I can’t be entirely sure that 19-year-old Justin Jin isn’t playing an elaborate joke on me. After all, Jin’s company, Giggles—which he describes as a blend of a trading app and TikTok—began as a joke itself.
“This was around 2023, when there were rumors about TikTok being banned, and people were searching for a new social media platform,” Jin explained to JS. “I started a meme about an app called Giggles, which didn’t exist at the time, but it went viral on TikTok.”
The name Giggles stems from a joke where people on TikTok would respond to outdated memes with, “bro got banned from google giggles.” It was intended to be a place for posting millennial cringe, similar to Threads, but it wasn’t real—until Jin decided to make it so.
Jin created a landing page for the fictional app, complete with a logo resembling a genuine Google app. The page featured a sign-up field for a waitlist and received 100,000 visits in a single day. This led Jin to contact his friend Edwin Wang to develop the app.
Jin and Wang didn’t meet in traditional settings like Stanford, McKinsey, or a startup incubator. Instead, Jin met Wang while he was a YouTuber managing a questionable Minecraft marketplace that was eventually shut down for breaking platform monetization rules.
The result was a venture that seems fitting for a Minecraft YouTuber involved in NFTs: a marketplace akin to TikTok and Kalshi where users can share “brainrot” videos and invest “aura points” in them. Soon, the app will allow users to invest real cryptocurrency instead. Early investments in a meme that gains popularity result in payments. Although still in an invite-only beta phase, Jin claims that 450,000 users have signed up.
“Our aim is to be the first crypto app where people spend over 30 minutes daily,” Jin shared. “Once we establish a well-crafted doomscroll feed, it should naturally engage users’ dopamine cycles and help retain them.”
A crypto-based meme trading app that leverages dopamine cycles? Co-founders with a background in Minecraft YouTubing? A fundraising effort totaling exactly $1,234,567? As I delved into this story, I found myself growing paranoid—my mind succumbing to the complexities of AI-generated misinformation and the overwhelming uncertainty of online realities.
It seems far-fetched to believe someone would develop an entire app as a joke, but we live in an era of vibe coding, where fooling journalists is common. If Jin has already played a prank on Google, could JS be next? Could I become the writer known for taking Giggles too seriously, jeopardizing my career by trusting a compelling 19-year-old who once sold fidget spinners on the playground?
My skepticism wasn’t entirely without reason. Upon investigating Jin’s previous company—Mediababy, formerly Poybo—I found questionable testimonials and press mentions on their website. When I reached out to a journalist quoted there, they were unaware of the reference. This could be a case of a young founder pushing growth hacking too far, but it left a bad impression.
I felt like the Pepe Silvia meme, connecting unrelated clues to form a narrative. Even the launch video included a snippet of the Rickroll meme—was that a hint?
Giggles’ $1,234,567 fundraising was led by 1k(x). I reached out to some investors at 1k(x) to verify their involvement, even though I had already been in contact with the firm’s marketing head. With scammers spoofing the JS domain to deceive founders, who’s to say Jin hadn’t done the same? By then, my trust was wearing thin.
Eventually, I received confirmation from 1k(x) that the deal was genuine. I also took a break to eat and get some fresh air, which made me feel somewhat foolish for those LinkedIn messages. (Still, those fake testimonials are puzzling.)
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t indulge in detailing my own anxiety in an article about a startup. But with Giggles, it seems relevant. Jin shared some thoughts during our conversation that resonated with me.
“I suspect that bots are taking over social media platforms, and because our advertising model is based on likes and impressions… botting is going to be a major issue,” he said. “I think trading and predicting viral trends helps organize information downstream.”
Future social media platforms will need to account for the influx of AI-generated content and suspicious bot activity. Social media’s promise is to connect people, yet we’re nearing a point where finding genuine connections amidst the chaos is challenging. This may explain why Jin’s generation embraces a nihilistic sense of humor and calls their creations brainrot.
“Everyone can create content more freely, and people are more authentic because anonymity is an option—unlike on Facebook or similar platforms, where you don’t post brain rot,” he said. “Honestly, many young individuals are freaking out. The world feels incredibly strange right now.”
Giggles—which I am, like, 99% sure is a legitimate company—employs eight people, aged 19 to 38. Jin is the youngest among them.
“Starting a company is a high-risk endeavor,” he noted. “It’s essentially gambling. You’re betting on yourself, hoping to outperform a traditional job.”
I asked Jin if he considers Giggles a form of gambling.
“I wouldn’t classify it as gambling. Lottery tickets are gambling. Pure chance games are gambling. Those are quite extractive,” he commented.
Nonetheless, he acknowledges that he’s essentially creating memecoins—cryptocurrencies based on memes without intrinsic value, often prone to rug pull scams.
“Many people argue that meme coins are zero-sum, and honestly, maybe they currently are,” Jin admitted. “But they do help organize information and provide entertainment. I believe we can become a platform that offers substantial information to the world.”
While I can’t guarantee that Giggles will solve the bot issue and make the internet more human by using crypto on brainrot memes, I can say Jin is a founder worth watching, and he (probably) isn’t pranking you.
