YTMND (fictional)

YTMND, an initialism for "You're the Man Now, Dog", is an online community centered on the creation of hosted memetic web pages (known within the community as fads, YTMNDs or sites) featuring a juxtaposition of an image (still or short animation) centered or tiled along with optional large zooming text (although, since 2011, more text options have been added, though the “classic” option is still the default) and a looping sound file, with optional interactive features allowing rudimentary games to be created. Images, sound files, and video files used in YTMNDs are usually either created or edited by users.

YTMND is generally considered to be a humor website, owing its tone and culture to the original YTMND and its early imitators. Since 2007, YTMND is owned by Argosy New Media, a part of ArgosyMTM Group. YTMND mainly competes with YouTube and Newgrounds, as well as more recently, Vine and TikTok. In 2011, the YTMND mobile app came out.

YTMND had a minor decline between 2007 and 2011, but since the release of the mobile app, began to become more relevant again, to the point of currently being the 21st-most-visited website in the world (between Reddit and VKontakte). YTMND heavily advertises its 5-star voting system, using slogans like “‘like’ and ‘dislike’ aren’t enough” (a dig at YouTube); Argosy executives allege earlier versions of YouTube (before the introduction of the like/dislike bar) copied this system, as well as (indirectly) sites like VidLii which aim to emulate older versions of YouTube.

YTMND is uniquely ad-free since 2013, as Argosy has enough money from their “main” TV and movie business, as well as their ad-supported news and blog sites; current head executive Trace Zaidan, placed in charge of YTMND in 2015 after original founder Max Goldberg was placed in charge of Argosy New Media as a whole, has said that YTMND is “funded by whatever is left over from the box-office that doesn’t go to other movies”.

Culture
YTMND still maintains a distinctive culture from other meme and video sites, such as the “fad” terminology instead of “meme”, and it has also been noted that YTMND “fads” have a much longer lifespan than memes on other sites. While some YTMND “fads” have became memes on other sites like Reddit, several memes originated from other sites like Reddit and 4chan before becoming “fads” on YTMND.

YTMND users have a rivalry with TikTok users, which has resulted in the phrase/fad, “YTMND good, TikTok bad”, used to satirize these who blindly bash TikTok. YTMND also has a community of people who remix “fad” sources and pitch-shift them to BGM (usually from keygens, Touhou, or Japanese music games), known as the “YTMNDMV” (YTMND Music Video) community, or in Asian YTMND communities, MAD or OTOMAD.

YTMND is quite popular in Japan, to the point where Japanese users have originated “fads” like Hammer MADs and the Red Zone remix trend.

Advertising campaigns
YTMND is mainly advertised as an alternative to platforms like Vine and TikTok. It was advertised as “The Original since 2004” at the height of Vine’s popularity, from 2014 to 2015; the slogan was revived in 2019 with the rise of TikTok.

YTMND also advertises its 5-star voting system, and has dug at YouTube with slogans like “Like and Dislike aren’t enough”; following YouTube’s controversial removal of public dislike counts in 2021, the brand account tweeted: “We still have a dislike button. (As well as 2-star, 3-star, and 4-star buttons.)”

Controversy
Some YTMND “fads” have been said to be racist, especially earlier iterations of the “Moon Man” fad (featuring Mac Tonight from a series of McDonalds commercials). However, in the early-2010s, with the revival in popularity of YTMND, Moon Man has started to become “flanderized” by newer users into (according to the official wiki) “an asshole in general, not just a racist asshole”.