Jen Lewis
Photo courtesy of Jen LewisMany brands have embraced using humor on social media to engage with their online audience. It might seem obvious, but it’s easy to forget all those jokes and memes come from someone. Often that person is Jen Lewis. The 28-year-old has made a career out of funny Photoshops, viral jokes, digital comics, and gifs.
Lewis has made digital content for brands like Netflix, A24, Fenty Beauty, BuzzFeed, Billboard, and others. Even if the name Lewis doesn’t sound familiar, she has created several images anyone with an active Twitter has probably seen at least once: remember Kanye Kissing Kanye? Her memes have become the most viewed posts on Reddit multiple times and have been discussed on TV shows like @midnight. Along with her own Twitter following of over 130,000, her work has been seen by millions.
Lewis says that she has fallen into much of her success. She started her career in media as an intern at Flavor Wire; a friend of hers also worked for this blog. She describes the thought behind applying for that first job simply, “My friend was like, ‘Hey Jenn, you're funny over GChat, have you ever thought about writing?’ I thought not really, but hey, I'll apply.” After getting the job, Lewis started writing listicles, but soon she added illustrations into her articles. Her illustrations did well on the site. “I didn't go to design school but I inherited my brother's old Wacom tablet when he got a new one and I just went to town on it and then that sort of became my career,” she explains.
Lewis’s career can be hard to describe. In simple terms, she is a graphic designer, but in practice, her role is much more complicated. She is a humorist at heart. “I use illustration and design as a vehicle for a punchline,” she describes. “I never just draw to make something pretty. It's always because I have an idea. It's always a joke that I want to get through. I've always been quiet. I think if I could, I would get into standup or videos or something like that. But I think I enjoy the comfort of hiding behind my computer and being able to open Photoshop and get my joke across that way.”
Brands usually approach Lewis. “I've been super lucky in that I haven't really had to chase anything.” She continues, “[Opportunities] just kind of pop up and I generally like to say yes to everything cause usually, one gig will lead to another.” This type of attitude has lead Lewis down a variety of paths from designing some of the first emojis that launched Kim Kardashian's KIMOJI app to designing the twitter emoji for the movie Hereditary that turned into an online prank. “For a few months, the emoji would pop up after someone typed ‘#tonicollette’ or ‘#hereditary’ on Twitter, which unintentionally turned into an amazing Mother's Day prank,” she jokes, “Turns out, a lot of folks were tweeting about all of the wonderful qualities they inherited from their mothers and earnestly adding the #hereditary hashtag, after which my tiny, petrified Toni Collette emoji would appear. The movie hadn't come out yet and everyone was so confused as to why their wholesome tweets suddenly featured a shrieking woman. I loved every minute.”
While much of Lewis’s work is for brands, she also works on her own projects. In the past, she illustrated her own Breaking Bad coloring book and she is gearing up with a new passion project which she will be on camera for. “It's scary, but it's exciting. I've always hid behind my computer, so it'll be cool to kind of break out of that mold and see how it goes.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rosaescandon/2019/05/20/28-year-old-jen-lewis-is-the-queen-of-meme/
2019-05-20 12:24:00Z
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