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Go get nerdsniped

From elementary to high school, I had a friend named Joe who was the ultimate nerdsniper. He’d spend hours every night reading Wikipedia and was the captain of the academic team. How tall was Richard Nixon? Joe knows. Who was Marilyn Monroe’s 2nd husband? Joe knows. Joe always knew.

I always admired Joe’s natural fascination with weird, arcane subjects. I never had Joe’s impeccable innate memory of weird facts, but since we were kids, I’ve tried to mimic Joe’s insatiable curiosity — to get nerdsniped, jump down weird rabbitholes, adventure through Wikipedia pages, read weird books, and learn for the sake of learning.

I was super curious about meme brands and meme accounts so I interviewed my friend Jack Raines on my podcast who writes for meme brand Litquidity and is the king of shitposting on LinkedIn. A couple months later, I had Charlie Light on my podcast who started a massive meme account and leveraged his audience to start a content agency which he sold for $900,000. I had no idea memes could make this much money. Fascinating, right?

I started offering my meme-making services on top of my content writing to startups — and I started getting paid for making memes! I was hooked. I wrote 2 blog posts about the meme biz and announced I was writing a book on memes. I then ended up signing a book deal for my book Memes Make Millions. All thanks to me being curious about the meme biz.

The point of that article on monkey business is that you can’t underestimate silly or weird interests. There’s money in everything, not just investment banking and management consulting (whatever the hell that means). There’s money in the meme biz, dog toy biz, content writing, whatever. It’s a wonderful time to be a curious, entrepreneurial, very online individual.

The love of getting nerdsniped is a competitive advantage.

My friend Paul Millerd got nerdsniped by humans’ relationships with work. He quit his job to become a freelance consultant, started writing a blog about it, launched a podcast, and then wrote a book called The Pathless Path. 2 years later, now he’s making $25-30k per month off book royalties.

I grabbed coffee with an investor named Zehra this week who told me she fell down a rabbithole doing deep research on diabetes; soon after, she was coincidentally presented with the opportunity to invest in a company that helps women fight diabetes. With her knowledge on the topic, she invested in the company and was given advisory shares.

This week, I spoke with another investor named Julia DeWhal who got nerdsniped by nuclear energy. She went deep down the rabbithole and wrote an epic blog post about it. This post led to new investment opportunities and a bunch of conversations with people like me who read it and were intrigued.

Follow obsession, be serious.

“It's okay to be obsessed,” writes creator Zach Pogrob. “Obsess over one thing more than anyone on Earth. That's the only secret.” Zach has built a cult audience online all around the idea of following your obsession — getting nerdsniped and becoming truly obsessed by your work.

Call it hustle culture revivalism or whatever you may, but Zach is saying what others are afraid to admit. We all want to be working on something we’re passionate about. Everyone secretly dreams of having work worth obsessing over. For whatever reason, most people never get the chance. If you find what you’re obsessed with, then follow it. 

Speaking from experience, it’s a beautiful feeling to work on something you’re obsessed with — to care enough about your craft to take it seriously. I’m in love with my work, absolutely obsessed with writing and growing Cyber Patterns. Same with Twitter. I fucking love it. I have no problem spending hours writing tweets and threads everyday. It’s so much fun. I love building my business. I’m unashamedly obsessed with seeing monthly revenue rise.

MrBeast was so obsessed with YouTube he spent 1,000 days straight on Skype calls with his friends talking strategy. By the end of the 1,000 days, they all had more than 1 million subscribers. When MrBeast had videos that failed, he said he used to cry for 2 or 3 days straight.

You listen to Joe Rogan and Louis CK break down writing methods and you can feel the obsession, the seriousness, the years of analysis, and the long nights spent performing. You can practically smell the mix of cheap comedy club booze, cigarettes, and sweat from nervous overweight comics through the screen. Obsession.

“There’s not enough seriousness in life and we should respect people who demonstrate this kind of serious more than we do versus saying that they’re weird and persecuting them,” argues a16z partner Katherine Boyle. “[Joe Rogan and Louis CK] are both very successful people but the amount of study that they have done on their craft — it shows the seriousness of how they think about what they are doing.”

We live in an age where people are made fun of for trying. “Trying isn’t cringe. Cringe isn’t trying,” wrote my old boss Greg Isenberg. To be a serious person, you don’t need to be building spaceships or curing cancer. You can be a deadly serious comic. Or TikToker. Or screenwriter. “Seriousness is a you know it when you see it kind of characteristic,” Boyle said “I’ve tried to put words to it and I think like the short version it’s this maniacal belief in something greater than yourself and it’s all-consuming.” To be deadly serious about your craft is to be obsessed.

Content creation is a game. I’m giving you permission to be obsessed like a 16-year-old Call of Duty gamer. Obviously take care of your health and take some showers. But this is your permission to get nerdsniped, become obsessed, and work your ass off. This is your permission to try as hard as you can.

Creators Corner

3 things that helped me be a better creator this week

🎤 I also enjoyed listening to author Tucker Max on my friend Danny Miranda’s podcast. Tucker is an OG internet writer, provocateur, and best-selling author. Good insights on fame, fortune, and self-reflection.

📘 I’ve been doing a lot of reading. Beyond grateful for the app Readwise that organizes my Kindle highlights and article highlights into one place.

🎤 I really enjoyed listening to streetwear legend Bobby Hundreds on The Tim Ferriss Podcast. The thing I found most useful was Bobby’s insights on building a community of superfans around The Hundreds both online and offline.

Thanks for reading nerds.

Create some cool shit this week.

Jason Levin

P.S. Want to really upgrade your content strategy?

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😂 For my book about meme marketing, head over to Memes Make Millions.

Until next edition, see you on Twitter, TikTok, and LinkedIn.