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I paid 6 French models to protest memes (why???) | Tech Twitter
I paid 6 French models to protest memes (why???)
Jason Levin@iamjasonlevin · July 12, 2026 · 7 min read
Originally published by @iamjasonlevin on X. Tech Twitter preserves the original source alongside this readable edition.
Before you dive in
âą Viral stunt marketing: How $20K French bikini meme protest generated millions of views and real B2B customers at Cannes Lions
Best for builders who want practical takeaways. 7 min read.
2 weeks ago, I paid 6 French models to protest against memes.
Tens of millions of views. Billionaires walking by. The cops investigating.
Hereâs how it went down (plus some tips on viral stunt marketing):
Planning the protest:
First, the obvious question:
âWhy did you hire 6 French girls to protest memes in their bikinis????
Because itâs illegal for them to be topless.
I know. Itâs bullshit!
Trust me, it was my first thought too.
When I hit up my protest guy in April (yes, I have a protest guy, you donât??), I told him I need 6 topless French girls protesting memes in Cannes.
He informs me itâs actually illegal to protest topless in France.
WHAT!
I gotta be honest with you dear reader at this point I really thought about calling it off.
Itâs not that I really wanted to see some tits (iâm married), but it was more commitment to the bit. One could even say my commitment to the bit is greater than commitment to the tit. The whole meme is that French girls protest topless for stupid shit all the time!
I seriously thought about calling it off.
I didnât want people to think I was unauthentic or misrepresenting French culture by having them wear bikinis instead of topless. Was that disrespectful? I was worried itâd be like making Jews wear cowboy hats instead of yamulkes.
But alas, desperate times call for desperate measures.
Fine, Iâll take 6 French models in bikinis.
âWait, wait, wait why are you planning a protest in France at all???â
Oh right.
My team and I were at Cannes Lions, the biggest marketing festival in the world.
Every big ad agency, marketer, influencer, creator, and marketing-tech company was there. All our big potential customers and billions of dollars getting boozy in France.
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It was a week full of parties that could be its own blog post.
But the point here is this was our first year there and I needed to show all the CMOs, billionaire tech CEOs, and ad execs that memes are the future of marketing without breaking the budget. See, I raised $3M for memelord.com which sounds like a lot until you realize Canva is a $42B company and spent at least $1M on their fancy cabana.
So instead of breaking the bank on a cabana, I did what I do best and go scrappy.
I drop $20,000 on some French girls. $5,000 on 2 videographers. My protest guy and I decide on what the cardboard signs will say. And then I go back focused running memelord.com as per usual for the next 2 months.
Meanwhile, my protest guy is cooking.
The day of the protest:
Me and my team meet at the spot at 10:30.
The girls start showing up at 10:45.
Itâs a little bit awkward honestly. What do you say to people who barely speak English that you are paying to protest memes to? âUh do ya like memes?â
The rest of the girls and the on-the-ground coordinator show up soon.
Then the videographers.
I tell them the plan: weâre going to walk up and down the prime boulevard where all the marketers are, hold up the signs, and then hit the beach for a photoshoot.
Itâs beyond chaotic.
Iâm basically directing 6 french girls and 2 videographers and all I know in French is pickup lines and how to ask for a cheese sandwich (sandwich du fromage).
But we start walking and people are immediately staring.
Weâre in the middle of a corporate marketing conference in the middle of a French heat wave and thereâs French chicks in bikinis chanting about memes.
You have to be insane not to stare (and that was the goal).
We walk all throughout the town.
We hear people asking.
âAre memes fascist??â
âWhy are they protesting memes?â
âWhat is Memelord???â
Itâs magnificent. The plan is working. People are snapping photos.
And then the cops come.
For whatever reason, the cops in Cannes carry massive machine guns. Weâre freaked out, but keep going. Then they come back and start asking us about our video.
The videographer tells me itâs no big deal ,they just need to make sure theyâre not in it, me and my team are freaking. But the video guy was right. It turned out it was no big deal, they just walked out. Hell yeah.
We keep going.
We finish up the photoshoot on the beach.
And by 1 PM weâre overheated and sleepy.
We say our goodbyes and honestly me and my team canât believe we pulled this shit off.
Weâre joking weâre not going to make it out of the country.
While weâre waiting for the official footage, me and my team start leaking the vids with Snapchat-style footage on X and Instagram.
Post-protest video + results + learnings
We pay extra to get the official footage in under 24H while Cannes is still trending.
AND BY GOD THE FRENCH FUCKING COOKED.
The music and cuts are fucking insane.
I drop it on X then hit a bunch of meme pages on IG.
Badaboom.
Mama, we made it (to the fake news).
The result: 10s of millions of views in under 24H.
Cool, we got some views.
But like I said in the beginning, the goal wasnât large-scale virality.
The real goal is far more important: niche virality.
I donât give a fuck about views. All I care about is money. All I cared about was the right marketers and potential big customers seeing it. And it worked!
One of our customers is the CEO of a $1B+ ad-tech company and told me he walked by and was dying laughing.
The VP of Product at an $80B company wrote a post about me and we have a call booked this week.
The Head of Socials at a $1B+ social network hit me up and said âYou sly dogâ
New customers are saying they found us from the protest and it was the first time they heard about Memelord.com
All without spending $1M on a fancy beach cabana.
Mission accomplished.
My two cents on viral stunts:
If you want to try viral stunts, start small.
If youâve been following me for years, you know this ainât nothing new.
3 years ago, I got 24M views reading a book called âHow to Live With a Small Penisâ on the subway. Last July 4th, I launched a viral boycott of Celsius to change their name to Fahrenheit.
You think this shit is big? Just wait til next year!!!
Iâve been doing this type of shit since I was a kid selling duct tape wallets and making youtube videos. Every year it just gets bigger because I get more practice deploying capital into my insane ideas. Just a few years ago, I scared spending $100 on a silly video idea. Now we can drop $50k and I know we can make that money back.
Thatâs the hardest part of this all: deploying capital and taking risks in your insane ideas.
If youâre like me and you have insane ideas, then itâs hard for anyone to take you seriously (even yourself at first). You have to go do it yourself. Donât fucking ask anyone. Just tell them when itâs done. Fait accompli. Take the risk yourself. At first, itâs very scary. Then it gets easier. Your gut gets stronger. Your intuition for ideas bigger. You donât sound so insane anymore. Then suddenly you trust yourself.
So start now.
Start yesterday.
While everyone else is going boring, leverage the oldest form of marketing: humor.
1 unhinged meme video can change your life. A kid like me with a meme page can go get millions of views for $20. Brands can make millions of dollars in sales with meme pages. Thatâs why I love memes so much and why I started a meme marketing software memelord.com. For kids like me who didnât have million-dollar budgets and needed to go break through the noise and BS.
Memes are proof you donât need to break the bank, you just need to break the mold.
