When actress Kiernan Shipka and author Sam Lansky first met, they were already following each other on Instagram. To turn their acquaintance into a friendship, they both added each other to their ‘Close Friends’ story.

The Close Friends story was the theme of a New York dinner party, hosted by Instagram, Shipka, and Lansky on October 8. Held at the dimly lit fried food haven that is Bernie’s in Greenpoint, the event brought together a mix of actors and creatives, including Chase Sui Wonders, BJ Novack, Adam DiMarco, Lukas Gage, Myha'la and Dylan Mulvaney. Internet personalities and online creators like Kareem Rahma of Subway Takes, Alex Hartman of Nolita Dirtbag and Evan Ross Katz were in attendance, too. 

Considering memes and a Close Friends story experience were a part of Shipka and Lansky’s friendship origin story, nods to both were everywhere. Black baseball caps embroidered with ‘add me to your close friends’ graced the wood bar, as did napkins with iconic memes printed onto them. While Shipka and Lansky are likely better known for their other creative pursuits, the chronically online best friends actually share a profession: They both run anonymous meme accounts, and, naturally, have strong opinions on the art of sending one.

“I do love a well-timed meme follow-up to something that we were just discussing,” Lansky said as we chatted at a rickety table outside the restaurant. “If I was at a dinner, and there was something on the subject, and then I see a highly relevant meme that I can send in the immediate aftermath, that's very gratifying.”

“There’s few thrills as satisfying as that,” Shipka agreed. 

Below, Shipka and Lansky spoke to us about their friendship, taste in humour and the joys of posting anonymously.

How did you guys become friends? 

Sam Lansky: Memes.

Kiernan Shipka: Well, kind of memes. I was at dinner with my friend Charlie, and Charlie knew Sam. 

Sam Lansky: Charlie and I are old friends. I stopped by the table.

Kiernan Shipka: We’d [already] followed each other on Instagram then. 

Sam Lansky: Then I feel like there was a moment where we kind of clocked each other’s tea. I was saying hi to Charlie, I had never met Kiernan before, and I feel like – maybe I’m romanticising this in my head – but I feel like there was a moment where we were both sort of like, ‘Oh, this could be something.’

Kiernan Shipka: I thought that too; it’s not all in your head. 

Sam Lansky: There was definitely a moment of recognition, of ’that’s a kindred spirit’. And then Kieran put me on Close Friends, and I vice versa. And there was something that Kiernan posted that hit me in my very specific funny bone, in such a serious way that I was like, ‘She's definitely my people.’ And a friendship was born. 

Kiernan Shipka: You were the only person who I think responded. 

Do you remember what the post was? 

Kiernan Shipka: There was a girl who posted about her trip to Tulum, and one of the sentences was, ‘Tulum cracked me open’. And I was delighted by it, so I reposted it, and [Sam] quickly engaged. 

Sam Lansky: Yeah, I responded so viscerally to ‘Tulum cracked me open’. It touched a nerve that I didn’t realise needed touching. And I think not long after that, we actually hung out meaningfully IRL for the first time. But the foundation was Close Friends and memes. I think part of the reason we were excited to do this [dinner] is because Close Friends is actually a foundational part of our friendship in a real way. We bonded over it and continue to bond over it, and it genuinely has brought us together. 

Kiernan Shipka:  I also think it speaks to the fact that if you want to be close friends with someone, [you should] put them on your Close Friends. You don’t already have to be close friends with someone to put them on your Close Friends. It could be a ‘Hey, this is the direction I’d like this to go’. 

Sam Lansky: I was explaining this to someone earlier when they were asking me about this dinner. I have found, as a Close Friends power user, if there’s someone I meet and I really want to have more of a relationship with this person, I add them to Close Friends, and they get a look inside what’s actually going on inside my consciousness, and it creates a kind of intimacy that you can bring out into the real world. 

It’s like giving someone a gold star. 

Sam Lansky: It's also giving someone access to a more intimate part of your internet consciousness that I think can really create some real closeness.

How would you describe each other’s humour? 

Sam Lansky: Well, it’s essentially the same. Do we have differences in our humour? 

Kiernan Shipka: I don’t think we have many differences in humour, at least not our meme taste. I think the Venn diagram [of our humour] is just one circle.

Sam Lansky: I think we both have a fondness for what I think might otherwise be described as like, ‘cringe core’. I think if there’s a piece of content that feels like your aunt would’ve posted it on Facebook five years ago, that’s definitely for me. I get sent a lot of people’s mums and grandmas’ content because people know that that’s what I'm going to respond to. 

What about you, Kiernan? 

Kiernan Shipka: I think there’s an irony to a lot of the stuff that we like. I like spiritual memes too, a lot. I feel like a lot of us are on our own spiritual healing, mental health journey, and any meme that can touch on a mental health state that I relate to, I find quite funny. 

I don’t know what I would describe as my overall taste in memes, because I feel like it’s kind of ranging. I think it’s anything that has a little bit of a wink to it. Not like a ‘haha, that’s funny’ and only that. There’s got to be sort of a double meaning. A double meme-ing, if you will. 

Sam Lansky:  As much as I love the wink, and I do love the wink, I love deeply, deeply earnest memes maybe most of all. So much of what I post to Close Friends is content that is completely 100 per cent sincere. I think people think that I am doing a bit, but I'm genuinely posting this picture of kittens hanging from a wall, saying, ‘Hang in there,’ because I want people to hang in there. Times are tough out there! 

What is the last meme that you saved?

Kiernan Shipka:

Sam Lansky:

I have to ask about your meme accounts. How did those start? 

Sam Lansky: I needed a place to shit-post without self-consciousness. I needed a place where I could just post absolute garbage and feel totally free and disinhibited. And so, I do have a meme account. It’s public. It’s not vastly followed. Nobody knows it’s me. But one of the greatest compliments of my life was when I had been posting to Close Friends from my meme account, and [revealed myself] to one of my favourite memers in the world who runs a big, big meme account. When I admin revealed to her, she was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s you? I thought that was like some cool teenager.’ And I was like, ‘No, it's me, a weird adult man who apparently has the same taste in memes as cool teenagers who run meme accounts’. I was really flattered. 

Kiernan, what about yours? 

Kiernan Shipka: I think I wanted a sense of community, but I also didn’t want anyone to know that it was me, or I guess just [wanted] a few people to know that it was me. I think [Sam] nailed it with [saying that] there's just a lack of self-consciousness because it's just coming from a meme account, and that’s kind of become its own personality. I don't feel like it’s attached to me in any way. 

Sam Lansky: It’s freedom. 

Kiernan Shipka: It is freedom – the ultimate freedom, an anonymous meme account. 

Are you both still actively posting on your meme accounts?

Kiernan Shipka: Yeah, I go in and out. I mean, you can tell when I am working and when I’m not, if you tracked it. But yeah, I’m still posting. 

Sam Lansky: I am posting infrequently. I also sort of have fits and starts. I sort of forget, and then I power post for a couple of days, and then I go dark again. But my community knows where to find me. And they know I’m not going anywhere.