We sat down with Instagram’s very own reigning gay meme queen, Best of Grindr, to bring you the inside scoop on Instagram’s biggest gay meme page and it’s San Francisco-based founder, Kash Kunde.
For those of you who might have been living under a rock for the last few years, Best of Grindr is the most popular gay meme page on Instagram weighing in at over 1 million followers, making Kash one of the LGBT community’s most prominent influencers. He curates hilariously relatable gay content from Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram (duh) to bring his audience the best of the best gay memes every single day!
PRIDE: How did Best of Grindr start? What was day one like?
Kash Kunde: In all honesty, I was in graduate school in 2014, I was single, and I was procrastinating while studying for an exam. When I started, I was mostly just posting some of the of the deplorable messages I received on Grindr. The page used to be just that, Grindr chats. But over time it evolved into more of a meme page. That was day one!
I noticed you repost a lot of other people’s memes but you also make your own. What’s the process of making a meme like for you?
Most of what I do post is posted stuff, because I genuinely believe that I’m not that clever. Like, at all. There are so many people who are far funnier and more clever than I am...so I don’t really know of a creative process!
Sometimes I just see an image and an idea for a meme just generally comes to me. Usually it’s a super popular meme that I can somehow skew toward the gay community. That’s how I make my own memes. But yeah, most of it is just trolling a bunch of different internet sites and reposting the best stuff.
You seem to source your memes from everywhere—Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr. Which platform has the best memes?
Hmmmm...that’s hard to say, but I’d go with Instagram, although I am partial. Not only is Best of Grindr primarily on Instagram, I also work for Instagram. So I’m definitely partial because I spend more time there than on any other platform.
That was actually my next question. What do you do for work when you're not meme-ing?
I work in Product Operations at Instagram.
Is that your dream job?
Well my dream job is to be a judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race, of course.
I’m sure you’d slay. I’ve noticed on Instagram that you hang out with a lot of our favorite drag queens. Do you get to go backstage at their shows or anything like that?
Well, I’ve definitely had the opportunity to make online friendships with a handful of them. Sometimes I’ll get free tickets to the shows, especially the ones in San Francisco, but I’m never like backstage or anything. Just there enjoying the show. I’m sure they’d let me backstage! But I’ve never asked.
Do you ever get recognized in public?
Oh my god. I do, and it’s the weirdest thing! I was getting a haircut a few days ago and someone recognized me and actually told me they were starstruck. I’ve never been told that before! I’ve only been recognized about 8 or 9 times, but it’s still flattering.
Did you ever think you’d have a million followers?
Nope. Absolutely not. I remember though, when I first started, there weren’t a lot of gay accounts that were doing memes, so I definitely felt like I was onto something. But 1 million never seemed like a real number to me. There were some others too. Drinks for Gayz started about a year before me, and a few others started around the same time. I remember my goal at one point was to be the biggest, and after hitting around 500k, I wanted my account to be the first one to a million. That was my goal for myself. In the end, I was actually the first! It’s a super cool thing.
So you just started your own merchandise line. So cool! How did that venture come about?
Yeah! I’ve been thinking about doing merch for a really long time, and I’ve always held myself back for fear of it failing. This is my first solo venture, and I’ve never been self-employed before so it’s really exciting to actually have a finished product out there for my followers.
Not only is it out there, but it’s stuff that I’m proud of and excited about. It’s stuff that I personally would wear. I think it’s a little different than your average gay merch. I see a lot of stuff that’s out there now that gay meme accounts are advertising and it’s usually tee shirts that just say "Bottom" or "Top" or something. That’s cute and funny, I guess, but it’s not what I always wanted my merchandise to be.
I’m just excited to launch something that I wear myself. I wear my own merch all the time. I was traveling from Hawaii the other day wearing my merch. Like, other people are wearing my merch too! It’s just the coolest feeling.
That’s awesome! Last question: What’s one thing you wish all of your followers knew about you?
Mostly how much I appreciate their support. I truly can’t believe the account has grown to the size it has and I feel so fortunate that people continue to find humor in it, even years later. We all live and work such stressful lives (work, bills, etc.) and alI I hope to do is just brighten somebody’s day and make them laugh as hard as I do at the content on my page.
For more hilarious gay memes, make sure to follow Best of Grindr on Instagram!
