and knew exactly how to capitalize when one of their songs went viral, Bregoli’s music career was essentially created in a four short minutes on Dr. Phil. 

Photo courtesy of Atlantic Records

Only 13 years old at the time, Bregoli came on to the show for the descriptively named segment: "I Want To Give Up My Car-Stealing, Knife-Wielding, Twerking 13-Year-Old Daughter Who Tried To Frame Me For A Crime!" She was shown to be an overall menace to society, stealing a crew member’s car to go on a joy ride while filming the episode. And if that wasn’t enough, her own mother called her “the Antichrist.”

Dr. Phil looked visibly tired attempting to deal with Bregoli’s antics, but the big moment of the show was when she called the audience “a bunch of hoes.” The audience then reacted to it with claps and laughter, to which she responded with the famous line: “Cash me ousside how bou dah?” The clip of Bregoli yelling at the audience went viral, becoming a massive meme, and after a short while no one  expected or wanted to see the “catch me outside” girl again.

But her time in the limelight was not over. In 2017, seemingly out of nowhere, she was signed by music manager Adam Kluger. This was a move that faced much scrutiny and mockery, because Bregoli had no prior talent or experience in the music industry. But where most people saw an uncouth 13-year-old, Kluger saw an opportunity to turn a meme into money. 

In an interview with the New York Times, Kluger said his goal was to “take this villain — relentless, crazy-attitude kid — and just brand her as this supervillain.” Around this time, she started an Instagram account where she quickly amassed a following by livestreaming herself roasting other rappers. She released her first single, “These Heaux,” an unfortunate imitation of modern trap, featuring generic lines about hoes that Bregoli doesn’t like. In the music video, she slowly drives around flexing on her haters who hold signs with the acronym “M.O.B.B,” which stands for Mothers Opposed to Bhad Bhabie, as well as signs that say “we will not catch you outside,” all clear references to her meme-fueled origins. This strange mix of ingredients turned out to be a recipe for success, quickly going viral and earning Bregoli the title of youngest female rap artist to break into the Billboard Top 100, peaking at 77. Within a few days of this accomplishment, she had inked a multi-million-dollar album deal with Atlantic Records.

There is a lot to examine when looking at this almost instant and tremendous success. It brings into question how much popularity in modern rap comes from talent versus theatrics. It brings into question the actual effectiveness of “The Dr. Phil Show.” It also brings into question why Bregoli was celebrated and rewarded for her behavior, and if she would have received the same treatment had she not been white. But, the success of Bhad Bhabie clearly demonstrates the way  memes can be converted into streams, which can be converted into money. Record labels are also becoming keen to this trend, so it is safe to say it is not going away any time soon.