Panel submission for SXSW Interactive 2014

1. It's a Meme World
Out There

2. It was 2006 and MySpace was all the rage. Susan
Boston, a young mother from Massachusetts, was
taking a photography class and in need of a subject.

3. With no one else to choose from, Susan settled on
her 16-year-old son Blake. She ended up taking more
than 300 photos and uploading them to MySpace,
Know Your Meme reported.
This was one of them.

5. The photo existed in obscurity until 2011. That's
when the social news site Reddit discovered it and
turned Blake into the "Scumbag Steve" meme.

6. Since then, Blake has done all he can to capitalize on
his meme's popularity, appearing at tech conferences
like ROFLCON III and partnering with Pepsi Co.
Yet none of that financial success compares to the cash
companies like Quickmeme have raked in using his
image.

7. As one of the top three most submitted domains on
Reddit, Quickmeme URL's have regularly been
featured on its front page (which collects 70 million
unique visitors a month).
This has resulted in a windfall of traffic for the small
business and hundreds of thousands of dollars in ad
sales.
And Blake was not happy.

9. Blake's gripe is one expressed by many of the
Internet's most beloved meme creators and
personalities. Some, like Nyan Cat creator Chris Torres,
have even had to flex their legal muscle to make sure
other people aren't cashing in on his creation.

10. And if thievery wasn't the only concern, businesses
like Home Depot are hard at work making their own
memes.

11. This panel will discuss how these people navigate this
new, fast moving, business world. We will also discuss
what the future holds for these Internet celebrities and
whether the meme business bubble is about to burst.