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I met Gary Vee last week (7 harsh truths from the goat) | Tech Twitter
I met Gary Vee last week (7 harsh truths from the goat)
Jason Levin@iamjasonlevin · March 15, 2026 · 8 min read
Originally published by @iamjasonlevin on X. Tech Twitter preserves the original source alongside this readable edition.
Before you dive in
• Gary Vee reveals 7 harsh truths on social media strategy, AI influencers, and community building in 2026
• Master the selflessness-to-selfishness ratio.
Best for builders who want practical takeaways. 8 min read.
“You stop growing on socials when your ratio of selflessness-to-selfishness flips" - Gary Vee
Last week, I was invited to meet @garyvee and elevator pitch him Memelord in a literal elevator.
I raised $3M and I gotta be honest I low-key thought elevator pitches were just a myth from business textbooks and they’re called elevator pitches because it’s roughly the time of an elevator ride.
Well turns out it’s called an elevator pitch for a VERY GOOD reason!!!!!
BEWARE!!!
The most successful social media entrepreneur of all time might just say “hey come ride down and pitch me in the elevator” and you better be ready.
And I’m not saying it’s related, but all I’m saying is Gary’s team has been on a heater posting memes ever since then…
As a kid who grew up reading Gary’s books and watching his content, this has been a dream come true.
“How’d you meet Gary????”
His team invited me to go to this influencer summit down in Miami, but… what they didn’t tell me was it was an influencer summit for beauty influencers. I thought it was for tech nerds and I ended up being around hot Miami influencers all day (my wife was not happy, personally I plead the 5th! Thank you Constitutional Rights!).
And even though I’m not a hot blonde miami botoxed up boob job beauty influencer (yet), I still learned a lot about social strategy, AI x influencers, and community in 2026:
7 harsh truths from Gary Vee:
Gary Vee on Social Media Strategy in 2026:
“You stop growing on socials when your selflessness-to-selfishness ratio flips. The more selfless you are, the more you will win. When you’re selfish trying to just be famous you will lose. The more you care about giving your audience value, the more you will win. Everyone plateaus when they’re being more selfish than selfless.” - Gary Vee
Every day I try to make content for a younger version of me out there, the 15-year-old kid who had no idea what he was doing on the internet.
It's a simple strategy, but that's what I've been trying to do for the last four years across this blog, Twitter, and Memelord, and what I try to do every single day.
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If my marketing hacks help one kid out there like me, I'm happy. The same thing with memes and comedy. If it makes one person laugh, I'm happy. This is why rage-baiting or lying to your audience is stupid. It’s selfishness at its core.
There's always a younger version of you out there somewhere in the wide world of the internet. Even if only a few hundred people see your content, it might be able to help somebody. Just keep going, give it all you got.
“Go even more niche. Attention is so fractionalized now most of you need to go more niche. You couldn’t do that 10 years ago but now you can.” - Gary Vee
This is 1000% accurate and great advice for all memelords and marketers.
Memes slap harder the more niche they are.
I wrote in my book "Memes Make Millions I couldn't make a hockey meme if you paid me $10k (Idk anything about hocker), but me and my team cook up marketing memes like crazy because that's the niche we get.
Right now me and my team are currently challenging Zuck to set up a pixel live on Meta Business Center. Only marketers get the pain of this which is why it’s only funny to us. It's better to be famous in your niche than just viral.
“I don’t think about virality. My only relationship with it is if it goes viral, I try to understand why and dissect it. Instead of trying to get every post to go viral, I just cross-post my content on all platforms, and it adds up to the same amount of views” - Gary Vee
You’d think of me as the meme marketing guy I'm always trying to get everything to go viral, but I'm actually not.
I just try to post bangers for me and my friends on the internet, and sometimes they go viral and sometimes they don't.
If you see somebody who promises that they know how to go viral every single time, it's because they're botting it or paying people.
Nobody has the magic formula to virality, not even Gary Vee.
Gary Vee on AI x Influencers in 2026:
“AI influencers are about to blow up. You hate it because it’ll take your money but it’s happening whether or not you like it” - Gary Vee
This is now becoming undeniable.
I remember like 5 years ago when that first AI influencer went famous and got brand deals from Pac-Sun and it felt like magic or something only a 7-figure agency could cook up, but now anyone can do it.
If you want to stand out against AI influencers, you need to be so authentic and unhinged and weird AI can’t do it (that’s been my entire thesis building Memelord).
“You hate on AI influencers as inauthentic but you peddle shit you don’t care about” - Gary Vee
A room full of 200 beauty influencers who yap for a living went silent.
Shit was hilarious. I don’t got much else to say except it’s true af lol.
Gary is extremely bullish on AI influencers for live shopping. “They’re prettier than you and they’ll work 24/7 shifts.”
How do you stand out? You be so unhinged and authentic AI can never replace you (cough cough the memelord.com thesis)
“There’s 8B on earth and about to be 100B ai influencers so you’ve gotta think about what value you’re bringing” - Gary Vee
My thesis for Memelord has always been: be so unhinged and authentic that AI can never replace you. This has remained true and will always remain true.
3 years ago, when ChatGPT came out, I doubled down on only writing about my adventures. I don't write case studies. I just write about my unhinged, real-life adventures that nobody else can take away from me.
I wrote about partying with Peter Thiel and billionaires in Miami, launching a fake viral boycott of Celsius, quitting my job and going founder mode, and much more. Tell the stories that AI can never tell, the embarrassing ones too: the first kiss at summer camp, the graveyard of businesses, the fear you overcome. AI can never take away your humanity. Be authentically you. Be unhinged. Be real and people will love you for that (or hate you). All good either way. At least you’re not AI. Tell me, can AI get 24M views reading a book like this on the subway????
Gary Vee on Community in 2026:
“You talk about your online community, but do you even care? I flew overnight from LA because I wanna be in the trenches with the community. We are entering a very weird time where everything is either AI or IRL. Get offline and spend time with your community IRL. AI can't do that." - Gary Vee
This hit the room like a freight train.
Most of the people there were just chicks looking for attention on Instagram or to get called hot. It was like a self-awareness bubble just burst.
Meanwhile, me, I’m just a goofball memelord doing it for the love of the game and to help all my homies make some funny money. I was laughing my ass off at their faces. They ain’t real internet kids, half of them are probably escorts lol.
How much do I love my internet homies????
We rented out a movie theater in NYC on April Fools to watch Instagram Reels on the big screen. Seriously. Sign up here.
TLDR:
The Selfless-to-Selfish Ratio. Ask yourself before every post: Am I being more selfish and just trying to flex or make a sale, or am I being selfless and helping and inspiring people?
The niche is a younger you: My best advice for content. Pretend you're talking to a younger you five years ago. The internet's a big place. There's a lot of mini-yous out there. You don't need to be rich or have made it, you just need to be 1 step ahead. You might just end up changing lives.
How to survive AI as an influencer/creator/marketer: Be so unhinged and authentic that AI can never be you. Tell the stories AI will never tell. Go offline. Build real friendships. Host events, support the homies, rent out a movie theater for the bit. In a world of fake AI friends, be a real friend to the people in your part of the internet.
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