Meme is creating a progressive economy that, as a supplement to the NFT field, may evolve into an emerging subtype.
Original Title: “Understanding the Rise of Meme Economy”
Written by: Mason Marcobello, Bankless Writer Compiled by: Nanfeng
As we have seen from the recent crazy rise of NFT projects such as the NFT project “CrypToadz” created by Evil King Gremplin, the community is to a large extent the main catalyst for the success or failure of various protocols, dApps or NFT projects.
Above: Pixel image NFT project CrypToadz created by Evil King Gremplin, screenshots are from OpenSea
But in addition to this, there is another factor, a well-known cohesion that promotes and strengthens these communities, and at the same time spreads their thoughts or ideas to the wider world: memes .
What many people don’t know is that the origin of memes and their themes can be traced back to the 1970s. Of particular note is that Richard Dawkins (Richard Dawkins), published in 1976, “The Selfish Gene” (the Selfish Gene), mentions the memes (Memes). In this book, memes have other meanings besides their current connection to social media. To put it simply, Dawkins’ concept of the term meme is ” as a unit of cultural communication, ” which is equivalent to a cultural gene. Dawkins further elaborated on the meaning of the term meme:
“… Examples of memes include tunes, thoughts, mantras, clothing fashion, methods of making pots and bowls, or building arches, etc. Just like genes in the gene pool through sperm or eggs jumping from one body to another to reproduce In the same way, memes spread from one brain to another in the meme library. In a broad sense, this process can be called “imitation”. “
Generally speaking, the traditional concept is to understand Dawkins’ meme as ” the idea, behavior, style, or usage spread between people in a certain culture .” Fast forward time to today in decades , Memes are more or less interesting, widely spread, and infectious online content , such as a picture with text, or a video, and so on.
However, when it comes to the field of cryptoeconomics, memes play a dual, (sometimes) polarizing role: on the one hand, some purists criticize such a core as Dogecoin. Cryptocurrencies believe that this type of currency obliterates the potential power and purpose of decentralized technology ; on the other hand, it is undeniable that it is on the surface of a meme theme that most people consider to be daunting and confusing There is also value in humor .
We can see similar concepts and strategies in the performances of respected comedians such as Dave Chappelle. Behind the funny story of Rick James (American singer) or Mickey Mouse of Disney World is the cruel or sometimes disturbing truth about our social and historical discourse as human beings. Similarly, we can say that encryption currency meme is true, these memes initially relaxed funny way to attract people, but also by retaining a deeper subtext and meaning around their technology and culture. In this way, cryptocurrency memes can be used as a carefully disguised “first step” strategy to help those who would otherwise feel exhausted, mentally exhausted, or have no sense of belonging to learn more about the need for these emerging technologies sex.
In order to better understand the inherent power of memes in attracting audiences and increasing penetration, we might as well take a look at the history and evolution of Dogecoin .
The history of Dogecoin
As many people know, Dogecoin was originally born as a light joke between its two co-founders Billy Markus & Jackson Palmer. At the time when the seriousness of Bitcoin penetrated into the global cryptocurrency narrative, this “fun and friendly Internet currency” created in a way that was as funny as possible was blowing like a breath of fresh air.
For those who want to easily cast and play around with something that costs less than 1 cent, Doge is right in their hands, and the risk is small. As a result, the Doge website has more than 1 million visits approximately one month after its launch. Within two weeks of the project’s launch on December 6, 2013, the r/Dogecoin sector on Reddit had more than 19,000 users, and the price of Doge also soared by 300%, even though China announced that it was banning payment companies from processing and Bitcoin. Currency-related transactions.
Community value and support
Another factor that promotes the success and popularity of Dogecoin is people ’s love for the coin’s mascot : a popular emoticon pack of a Japanese Shiba Inu “doge”, which is accompanied by words such as “much wow” and “so tired”. Well-known. This meme originated in 2010, when Japanese kindergarten teacher Atsuko Sato posted on her personal blog several photos of her adopted Shiba Inu Kabosu . Among these pictures, there is a very special picture. Kabosu is sitting on the sofa, raised his eyebrows, and stares at the camera with slanted eyes (see the picture below). When articles such as The Verge confirmed that Kabosu raised by Atsuko Sato was the prototype dog in this meme, this photo and content became more popular online.
Photograph: Atsuko Sato
Based on this situational awareness, we can see that by linking cryptocurrency to a topic that already has more and more supporters (ie doge), the two founders of Dogecoin, Jackson and Billy, are able to take advantage of the psychological elements of social identity , Because people have already invested in this meme. In addition, even though Dogecoin is meaningless by its nature and its total supply is 100 billion coins, after being hacked and criticized in 2014, the community united to support the coin to prove its practical value.
