A possible conflict might be in the works among several meme lords, as one Instagram creator has accused a meme page made by the notorious platform 9gag of deliberately ripping off his name and using his memes. According to Fabian, author of the page "classicalf**k" on Instagram that has over 1.4 million followers, when he tried to contact the "classicalaf" page they blocked him.
"Since I'm getting so many dms asking what's the matter with me and @9gag. Well, back in the day when I used to post classical memes, they stole my idea, took my content, ripped off my name and made their own page. I stopped making classical memes because of this".
"Their account is dead now so I don't really care that much anymore but it still kind of makes me angry. Just because @9gag is huge doesn’t give them permission to rip off and steal small creators work. The fact their account got verified (bc of their connections obviously) makes me really angry. I hope this will be seen by the right persons. Feel free to share and help me by reporting them @classicalaf #Boycott9Gag #StopStealing #StartCreating", he wrote.
Fabian created his account in September 2015, while the oldest post on the other page is dated July 2017.
Sputnik tried to reach 9gag for a comment, but the platform has not yet addressed the issue.
9gag is one of the biggest online platforms for memes and news, which was created back in 2008. It features content made by its users and shared from external websites. It is also present on all the main social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.