July’s mass deactivation was just the most recent flare-up between Instagram and the unruly, lucrative meme community it created. Last Christmas, Instagram conducted a similar mass deletion, prompting a hashtag campaign that resulted in no changes to the system. The recent ban sparked 11 different Change.org petitions, each asking for all accounts deleted in the latest purge to be reinstated. “These waves of attacks … are not only affecting the repost accounts who have made a living off of posting memes, but they also are affecting the creators who have spent years of their lives organically growing a following from original content,” the creator of one petition wrote. “Every email or notification from Instagram support is bland and vague, explaining that the details aren’t to be disclosed, but we want answers. We want change. And most importantly, we want our accounts back.”
For the first time, Instagram seems to be listening. Today, the company is announcing that it’s looking to hire its first-ever strategic-partnerships manager specifically to focus on meme accounts and what the company calls “digital publishers,” social-based media companies including @TheShadeRoom, @OverheardLA, @CommentsbyCelebs, and @Betches. According to Lila King, Instagram’s head of news and publishing partnerships, the person will work within Instagram’s partnerships division to identify important new formats and trends while also serving memers already on the platform, including large and well-established meme accounts like @FuckJerry, @KaleSalad, and @Daquan, as well as the rapidly growing next generation of accounts run by mostly teenagers such as Winch.
That sucks. A lot of them are kids who were making a great living running those pages. Worked their ass off too. It’s not easy running a successful meme page as silly as it may sound.
— Roberto Nickson (@rpnickson) July 27, 2019
The role is in part an attempt to placate one of the platform’s most vibrant communities: According to a statistic provided by Instagram, meme content gets shared seven times more than non-meme content on the app. More meme accounts than ever are monetizing, and memes have become the default way many young people consume news information on the platform.
“We’ve seen, through the course of our work with publishers and creators, that the meme community has become really influential,” King says. “Memes are a format that you’re starting to see traditional media companies adopt more and more … We think if we can get to know and understand [the meme community] there is a lot to learn that can influence the more traditional media companies.” BuzzFeed’s @World posts breaking news headlines in a memelike format to more than 783,000 followers, and publishers such as @Bustle have gone from posting curated lifestyle content to filling their feeds with screenshotted tweets.