MEET THE MEMELORD: Chatting With The Dude Behind Facebook Meme Page ‘It’s James’

Welcome back to another instalment of Meet the Memelords – today we’re chatting with the dude behind ‘It’s James’.

‘It’s James’ is a Facebook page run out of Sydney that has gained nearly half a million fans over the past year alone. While you wouldn’t be wrong for suspecting that there’s a team behind the scenes, the local page is surprisingly operated by one guy – and not so surprisingly – his name is indeed James.

Read More

Entertainment MEET THE MEMELORDS: Extremely Specific Targeted Ads For Extremely Specific Lads

The page posts a mixture of current, ironic and nostalgic memes alongside the occasional video. There’s no theme as such, pretty much anything and everything is up for grabs providing it’s funny and sharable.

We reached out to James to learn about how this massive community got started and how the hell he manages to keep up with it all.

How long have you been running ‘It’s James’ and what was the reason you started the page?

I’ve been running the page since May 2016. I actually started it because I saw a bunch of underground, small-scale pages starting to pop up everywhere and it was all really new.

I just wanted to be a part of that.

How many admins are there and where are you based?

There is only one admin. It’s James.

However there is also an editor on the page who helps contribute! His name is Akhil.

I’m based in Sydney, Australia. It’s pretty interesting but there are a tonne of admins of meme pages in Australia, especially Sydney. Like 75% of meme page admins on big pages are in Australia haha.

The admin of “it was just a meme bro” lives really close to me.

Where do you get the inspiration behind each post? Do you create your own memes, steal memes or a bit of both?

So when you’re small it’s insanely hard to get exposure – you have to post really new things. I used to do that.

These days, partially because I have a larger audience now, I steal a bunch of stuff – maybe 60-70% of the time.

I always ensure the stuff I post is different and new though. I never want to be like those sell out pages that post every hour no matter how bad or good their content is.

What do you think is special about It’s James compared to other meme pages.

Like I said, I post only stuff I really think is good, new, or different. I have no pressure to post daily and that ensures my content is more likely to be good stuff.

Also I feel like it has allowed a single admin to do the job.

“A single admin with a single dream.”

With multiple admins, posting stuff a lot of the time in different styles of humour can clash and draw different audiences which can affect the reach of your posts. A single admin with a single dream.

You’re about to crack 470,000 likes! Did you ever think the page would come this far? And what are the plans for the future?

Yeah almost 500,000 likes – it’s insane.

I remember back in the day when all the pages started out we thought anything over 10k likes was big.

I remember some of the pages I looked up to back then (they’re now all gone, banned, or hacked) had reached 50,000 likes. 50,000! I remember thinking I’d never get there.

Of course times have changed since then. Memes on Facebook, especially ironic memes, are mainstream and so now you have huge pages like “Sassy socialist memes” that have 700k+ likes. I honestly want to next reach 500k and then ultimately a million – but I accept that’s a fair way away.

It’s not about the numbers though – I’m just a dude who likes posting good memes.

What do you do normally besides making memes (job/hobby)?

I’m at uni at the moment. I also like rock-climbing and I play chess. I have a few hobbies and I just enjoy dedicating time to them in my spare time.

What is your most popular ‘It’s James’ meme, and what is your personal favourite?

The most popular OC I created for over 6 million views, and around 20k+ likes from memory. I can’t remember what it was – I think it was about a political event of some sort.

My favourite would actually be when I wrote a long story only for it to end with a terrible pun. It was pretty sadistic but it gave me the most pleasure.

Do you have any interesting stories to tell about It’s James?

Interesting stories: I currently have 70+ friends of mine like my Facebook page, maybe 10 know it’s me. It’s weird seeing them tag their friends in my posts though.

I once even got tagged in my own meme by a friend who didn’t know it was my page – still haven’t told the dude.

Are there any other meme pages you could recommend?

The page I’d recommend right now is memeboy2001. It’s massively hit and miss in terms of quality (some are trash) but they strike gold occasionally.

For more, follow It’s James on Facebook here.

Here’s some of Punkee’s recent personal faves from It’s James: