• Last week, I did something weird that I never do.
I defended myself.
Well, some might interpret this as an internet act so small (yet petty) that one could imagine Sir Larry David himself saying, “What's the big deal here exactly?”
OK, enough ramble.
Let’s start at the beginning.
Thursday morning, I’m in the shower. This is where a lot of my best brainstorming happens (as is the case for most of the population I imagine, don’t fact check me). If it was up to me, I’d take nine showers a day and generate nonstop brilliant ideas.
Anyhow, I thought of the bones of a dumb tweet while warmish water rained over me. This was it:
“Kinda messed up that when babies are born they don’t get properly onboarded with a welcome email or lunch with the team”
Alright, that’s kinda funny. I showed it to Anna who was sitting on the couch feeding our lil baby daughter. She punched it up, adding the part about getting “properly onboarded.”
So far, yes, this does just sound like the story of a tweet. In my mind, all tweets deserve origin story essays but trust me, the story isn’t just about the tweet (it sort of is though).
Slowly but surely, this tweet begins doing numbers quickly racking up 100 likes, 500 likes, 1000 likes.
Once I’m at that point, I reach out to a popular Instagram meme account (I’ll leave all of the accounts I discuss nameless) to see if they would like to share. They say, “Sure.”
This person properly credits me and is a mensch about the whole process.
Soon after, this silly tweet blows up wholesale. That’s how going viral works. You go up the algorithm hill and once you hit a certain amount of engagement, BOOM, you explode and everyone in Scotland and New Zealand is sharing your joke.
When this happens, I make sure that my dumb tweet has a few tags (riffs on the initial punchline). In this case, they were:
“It’s all just 1-1s with your new managers”
And a silly “bio” for a baby:
“Fresh from interning in the womb and excited to jump right in! On the weekends, I mostly sleep and cry lol”
Finally, I promote myself. Because of course. I wrote:
In case this blows up, I recommend checking out my nerdy comedy newsletter:
http://Mattlevyscomedystraynotes.Substack.com
If this doesn’t blow up, well that was just embarrassing
OK, that’s that. Just wanted to bask in the glory for a minute there.
Now let’s get into the numbers.
Twitter analytics tells me, to date, the tweet has 101K likes, 4M impressions (that means a lot of people saw it and were like “Nawww”), 178 people commented and I got…12 new followers. Classic.
A company, who is unaware of the low engagement, reached out and asks if they can promote their business under my tweet.
I say, “Sure. $50” (the last time a company asked if they could promote their business, I let them set the price point and got paid $25. Figured I would see if I could get double this time). Never heard back from these folks.
Finally, this is where things get juicy. Friends start reaching out to me and letting me know that OTHER meme pages have shared this tweet without having contacted me.
“Why do you care? They’re promoting you, right?” you may ask.
True, but if they don’t ask for permission or properly credit me, that’s technically theft for their benefit. At least that’s the way I see it.
Back to the story.
The first Instagram account that stole my joke is fairly large. I reach out to them and send a message saying, “Hey, I’m the guy that wrote the joke if you’d like to credit me.”
No response. Makes sense. Large account, probably went to their “other folder.”
Hours later, I leave an irritating comment to the effect of “Hey, see that joke up there? That was me who wrote it.”
Still nothing.
So, I report the account for “Intellectual Property Violation” (yes, Instagram is sophisticated enough to have that category in their extensive dropdown menu of reasons why an account should be reported).
Never ended up hearing from them.
Oh, well.
A second account leeches onto the tweet. I go through the same rigamarole. DM, comment, report.
Miraculously, the account changes their tune and credits me after my venomous comment where I wrote:
Don’t you think it’s a little messed up these huge accounts steal content without doing any research whatsoever? I think they should properly credit and compensate everyone they benefit from. Might just be me though LMFAO
I open my inbox and the person has written to me:
“just saw your message in the comment. Absolutely want to credit you and have updated it in caption. I did try to search for matt levy but found 15 names so I couldn’t assign you credit.”
Fair enough.
I reply, “You can always message on twitter. Do you guys offer compensation?”
Now, you’re probably like “DUUUUDE? Compensation? For a joke?”
Yes. These accounts have partnerships and monetization turned on, yet everything they churn out is stolen. If they’re making money, I absolutely think I deserve a cut.
This person says, “we are not active on twitter but that’s a good point. No, we do not offer compensation. If you like, i can take the tweet down.”
I continue, “Nah, it’s fine (I’ll still take the promotion because I’m shameless). I’d recommend getting in Twitter if you take people’s tweets though. Why do you guys do stuff like this? Do you profit? I’m genuinely curious”
(At this point, I know full well that they profit. I just want to them say it).
Our mysterious viral thief answers, “our mission is to call out work bulls–t. Most of our content is original. But if we find that a smaller insta creator has content that is pretty good then we share their content and grow them. Or if we find content that is outside of insta we share it here and credit. It’s good for the work satire ecosystem.
in terms of profit, we do ads on some of our original content that usually permeates boardrooms globally around the world.”
Things are getting spicy now.
I couldn’t help myself but point out the irony and responded, “Excuse my language but this is the ultimate work bulls–t.”
Rarely are my comebacks that perfect.
In fact, it was so good, this person wrote back,
“Solid.”
Then, they added, “This is an extremely common model on instagram. People share other content, give credit and everyone benefits. I am okay if you disagree with it. I will take down the tweet. I don’t think you are comfortable with this model.”
Now I’m on my moral high horse and ready to lecture.
I spit back, “ You can def leave it at this point (shamelessness continues!). I just think the system is broken. Appreciate the transparency and the fact you spoke with me. I mean it’s just a dumb joke at the end of the day.”
This person then starts playing the “I was on your side all along” card throwing out this gem:
“Dumb or not, it’s still your creation and it needs to be credited and respected.”
Says the person who takes people's stuff and makes money off it.
I reply, “(Sure). It’s just when someone else uses (a joke of mine), I get proprietary. As a businessperson might! Word. I think we’re cool now.”
Now, we’re over the hump and I give in. There’s no need to be a jerk anymore…I think.
“Solid - I appreciate you reached out,” my new friend writes.
I apologize for my behavior by replying, “Of course. Sorry for getting salty- this just happens too often. Def get on Twitter too. People will appreciate it (By people, I mean me).”
Yes, this is the smallest grievance of all time but I want the last word. New friend ain’t letting that happen though. They say…
“It’s all good man - my content has been shared on every major platform many many times - sometimes with credit and sometimes without credit. Sometimes it leads to growth and I am happy and sometimes it leads to no credit and copy cat. It hurts but after doing this for 4 years, I have learnt to accept it and make it a rule to give credit and growth to other accounts as much as I can.”
Then, they throw out this classic line:
“Twitter engagement sucks - no intention of wasting my effort there with the kind of content I have.”
“Kind of content I have.” I’m so confused by the delusion here. This isn’t your stuff. It’s my stuff! And other people’s stuff. Maybe some is yours but this is crazy talk.
Finally, we get into semantics over engagement on Twitter and after a conversational standstill, I say, “Feel free to follow me as well now that were pals.”
This stranger does not answer.
So, yes. This pettiness was all over pretty much nothing.
But my God, it felt cathartic to write it out and make myself sound like the good guy
(Shameless).
