AuthorI defioasis
edit | Colin Wu
As the conflict between the project team and community users on airdrops and anti-money laundering intensified, and the liquidity of the crypto was poor, Meme became the solution . Recently, Bitcoin rebounded to more than $66,000, and the most traded token type on the Binance exchange is still MemeCoins. The top ten tokens in terms of trading volume are BTC, ETH, PEPE, SOL, FLOKI, WIF, DOGE, BNB, BOME and SHIB, six of which are MemeCoins.
I wonder why some memes have a higher market value, such as DOGE and the recent PEPE. There are probably five reasons why these memes became popular, namely cultural foundation, simplicity and recognition, entertainment and humor, low threshold for secondary creation, and promotion by super influential people and soul figures.
(Note: It is necessary to point out that this does not apply to MEME in the 0-1 stage, but may be more appropriate for MEME in the 10-100 stage)
1. Cultural foundation : Pepe and Doge are very popular on the Internet, with a huge number of fans on various social platforms. The members of the crypto community are young and active Internet users who grew up with the development of the Internet, are familiar with these emoticons, and like to incorporate them into new trends.
For example, the origin of Doge's popularity in the Internet circle was a photo of Kabosu Shiba Inu in February 2010; in December 2010, Doge Meme became popular on Reddit, and it was combined with some broken English phrases; by 2013, various Doge emoticons appeared frequently, and the influence of Doge Meme was already very large. In December 2013, Dogecoin (DOGE) was born based on a joke idea.
The image of Pepe first appeared in Matt Furie's comic "Boys Club" in 2005. The most classic line is "feels good man". This sentence was soon given more meanings, such as the sad frog "feels bad man". In 2008, Pepe became popular on the 4chan forum and was made into various emoticons. Around 2014, Pepe could be seen on all mainstream social media. However, Pepe was later given some political metaphors, which caused a lot of controversy and made Pepe's image very complicated. In 2017-2019, Matt Furie and the Pepe community worked hard to return Pepe to its origin and original intention.
In April 2023, Memecoin PEPE appeared. At first, Milady NFT holders from the NFT community and Chinese in Dubai vigorously promoted the development of PEPE. But soon after, Pauly, co-founder of Not Larva Labs, made some accusations against the PEPE team, and then the PEPE team had internal divisions and the treasury was embezzled to sell coins. Although the history of PEPE tokens is much later than DOGE and has also caused some controversy, PEPE eventually succeeded in becoming the third largest Memecoin after DOGE and SHIB .
2. Simple and easy to recognize : This should be self-explanatory. As long as Doge and Pepe are mentioned, those emojis will immediately appear in front of you and you will understand them in seconds. These emojis themselves have a high degree of recognition and memory, are easy to spread, and can be distinguished from other emojis at a glance.
3. Entertainment and humor : Meme itself is meant to be humorous and entertaining, and Memecoin should also retain this feature. It should not only be for making money, but also for everyone to enjoy. This relaxed atmosphere can more easily attract novices, young investors and outsiders, so in the first two bull markets, it may not be value coins or applications that attract more users, but Memecoins like DOGE and SHIB.
Assuming that there is no Crypto honeypot on the market, choosing a Meme should be based on your eye for it - that is, the most intuitive feeling, whether you can be immediately attracted by its fun and community spirit and feel happy.
4. Low threshold for secondary creation: A notable feature of memes is that the threshold for making emoticons or secondary creations is very low, allowing users to spread them quickly, attracting a large number of participants to participate in the creation, and then continue to spread them. Most memes have a fixed image or template, and users only need to change part of the content; there are many free online tools and applications specifically for making and sharing memes, which simplify the creation process of memes; secondary creation of memes is not only a form of entertainment, but also can express personal opinions and emotions, and reflect the living conditions of people in different eras.
Every secondary creation will bring a new core to Meme. The reason why Meme can become a Memecoin is that it constantly absorbs new culture during its development, such as adding elements of Crypto and blockchain, so that this cultural asset can be transmitted in the financial field.
However, since memes are easily spread, some people with ulterior motives may label secondary memes as political or extremist, which may cause certain social harm. These corrections require the joint efforts of super influencers, soul figures and the community.
5. People with social influence can promote the spread of memes: Memecoins related to memes will be driven, especially when celebrities and public figures in traditional industries promote these memes on social media, which will attract market attention and hype. For example, when Musk mentioned Dogecoin on Twitter, it directly affected its market price and popularity, and some people even accused Musk of manipulating the market; Musk posted a photo of a dog wearing a hat, which caused the price of WIF to soar.
In addition, the spread and success of Meme is sometimes driven by some key figures or soul figures. They are similar to the leaders of some sects, such as Roaring Kitty, who played the soul figure in "Retail Investors vs. Wall Street". He suddenly became active on social media nearly three years later, causing GameStop's stock price to soar and trigger six circuit breakers during the trading session. Matt Furie, the creator of Pepe, may not have been the main force that intentionally pushed Pepe into Meme, but he played an important role in the campaign to maintain and reshape Pepe's image between 2017 and 2019. Ansem's continued marketing and output of WIF is also an example.
summary
The combination of Internet pop culture and Crypto has made Meme have a significant impact on the financial level. Meme culture brings entertainment into investment, allowing more people who like Meme culture to enter Crypto more easily. However, it should be noted that Memecoin is a high-risk and volatile investment. Recognition may be the beginning of investment, but it cannot guarantee the success of investment. Therefore, investors should be rational when participating in Memecoin.
