FIRST ON FOX: As a senior enlisted leader within the U.S. Special Operations Command, Sgt. Maj. Matt Parrish had a secret weapon empowering him to better serve his community: memes.
"Across the military, humor has always been a great coping mechanism. It's always been something that's united us," Parrish said.
Parrish revealed to Fox News that he is the man behind the wildly popular "Another SF Meme Page." It’s a secret he’s kept for more than three years while holding one of the top positions in SOCOM. The only clue as to his identity was his avatar: a cartoon cat wearing a green beret.
As more service members and leaders leverage social media to bolster their influence within the military, the memeosphere is becoming ever more consequential. What began as a way to kill time during the COVID lockdown gave Parrish an unexpected finger on the pulse of the force and a tool to help both active-duty troops and veterans.
TENNESSEE STUDENT'S SUSPENSION OVER MEMES RESCINDED AFTER ORG FILES FIRST AMENDMENT LAWSUIT
Parrish enlisted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and the urgency of the Global War on Terror offered him a fast track to try out for special forces.
"As a young guy wanting to join and wanting to be surrounded by the best, I thought, man, what better ruler to put out there to try to join and be part of the Green Berets?" Parrish said.
Multiple combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq followed, then deployments to Central and South America. After years of high-intensity combat and the physical toll of the SOF lifestyle, Parrish became the first sergeant at USSOCOM Headquarters in 2018. Two years later, he took over SOCOM’s Preservation of the Force and Family, tasked with taking care of operators' physical, psychological and spiritual needs.
At the same time, the world was starting to shut down. Parrish spent his new surplus of free time scrolling through Instagram, laughing at military memes.
On a whim one Friday, he downloaded a meme generator, created a couple of his own posts and started an Instagram account. He called it Another SF Meme Page because "everybody seemed to be sprouting these things up."
As COVID continued to foil usual military operations, Parrish found a new sense of community online.
"I had just come from 13 straight years on a team, and I was missing some of that team room vibe of everybody poking fun at each other," he said.
WATCH MORE FOX NEWS DIGITAL ORIGINALS HERE
The military has a unique brand of humor that’s often dark and crass. Because service members often use comedy to process challenging and traumatic experiences, it’s said that "nothing is sacred."
"He attacks everyone in his peer group," Marine veteran Zachary Bell — better known as "Veteran With a Sign" online — said of Another SF Meme Page. "That’s how you know he’s legit."
The intrinsically edgy humor is a big reason why no one except Parrish’s wife knew what he was doing. He didn’t want other leaders to face questions about his posts, especially those that ventured into politics, or give the impression that a senior enlisted Special Forces soldier was denigrating elected officials.
"I try to make it where it’s not hyper political because everything seems to be politicized now," Parrish said. "But if I see a video of a politician stammering over something, I’m captioning it, ‘When you get asked a question in a language test and you don’t remember the answer…’"
THE ARMY GAVE THIS OFFICER A FALSE CRIMINAL RECORD, STUNTING HIS CAREER. NOW HE’S GETTING BACKPAY
Parrish’s anonymity turned out to be an unexpected benefit both on the page and in his day job. As a sergeant major, he might be perceived as "out of touch" and have difficulty reaching the lower enlisted and younger non-commissioned officers.
But soldiers filled the meme page's inbox, looking to vent or solicit advice.
"As a leader, I had a better finger on the pulse of things happening down the line," Parrish said. "I was in charge of a global organization, and I was learning things that I wouldn’t have known as the senior enlisted leader, but some E-5 in Ranger Regiment would text me and share a problem, and I would go try to fix that."
When he learned members of a SOF unit were quarantined without adequate food, he and other meme pages rallied to get pizzas and other meals passed over the fence. People also felt comfortable opening up to the anonymous meme maker about mental health or struggles with religion.
"‘Hey man, I know you’re just a meme page, but I don’t know who else I would tell about this,’" Parrish recalled troops writing. "They knew because I was anonymous, I wasn’t going to tell on them."
"I started being able to witness to people and counsel them," he added. "And all of a sudden I had people that were coming back and saying, ‘Hey, I just got out of inpatient rehab. I went and took care of my substance abuse thing.’ Or, ‘Hey, I just got baptized and saved,’ and it was a result of me opening up to those things."
As the page grew, Parrish saw the potential for rallying people to support causes he cared about. In March 2020, he made a March Madness-style bracket, tagged 64 meme pages in it and let the voting begin.
"All of a sudden it just exploded," he said. "We were getting millions of impressions on this little page."
He realized he could capitalize on the traffic — for a cause. He called on his followers to donate directly to one of two military nonprofits: Special Operations Warrior Foundation, which provides college tuition to children of fallen special operators, or HunterSeven Foundation, which helps veterans get treatment for cancer and other exposure-related illnesses. If followers sent a screenshot of their donation, he’d give them a shout-out on the page.
It raised a few thousand dollars. But then in October, he launched Hallomeme Madness and raised about $11,000. The next March, the donations surged to $55,000. All told, Parrish estimates his followers have donated more than $100,000 to charity.
"It’s literally a fourth of our budget," HunterSeven Foundation Executive Director Chelsey Simoni told Fox News. "I can't relay how thankful I am to Matt and to everybody who supported the meme tournament. Whether it was $5 or $500, your donation made a difference in saving lives."
Like the rest of the world, Simoni had no idea who was running the page until now. But the Army veteran had met Parrish before at presentations and even spoke with him on an episode of SOCOM’s official podcast, SOFcast.
"He’s a very serious, very stern, sergeant major," she laughed. "I never thought it would have been him, but he’s a hell of a guy."
And while Parrish was able to share one side of the military’s story on SOFcast, interviewing legendary special operators, generals and Medal of Honor recipients, the meme page shared the stories of the boots on the ground.
Parrish credits the power of humor with getting serious topics such as PTSD and suicide prevention across to a wider audience. Every time he considered shutting down the page, it seemed like another follower would message him and say how he’d impacted their life.
"It was like, okay, God's given me this opportunity that I would have never thought I'd have," he said. "Let's try to do as much as we can for good."
It’s one of the things he hopes doesn’t vanish now that he’s opening up about his identity. But he also knows anonymity can breed skepticism.
"There are a lot of people who fake who they are," he said. "Now that I’m retired, I want to use the page for good. I want to continue to use it to raise charity, raise awareness for these causes."
He wants his audience to know the true Matt Parrish — a seasoned Special Forces veteran who suffered more injuries than he can count, sought treatment for his own post-traumatic stress and is a devout Christian and family man.
"I want people to know, like, hey, it's legit, it's authentic, it is real."
Parrish retired from the Army earlier this year and is embarking on his next adventure, but a familiar one: hosting a new podcast called Prep for Impact through the nonprofit Green Beret Foundation, which serves Green Berets past and present as well as their families.
His new bosses didn’t know about his double life before asking him to join the team, but GBF CEO Charlie Iacono told Fox News he was thrilled to learn the truth.
"Matt’s sense of humor is spot on with how we should go about navigating our life and looking at life as the glass is half full," Iacono said. "It’s also very impressive that he’s been able to keep this a secret for so long in this age of digital sleuths."
Now that his identity is out, Parrish said he hopes to be able to carry conversations over to the meme page from the podcast and vice versa, whether the topic is SOF, family, mental health or faith.
"I want to be able to broaden the discussion," he said. "To have a conversation that's very impactful as a podcast and then share some memes about it to generate thought."
To hear more from Parrish, click here.
