I cannot say with 100% certainty that nineteen-year-old Justin Jin shouldn’t be pulling an elaborate prank on me. In my defense, Jin’s company Giggles – which he describes as “putting a trading app and TikTok together” – began as a joke.
“This was around 2023, when TikTok was rumored to get banned and whatnot, and other people were trying to search out a brand new social media platform,” Jin told TechCrunch. “So I began this meme about an app called Giggles, and it wasn’t real on the time, however it went viral on TikTok.”
The name is a riff on an existing joke — people on TikTok would see someone post a stale meme and reply, “bro got banned from google giggles.” It’s imagined to be the form of place where you’d post millennial cringe (like Threads), only it’s not real. But then Jin made it real.
Jin said he created a landing page for the fake app and a logo that makes it seem like it might be an actual Google app. The location included a field where people could join for a waitlist. The location got 100,000 visits in at some point, so Jin called up his friend Edwin Wang to really make an app.
Jin and Wang weren’t Stanford roommates, or coworkers at McKinsey, or buddies from a startup incubator – no, Jin met his co-founder when he was a YouTuber running a dubious marketplace on Minecraft that eventually got shut down for violating platform monetization rules.
The brand new company that Jin would find yourself creating is something that would only come from a Minecraft YouTuber who collects NFTs: a TikTok-meets-Kalshi marketplace where users can post “brainrot” videos and invest “aura points” within the videos. Soon, the app will let users invest actual cryptocurrency as an alternative of aura. If you happen to invest early in a meme and it gains traction, you receives a commission. Though it continues to be an invite-only beta, Jin says that 450,000 users have signed up.
“The goal for us is to be the primary crypto app where people spend greater than, like, half-hour a day on it,” Jin said. “I believe once we’re in a position to be that doomscroll feed that’s rather well made, it form of naturally capitalizes on people’s dopamine cycles, and we expect that this will retain users.”
A crypto-based meme trading app that capitalizes on people’s dopamine cycles? Minecraft YouTuber co-founders? A fundraise of exactly $1,234,567? As I worked on this story, I became paranoid – my brain finally rotted while writing about brainrot, crumbling under the crushing weight of AI-generated misinformation and the impossibility of knowing if anything on the web is real anymore.
I do know, it seems insane to think that somebody might create a complete app as a joke, but we’re within the age of vibe coding, and individuals are all the time attempting to dupe journalists. If he already played a joke on Google, what if TechCrunch is the subsequent goal of this weirdly area of interest, minor humiliation? What if I became referred to as that author who took Giggles seriously, derailing my profession because I trusted a charismatic nineteen-year-old who told me that he used to sell fidget spinners on the playground?
My suspicion was not entirely unfounded. Once I researched Jin’s previous company – Mediababy, formerly Poybo – the testimonials and press clippings on the positioning were dubious. I asked a journalist quoted on Mediababy’s website whether their testimonial was real, they usually had no idea what I used to be talking about. That’s probably just the mark of a young founder growth hacking slightly too near the sun, however it rubbed me the incorrect way.
I began to feel like that Pepe Silvia meme, driving myself insane, finding unrelated clues that I could connect with prove a degree. Even the launch video features a short clip of the Rickroll meme – could that be an indication?
Giggles’ $1,234,567 fundraise was led by 1k(x), so I reached out to some 1k(x) investors to substantiate their participation, despite the indisputable fact that I had already been emailing with the firm’s head of promoting. Some scammers have spoofed the TechCrunch domain to focus on founders – what if Jin had done the identical thing? By this point, I could trust nobody!
I did find yourself getting confirmation from 1k(x) that this deal is real. I also ate dinner and went outside. After which I felt really silly for sending those LinkedIn DMs. (You gotta admit, those fake testimonials are weird, though.)
Normally, I’d not luxuriate within the self-indulgence of devoting half of an article a couple of startup to my very own boundless anxiety. But within the case of Giggles, it form of is smart. It jogged my memory of something Jin had told me once we spoke.
“I even have a sense that bots are taking up these social media platforms, and since our current promoting model for them is getting likes and impressions… I believe botting will probably be an enormous problem,” he said. “I believe people trading and guessing on what’s being viral creates this downstream effect of really organizing information.”
The following generation of social media apps may have to be built with the knowledge that they will probably be swarmed with AI-generated content and suspicious bot behavior. The promise of social media is to make use of the web to bring people closer together, yet we’re approaching an era once we won’t have the ability to search out one another within the midst of all of the slop. It’s no wonder Jin’s generation has embraced a very nihilistic approach to humor and dubbed their very own creations brainrot.
“Everybody can easily make content more, and individuals are being more true, because you’ll be able to be anonymous — like, with Facebook or whatever, you’re not going to post brain rot,” he said. “And truthfully, I believe a variety of young individuals are form of freaking out. The world is so weird at once.”
Giggles — which I’m, like, 99% sure is an actual company at this point — has eight employees, ranging in age from 19 to 38. Jin himself is the youngest.
“It’s a really high-risk thing, starting an organization,” he said. “It’s mainly gambling. You’re just attempting to bet on yourself and think that you simply’ll outperform a job.”
I asked him if he sees Giggles as gambling.
“I’d not consider it gambling. I believe lottery tickets are gambling. I believe pure probability things are gambling. Those are pretty extractive,” he said.
Yet at the identical time, he acknowledges that he’s mainly reproducing memecoins — cryptocurrencies based on memes with no inherent value, which are sometimes subject to rug pull scams.
“A whole lot of people say meme coins are form of zero-sum, and at once, truthfully, possibly they form of are,” Jin said. “But you do see them actually organizing information and giving a variety of entertainment, and I believe we will turn into a platform that gives a variety of information for the world.”
I can’t inform you that Giggles will actually solve the bot problem and make the web feel more human by wagering crypto on brainrot memes. But I can no less than inform you that Jin will probably be an interesting founder to regulate, and that he (probably) isn’t pranking you.