# How did The Likeable Assholes get so popular?



## teddyp23 (Jun 19, 2012)

hey so i was wondering if anyone knows The Likeable Assholes' story? I was curious to find out how they got to the point theyre at right now. did they get their shirt on the back of a celebrity or something? or did their blog have such a huge following that it was easy for them to have an equally huge following when they decided to start making shirts?

just curious to see if anyone knows


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## PhilR (May 3, 2011)

Never heard of them till I read this.


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## johnbol1 (Aug 19, 2010)

teddyp23 said:


> hey so i was wondering if anyone knows The Likeable Assholes' story? I was curious to find out how they got to the point theyre at right now. did they get their shirt on the back of a celebrity or something? or did their blog have such a huge following that it was easy for them to have an equally huge following when they decided to start making shirts?
> 
> just curious to see if anyone knows


promo post I think ??


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## teddyp23 (Jun 19, 2012)

huh? are you really playing police just bc you dont know the answer?

please dont go out of your way to keep someone else from having their question answered. if you dont know the answer then dont post negative things.
thanks


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## teddyp23 (Jun 19, 2012)

PhilR said:


> Never heard of them till I read this.


yea i feel like they blew up overnight here in the states. but i cant find any interviews or anything about how they spread like wildfire.


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## lben (Jun 3, 2008)

I've never heard of them either. What kind of shirts do they make? I don't care for the name at all, so I probably wouldn't buy it just for that reason, but other people don't seem to care much about letting companies advertise their products on their clothing.


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## lben (Jun 3, 2008)

I just googled them. They have 2 designs. I don't care for either one of them. And I certainly wouldn't want cuss words on my clothing like that. I have never seen the design being worn anywhere either. Are you sure they're popular? Maybe in your area of the country. Kids around these parts aren't wearing them.


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## beanie357 (Mar 27, 2011)

Certainly a unique idea for personal interaction.

Not.


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## foot print (Jun 2, 2010)

Never heard of them..nor will i waist my time to google them..Since this is a public forum anyone can play forum police..either way Rodney will have final say if your post is appropriate or not.


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## SHALO (Apr 5, 2008)

this is what I found about them:
Registrant:
thekillertruth

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, LLC (Go Daddy Mobile - Domain Search, Go Daddy Commercials)
Domain Name: THELIKEABLEASSHOLES.COM

Domain servers in listed order:
NS67.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
NS68.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
They also have 24 other domain names registered under their name.
i think they have been in Biz since 2011-02-17 

I hope this helps.


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## Celtic (Feb 19, 2008)

I'll say the same.........Never heard of them.

They 'spread like wildfire' ? 

I guess it's all relative....... 
Just out of curiosity, what country are they big in?


Ok, can't resist, because of their name........maybe they're just big in their 'circle' (the said, ahem, assholes) ?!!
(YIKES) 
Sorry, couldn't resist!


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## beanie357 (Mar 27, 2011)

Well played Celtic


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## lben (Jun 3, 2008)

He said they were big in the USA. Still never heard of them. By the looks of the website they are going after the gangsta crowd.


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## drdoct (Jul 26, 2011)

3 posts and everyone on this topic right here and the audacity to call out someone who has over 200 posts for policing? I'm with John, probably a promo post. If it's not it sure is just like all the rest. If it's not then post a little more and help some people out and you'll figure out why you get a jaundiced eye as a promo post. I'd appreciate the title to be edited for content, there's no reason to have it out there. And they aren't popular or likeable. Just seem more like a-holes.


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## PBScott (Apr 13, 2009)

Their Alexa rank is still well above a million, but are doing quite well in the US in the top 200k

Edit, I just found them on face book and they have over 100k page likes, so something they did obviously was working for a while. Having looked at the website, I can't imagine any sort of long term success unless they get a bunch more designs. I would like to know their secret also, as I would like some of their facebook likes.


