How to make the perfect poker meme
Our resident Meme Lord shares what he has learned about making award winning poker memes over the last year.
It's the slow news period for poker, so I thought I'd fill that void with something I genuinely get asked about all the time - poker memes.
It has been quite the year for me in poker. I won a Global Poker Award for my poker memes, which helped me significantly get sponsorship with PartyPoker.
In addition, I have been doing freelancing work with poker brands on creating viral content (mostly memes).
So I thought I'd share what I have learned over the last few years about how to craft the perfect poker meme.
Templates first
I don't sit around thinking of funny ideas, what I do instead if look at whatever the latest meme templates are that are trending, then think of what the poker version would be.
It's much easier to think of something funny with a prompt like this, much in the way that the performers on Whose Line Is It Anyway can work well with a jumping-off point from the host. So the first piece of advice is to follow lots of funny meme accounts (and unfunny ones that have good templates) to create your own jumping off points.
With that in mind, I have found that the funniest templates are from FinTwit and Crypto Twitter. Two fields that have similar experiences to poker, with the ups and downs of variance.
— Barry Carter (@Barry_Carter) August 5, 2024
Keep it simple and static
I do well on Twitter because I think I play to the strengths of how the platform is used. Video works well on Instagram because you see one thing at a time, so a video can hook you. Twitter, however, is a scrolling experience where you see multiple posts at a time.
To stand out on Twitter, you have to quickly capture attention before you get scrolled off the timeline. Simple images, ideally one image, but if not, no more than four panels, work best. Use the minimum amount of words possible and keep the language simple, so that non-English native speakers can enjoy the joke.
Less is usually more.
— Barry Carter (@Barry_Carter) September 23, 2025
It really helps if the template is already funny
This one is really important. You get a massive head start if the template itself is funny.
The one below is very funny and a great, simple poker joke. But it is undeniable that it also works a little bit if you don't get the context. A big pink Ken chatting to Einstein and Oppenheimer works on its own, so it elevates the actual poker joke.
— Barry Carter (@Barry_Carter) May 23, 2025
Make the template fit the platform
This one is very important and goes back to what I was saying about how people use Twitter.
As you can see from the joke below, it doesn't fit on the page. Depending on what device the user has for Twitter, this might be what they see. You can't expect most users to stop scrolling to open it up. It would have been much funnier if I could have made it fit into a single square or landscape panel.
— Barry Carter (@Barry_Carter) September 3, 2025
Post at US-friendly times
The only tactical thing I do is I post my new memes later in the evening, my time, because that is when the American players are online, and they are the biggest poker audience on social media.
The way the algorithm works these days, if the post is good, it will still do well, but you just get a head start by letting the Americans see it right away.
Also, if a meme doesn't do well, post it again later. I have had plenty of examples of memes that didn't do well the first time I posted them, but did a second time later.
— Barry Carter (@Barry_Carter) October 10, 2025
Post about poker frustrations
Gallows humour performs the best on Twitter generally and certainly in poker. Whatever level of player you are, we all share some similar frustrations. Funny topics include downswings, being in makeup to a backer, and not making poker study work. My funniest memes probably came this year at periods where I was losing money at the tables.
Again, look to FinTwit and Crypto for inspiration; all the funniest finance memes are about losing money, not making it.
— Barry Carter (@Barry_Carter) November 9, 2025