For example, in 2014, the Dogecoin community raised more than $30,000 worth of Dogecoin in a few hours to help the Jamaican sled team participate in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Another community-driven initiative called “Doge4Kids” successfully donated $30,000 to the 4 Paws for Ability charity organization, which helps provide service dogs for children with special needs.
Above: Dogecoin sponsors NASCAR racer Stefan Parsons
In summary, ” memetic coins ” like Dogecoin have contributed more elements in promoting the adoption and awareness of Web3, the most important of which is precious time and attention . This is especially prominent when celebrities such as Snoop Dog, Lil Yachty and Mia Khalifa favor Dogecoin, not to mention Elon Musk .
Time & attention strengthened adoption
In order to prove how Musk’s support for Dogecoin has promoted people’s adoption and awareness of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, we might as well take YouTube as an analogy.
In the past 16 years (since it was founded on February 14, 2005 to the present), YouTube as a platform has gained approximately 2.3 billion users worldwide. Its users watch more than 1 billion hours of video every day, and generate 720,000 hours of video content in more than 100 countries every day. In other words, 1 billion hours is roughly equivalent to 115,000 years. 720,000 hours is equivalent to 82.13552 years. This is what Youtube produces every day.
The streamlined diversity of content on YouTube is one of the many reasons why it has become popular over the years. More importantly, all of these are interconnected on a single platform, and the algorithm “manages,” the algorithm aims to retain the most important things for the YouTube platform- viewers’ time, energy, and attention . According to Google’s statistics, the two main reasons viewers watch YouTube are “relaxation” and “entertainment.” But from YouTube’s point of view, it doesn’t matter, the only thing that matters is that the user has been watching.
Suppose we compare YouTube to an overall network composed of the Web3 platform and cryptocurrency. From this perspective, we can draw a similar conclusion: Although people like Musk are spreading ” memetic coins, ” the result is that a more important asset is being traded: public time, attention And awareness . Regardless of the method used, events surrounding Musk’s appearance in the variety show “Saturday Night Live” and Dogecoin’s speech (Musk said “Dogecoin is the future of currency” during the show) and other events The media discussions in the media always help to bring decentralized digital assets into the spirit of the times, and in the past, such assets could only be located on the edge of a specific niche market or small group.
Build from scratch
As mentioned earlier, the attractiveness of “memetic coins” like Dogecoin through its inherent “cheapness” gives the community the opportunity to stay on top of a popular, bottom-up cryptocurrency construction theme. Unanimous. Although this concept has been reflected through the divisibility mechanism of Bitcoin (BTC) (Bitcoin can be divided into smaller units “satoshi”), “satoshi” is used to show smaller or larger denominations. The dollar equivalent will still cause a lot of confusion to most people. In contrast, “memetic coins” such as Dogecoin or Shiba Inu have the potential to replace this method because they provide a wider group of people with the opportunity to hold and use the ” whole coin ” without having to take their own Life savings will be risky, and positions will not be over-leveraged because of pure speculation.
But the downside is that this wider and more open accessibility also makes it possible for inexperienced traders and investors to become victims of malicious offense or price manipulation in the future . In essence, although having 100 million “memetic coins” may seem more attractive or exciting, the reality is that there are “shortcuts” to real wealth creation—regardless of the project’s narrative and marketing efforts. More attractive.
“The people’s cryptocurrency”–Contempt for traditional systems
When analyzing the true intentions of public figures like Musk, many people may not consider another potential factor that promotes the power of memes , which is the inherent ability of memes to despise traditional systems . Richard Nixon (Richard Nixon) ended the convertibility of the U.S. dollar and gold in 1971, and implemented wage/price control actions, which will only further highlight the inherent plasticity of currency as a tool, which is based on centralization Motives and interests.
From this point of view, it can be said that ” memetic coins ” like Dogecoin are completely opposite-they are developed and supported by digital natives, and they are traded and shared value online. As far as general memes are concerned, there will be no malicious motives or manipulation purposes (regardless of whether the memes are associated with “coins” or not). In this sense, although the Federal Reserve (Fed) may forge trillions of dollars out of thin air, Musk is also using the example of Dogecoin to prove that the current system can be replaced by something equally ridiculous (although this is still A hypothesis). (Editor’s note: Musk once tweeted that “Dogecoin is the people’s crypto” (Dogecoin is the people’s crypto).)
Write at the end
Looking back at the above examples and key points, it is not difficult to understand that memes and related “meme coins” may represent the Web3 culture just like Satoshi Nakamoto. More importantly, as serial entrepreneur, angel investor, and author Balaji Srinivasan put it, memes are creating a progressive economy that complements the NFT (non-homogeneous currency) field, or may evolve into a Emerging subtypes.
Tweet source: https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1370373708506750977?s=20