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## KiwiMediaGroup (Aug 25, 2012)

Good question, I've been following them on Instagram and I thought it was just some random person that made shirts that I just stumbled upon. Then I noticed how popular they were on Twitter, facebook, etc. I recognized their logo from a few music videos but never paid attention until Instagram. I'm assuming they got so popular because of social media. I happened upon this post because I was wondering the same thing.


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## Hegemone (Oct 18, 2011)

The who concept is base. Its lowest common denominator and caters to the worst in people. There is a market for everything and consumers to support that market. Wasn't it just last week people were trying to find a printer to put the images of murders on shirts?


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

like several others...never heard of them...would not bother to check out their site..and would not buy from any site that I would not like daughter to visit...seriously demented in my feeble lil o mind


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## RickyJ702 (Jul 23, 2012)

never hurd of them also till now. if it was established in 2011 and only have 2 designs usually means they didn't make them. it's a media brand.


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## A1WHITES (Nov 19, 2011)

I don't know and don't care. Plus in a short time you will not hear or see anything about them. Just my two cents on it


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## starchild (Jul 22, 2009)

Just checked out their site. Their About Us & their Blog are clearly defining their market positioning. The products though limited in selection was also well developed. (Hats Jackets Tanks and Tees)

All in all it certainly was not done by guess like most. The one issue I see is bringing fresh new products to market more regularly otherwise the community loses interest and moves on. Maybe poor financial management/decision on how to grow. (cough..middlemen) I doubt it's for lack of ideas though.

I never heard of them either.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy SII


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## streetexclusives (Sep 2, 2012)

starchild said:


> Just checked out their site. Their About Us & their Blog are clearly defining their market positioning. The products though limited in selection was also well developed. (Hats Jackets Tanks and Tees)
> 
> All in all it certainly was not done by guess like most. The one issue I see is bringing fresh new products to market more regularly otherwise the community loses interest and moves on. Maybe poor financial management/decision on how to grow. (cough..middlemen) I doubt it's for lack of ideas though.
> 
> ...


We started in Jan of this year. Our main business is brand management for musicians, celebs and brands we sell our tla brand. u can stop the speculation and just ask me anything u want here. I the co founder


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## Fisched (Jun 8, 2012)

Kinda funny that everyone who's heard of these guys apparently just joined this forum. Gotta give it up to them for the good marketing ploy though.. made you look them up and check their site.


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## LikeableAssholes (Sep 3, 2012)

dawn0115 said:


> I certainly wouldn't want cuss words on my clothing like that. May be each region's cultural attraction is not the same，someone likes that.
> 
> They just feel it is a kind of personality.


I feel ya. A curse word is meant to offend someone. The "WHY" behind the brand is the complete opposite.

Likeable Assholes is the personality of the hundreds of thousands of people who don't sugar coat anything! 

We have a theory that there's three types of people in this world: Yes Men, Assholes & Likeable Assholes"


1. Yes men are people who tell you what you want to hear instead of what you NEED to hear. 

2. Assholes are selfish people who do what they want and only care about themselves 

3. Likeable Assholes, an oxymoron that represents people who keep REAL with you. They're called assholes because of their BLUNT HONESTY, and Likeable because at the end of the day its because they care about you.


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## starchild (Jul 22, 2009)

Well I guess the community you guys have built/building stays loyal to the message so they visit the blog regularly. So advertising could be a source of revenue on the site.

But I doubt they return to purchase the same items already available. Marketing becomes expensive when you have to keep reaching out to new customers for revenue and not fully satisfy the already loyal community you have built. After all they are "the loyal" worker bees that spread the pollen about your new offerings. So you can stay more focused on product development.

Marketers.. whose main competency is product development (screen printing their own s hit for instance) usually comes along and takes away market share from those who's competency is intangible (the message) and can easily be duplicated. 

So I saw a site that offers that lifestyle message before. So I saw a few hundreds of blogs that offered that lifestyle message before. Millions of street jedi tweets and post too.

