(For those of you celebrating today, Merry Christmas! For those who celebrate something else, happy Friday! For those who hate family and gift giving, Bah Humbug! For almost everyone else, Happy Holidays!)

It’s tougher than you’d think to be popular online. While many of us would like to be well-known because of our success, our know-how or just how cool we are, each of these things are extremely subjective to your audience. It’s also hard to pander to a crowd if you’re not exactly sure who they all are.

As my Christmas present to you, I’m going to tell you the absolute best way to attract followers, make connections, amp up engagement and increase your popularity across the vast internets:

Be a jerk.

Everyone loves a good villain and the very BEST villains have hordes of people scheming against them. Here are a few tips I’ve gleaned from, um, researching this very topic:

1. Be contrary to whatever is popular
Are Apple products cool to most people? Good, because if you want to be popular, you must you hate them. Same applies to Glee, 3D movies and Vibrams. Also, it seems cool to hate on hipsters, so if you love apps like Instagram, you’re well on your way.

2. Point out flaws that everyone accepts but don’t acknowledge
I’d recommend choosing an industry you have worked with but aren’t extremely experienced in and call them out. Whether you’re right or wrong matters not, people will comment anyway.

3. Disregard the mainstream as irrelevant
We (non-mainstreamers) know that anything that becomes popular has immediately jumped the shark and is now dead. While the mainstream is certainly the place where the money is made, being popular means you don’t care about money (if you did, you wouldn’t be contrarian but instead normal), so ignore the wants and needs of people like your parents and anyone whose Twitter number is higher than 25,000.

4. Hate on holidays and traditions
Write a negative list on a well-celebrated holiday. Repeatedly claim New Year’s Eve is amateur hour. Claim Valentine’s Day is for people who can’t get laid. Bellow that just because something has worked or been fun in the past, it won’t now because the world has changed, newspapers are dead and the icecaps are melting.

5. Use satire, sarcasm and parody in an attempt to be funny
Being serious is for squares. All the popular internet people use tactics like sarcasm, irony and wordplay to get noticed. Never mind slapstick humor or even partial truth, because those are as funny as Adam Sandler (who’s ridiculously rich, by the way). Oh, making fun of people who aren’t like you is good, too.

Anyone else have tips on how to be popular online? Would love to hear them.