So how do you stay down wind of the hunters and keep your ground.
#likeableassholes.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy SII


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## streetexclusives (Sep 2, 2012)

We spend $0 on marketing because the networks we built and control are over 1 million and growing

We gain larger fan bases by getting bigger clients thru are music marketing and management company.

We manage some of the largest hip-hop artists/brands in the world

We are in a unique position because we are a Media/content provider Which happens to sell merch. 
We are not a traditional clothing line.

People internalize BEING a "Likeable Asshole" and are not just identifying with another clothing brand



starchild said:


> Well I guess the community you guys have built/building stays loyal to the message so they visit the blog regularly. So advertising could be a source of revenue on the site.
> 
> But I doubt they return to purchase the same items already available. Marketing becomes expensive when you have to keep reaching out to new customers for revenue and not fully satisfy the already loyal community you have built. After all they are "the loyal" worker bees that spread the pollen about your new offerings. So you can stay more focused on product development.
> 
> ...


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## streetexclusives (Sep 2, 2012)

Also we sell 90% thru social networks. Blog traffic is minimal as behavior of the urban user has changed drastically over the last 12-18 months. We are positioning to mobile to monetize.



streetexclusives said:


> We spend $0 on marketing because the networks we built and control are over 1 million and growing
> 
> We gain larger fan bases by getting bigger clients thru are music marketing and management company.
> 
> ...


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## streetexclusives (Sep 2, 2012)

Fisched said:


> Kinda funny that everyone who's heard of these guys apparently just joined this forum. Gotta give it up to them for the good marketing ploy though.. made you look them up and check their site.



Lets be more precise. there are 2 people who have just joined this forum. me the co founder and the founder of likeableassholes. 

We reach millions of people everyday, why would we need a few views in a forum. 

the problem here is scale? do you know how big the universe is compared to our solar system? do u know how many people there are in china compared to the USA. do you know how big our marketing is compared to getting a few people to post in this forum?

We the founders happend to find this discussion and signed up. This is no conspiracy and we were not sent by the illuminati.

haha. omg. im on my likeableasshole stuff today....

SUPER FAIL....


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## Comin'OutSwingin (Oct 28, 2005)

streetexclusives said:


> Lets be more precise. there are 2 people who have just joined this forum. me the co founder and the founder of likeableassholes.


Well, that's not really being precise. 

By my count there are 4 people that have just joined this forum that have heard of you: the original person that started this thread, kiwi, and as you say, the founder and co-founder.

Other than that, nobody.




streetexclusives said:


> We reach millions of people everyday, why would we need a few views in a forum.
> 
> the problem here is scale? do you know how big the universe is compared to our solar system? do u know how many people there are in china compared to the USA. do you know how big our marketing is compared to getting a few people to post in this forum?
> 
> ...


Obviously you're not familiar with this forum. Companies, both big and small, pull just this kind of thing on forums all the time.

And a little heads up...there are members of this forum from countries all over the world, including China.

So, you need to understand, from the perspective of some members here, it looks a little suspicious when a company no one here seems to have heard of gets brought up by someone brand new. Then the only people to claim to have heard of this company are also brand new.


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

Well Gregg...... since" they" reach millions already and don't really need a few viewers like our members why don't the mods close this thread and leave more room for more important stuff?


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## Fisched (Jun 8, 2012)

streetexclusives said:


> Lets be more precise. there are 2 people who have just joined this forum. me the co founder and the founder of likeableassholes.
> 
> We reach millions of people everyday, why would we need a few views in a forum.
> 
> ...


Apparently YOU don't know how big the universe is!!

Out of all the forums in the world you happened to find a post of a new member regarding a company that no one else has heard of. Yeah, what are the chances of that. 

I agree. Close this thread. This discussion is pointless.


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## selanac (Jan 8, 2007)

Agree with Charles, Gregg, and Lben. Also, the Bible says people who speak without thinking or their mind are fools. 

So LA, you're saying a third of the people are fools?


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## streetexclusives (Sep 2, 2012)

Haha. The original person who started this thread did so months ago. One person other than the 2 cofounders has seen the brand. Lol. A forum where you are not allowed to comment. Smh. Please mods close this tread and ban me. I no longer wish to socialize with morons


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## Fisched (Jun 8, 2012)

streetexclusives said:


> Haha. The original person who started this thread did so months ago. One person other than the 2 cofounders has seen the brand. Lol. A forum where you are not allowed to comment. Smh. Please mods close this tread and ban me. I no longer wish to socialize with morons


Hey Einstein, it's "thread" not "tread". 

Judging by your posts, it looks like you barely passed high school English -- I don't think you're in a position to call anyone a moron.


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## starchild (Jul 22, 2009)

My question is could you please give some insight on how you guys grew your million followers? This would be helpful to the community.

What are you guys doing to increase participation in the blog/brand? Remember those followers are only "real" loyal if you motivate them into participation.

How do your followers associate your brand with the artist management side of the business?

So like the tread starter asked- How did you guys get so popular? Some tips would be nice. Don't worry about giving away team secrets. Like Kobe said "I can tell you what I know, but you gotta have the dedication and sophistication to follow through"

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy SII


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## streetexclusives (Sep 2, 2012)

Mods please close this thread its pointless. Your forum is unusable for newbies. It only caters to Those who have been doing this for years. only allowed to post if you are popular. it's obvious that this forum doesn't cater to nor understand the urban market.


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## streetexclusives (Sep 2, 2012)

starchild said:


> My question is could you please give some insight on how you guys grew your million followers? This would be helpful to the community.
> 
> What are you guys doing to increase participation in the blog/brand? Remember those followers are only "real" loyal if you motivate them into participation.
> 
> ...


Thank u star child for and insightful question. I'm on my iPhone like most of the younger urban market. The iPhone auto corrects like crazy and doesn't recognize argot or slang so the grammar will be a little of. But if you understand me then it's language. And only the British speak proper English. 


We started building what we call meme accounts on twitter about 3 years ago. Quote accounts yunoo parady accounts. Our founder thekillertruth is like a twitter celeb in the urban market. Starting trending topics and funny content to his fan base. His expertise in understanding and frowning social networks led to serveral high profile brands and celeb clients in which we manage and ghost tweet for. so in short we grow our networks with niche funny content that caters to uban users. We manage some of the largest brands in the music industry. So in total our reach is targeted to urban users who are highly receptive to the brand. We are not as clothing company. We are a media marketing company who sell merch for ourselves and clients. But content and the niche is key to our sucuess


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## streetexclusives (Sep 2, 2012)

Most brands like artists want to be associated with hot brands. We have been contacted. By LOTS of celebs musicians and comidians who want to endorse the brand. Once again the key here is that the urban market is very small in terms of everyone knowing everyone. We can reach and have some sort of relationship with most of the urban music artists managers and record labels. There is a level of barrier to entry that we can get around pretty easy since we are a part of the urban community.


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## streetexclusives (Sep 2, 2012)

Last tip for star child. 

When selling merch use the power of social proof. Our users feel apart o the community. When they buy they post images on Facebook and Instagram. Since our movement is viral with no marketing dollars there is a 6 degrees of seperation that builds on itself. How can I explain this. If we did traditional marketing we would most likely be marketing to people beyond 6 degrees of seperation. But our networks are super targeted. Its smart like the friend recommendation on Facebook. The effect is that when our users post in our small targeted networks most all other people in the network see the brand. Fb walls twitter timelines and Instagram. All in all the brand looks much much bigger that what it is to the users all interlinked in these networks. Our "perceived" popularity brings larger brands and artists who want to join in on the buzz. And all this just plays in on top of each other. Making our brand the fastest growing brand in the urban niche right now. All viral no marketing dollars spent


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## streetexclusives (Sep 2, 2012)

streetexclusives said:


> Last tip for star child.
> 
> When selling merch use the power of social proof. Our users feel apart o the community. When they buy they post images on Facebook and Instagram. Since our movement is viral with no marketing dollars there is a 6 degrees of depredation that builds on itself. How can I explain this. If we did traditional marketing we would most likely be marketing to people beyond 6 degrees of seperation. But our networks are super targeted. Its smart like the friend recommendation on Facebook. The effect is that when our users post in our small targeted networks most all other people in the network see the brand. Fb walls twitter timelines and Instagram. All in all the brand looks much much bigger that what it is to the users all interlinked in these networks. Our "perceived" popularity brings larger brands and artists who want to join in on the buzz. And all this just plays in on top of each other. Making our brand the fastest growing brand in the urban niche right now. All viral no marketing dollars spent




Get your clients to post images of your products and share them to their networks. Focus on content and get users to change their behavior by making them feel apart of your brand. We ask every buyer to post images. The social proof effect has been key to our success


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## starchild (Jul 22, 2009)

streetexclusives said:


> Mods please close this thread its pointless. Your forum is unusable for newbies. It only caters to Those who have been doing this for years. only allowed to post if you are popular. it's obvious that this forum doesn't cater to nor understand the urban market.


Well that's not totally true. There are hundreds of members that will be interested in the story and experience getting there. Sometimes an opportunity for a healthy discussion is just lost, for some reason, or another. 

I personally don't think you guys will try selling ice to Eskimos. That just don't make sense.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy SII


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## Comin'OutSwingin (Oct 28, 2005)

streetexclusives said:


> Mods please close this thread its pointless. Your forum is unusable for newbies. It only caters to Those who have been doing this for years. only allowed to post if you are popular. it's obvious that this forum doesn't cater to nor understand the urban market.


Well, you're wrong on several points.

First, you can't say that you aren't allowed to post, because you keep posting, and your posts keep showing up.

And as long as you can follow the guidelines that you agreed to when you joined this forum, your posts will continue to show up.

Secondly, the veteran members here are great at helping newer members with questions and getting acclimated to the way the forum works. If you took just a little bit of time to work your way through this forum, that would be very obvious.

And lastly, I'm a moderater here on this forum. I've been a member of this forum for almost 7 years. And guess what? I'm in the urban market! 

I'm sure everyone here would like you to contribute to the forum. That's why it exists; so people with like interests can learn from one another.

If you'd like to be a willing contributor, abide by the guidelines, or even just lurk around and see what others have to say, go right ahead. Honestly, that would be great.

But, if this forum isn't for you. You don't have to keep posting.


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## Gecko Signs NT (Aug 3, 2012)

Very interesting how you capitlised on something you were already involved in, but from a different direction.
I hope you guys do really well


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## selanac (Jan 8, 2007)

Though I don't agree with how he posted here. He or they have a great point on Marketing. 

Start with your family. Give everyone a different t-shirt and ask them to post it. See where it goes. 

There's a guy on Wordpress.com I think. He wears a different t-shirt a day and post it. He started small and now has several employees. They wear one t-shirt and post. They tell everyone what they're doing that day. You end up seeing their pictures all over the USA. It's really pretty cool. 

They could just change the background with different poses, and take a picture. 

Maybe I'll try it.

I think one of the problems most of us have, is that we're afraid to add our other accounts here. Many people won't put where they're from either. If we did, it would allow everyone to see the rest of their postings and follow each other. 

Someone like LA has nothing to lose. They started at the bottom. We all do t-shirts for celebs, etc. Now if we can get them to add our info too.


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## selanac (Jan 8, 2007)

After reading Street Exclusives comments again I only have a few things to change. 1) get my customers to post our products. 

Question, do they need to say where they got it from or allow their fans to ask? 

2), Teach some of my customers how to Tweet, Facebook, etc. 

3), Teach them how to take pictures.
4) Teach them how to attach pictures. 

Some of these may seem ridiculous, but believe me many people still don't know these things. 

I find restaurants and car dealerships to be the worse. 

Okay fellow members, how do you get your customers to feel apart of your community?


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## cromwell (Jun 4, 2012)

i rarely post (prefer lurking) but this discussion is one which all in the t-shirt industry should be looking at.
My grammar is poor so please dont be offended by the lack of punctuation im british as well :O just too bloody lazy to use spell check etc. 
I had never heard of these people either till this thread but the marketing strategy is a good one and one i use myself for a few pages i run on fb (facebook thought id abbreviate it to save time) lol 

I make and create various audience participation images and graphics ,comedy memes and other items which then get posted on fb that's how you start a following also get the followers to repost or share images which then spreads images that go viral (hopefully) then you can monetize it further down the line

...its not a quick fix and requires plenty of work although will not cost you advertising dollars but will consume weeks/months of your life getting your message spread too enough people to make it a money maker and it also requires constant updating of your image/meme stock because the market you are targeting is fickle and in most cases dumb as a post (brutal but true).

but i have fingers in many pies and t-shirts are just 1 part of my operation if you only print shirts and you want to use it in the social market thats fine but wont create a massive sales surge what you need is smaller priced items like wrist bands, stickers, etc which will open up the smaller pockets and also get your brand/idea out there and i have sold stickers with nothing more than the url printed on them


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## streetexclusives (Sep 2, 2012)

cromwell said:


> i rarely post (prefer lurking) but this discussion is one which all in the t-shirt industry should be looking at.
> My grammar is poor so please dont be offended by the lack of punctuation im british as well :O just too bloody lazy to use spell check etc.
> I had never heard of these people either till this thread but the marketing strategy is a good one and one i use myself for a few pages i run on fb (facebook thought id abbreviate it to save time) lol
> 
> ...


Yep. I agree with most everything. Just a few things


Existing brands/memes can be brought sold. No need to build from scratch
content can be automated. I have 50 k of the funniest images over the past 18 months. Little automation magic to bulk watermark them with our brand


Use buffer app or ifttt to drip feed content to our networks


My partner does all the on the fly intuative stuff. But the bulk auto


Agree. iPhone covers stickers are a good seller. 9.99 to 20 is the sweet spot in the urban market. Like I said the merch business is not our main revenue stream. But it seems everyone is willing to "test" a brand once for that 20 and under price point.


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## selanac (Jan 8, 2007)

Spelling is very important. What I did to improve was look up every word I misspelled until I pretty much master the art. 

Still make many mistakes, but we can't continue to write like idiots just because we're making money.


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## Fisched (Jun 8, 2012)

selanac said:


> Spelling is very important. What I did to improve was look up every word I misspelled until I pretty much master the art.
> 
> Still make many mistakes, but we can't continue to write like idiots just because we're making money.


I feel like I might have ruffled some feathers with my comment  

I don't apologize to that guy (since he deserves it) but I do apologize to everyone else I might have offended.

I didn't intent to be the grammar police but his comment about calling everyone here a moron ticked me off. My point was that he was not in a position to call everyone a moron since he isn't very articulate himself. I have an electrical engineering degree ( so i consider myself kinda smart  ) but I still wouldn't go around calling people morons!!

Anyway, I just wanted to clear the air.

P.S.
I used an iPhone to reply to this thread but I still did my best to correct my spelling mistakes. Btw, it's BS when people use auto-correct as an excuse; here's the solution: auto-correct --> OFF. Also, I'm only 29 but I still refrain from acting (or in this case typing) like an idiot.


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## selanac (Jan 8, 2007)

Good for you Fisched. I think people should just admit their errors when someone calls them out. He has good advice, so people will understand.


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## cromwell (Jun 4, 2012)

i can't spell for ****


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## selanac (Jan 8, 2007)

The more you write, the better you'll get.


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