The Power of Memes: Tendies, Dogecoin, and the Potential for Social Impact

Ask your self this query: what’s the strongest, but comparatively untapped drive on earth at this second? You would possibly consider the power of sustainable power to interchange fossil fuels, the energy of youth voices as they try to take energy again from the boomer powers that be, or as it has been hammered via the heads of technologists over the previous 5 years, decentralization. The promise of decentralization is as follows: as an alternative of the companies proudly owning all of the companies you pay for, the companies run themselves and act in a really truthful manner in direction of all customers. This implies no extra worth gouging of Epipens, no extra ridiculously excessive medical payments, no extra violations of web neutrality, and so forth. To get to this idealized type of world decentralization, nevertheless, we’d like to consider the how. Take into consideration the one omnipresent drive that’s on each single particular person’s thoughts proper now: virality. 

Going viral on-line can create a drive as unstoppable because the pandemic that presently permeates the world’s inhabitants. The medium at which something goes viral, memes, can probably take one thing insignificant and worthless and infuse it with some of the beneficial issues on the planet: consideration. In response to viral advertising and marketing skilled, Andrew Taraba of Bizurk Software program, “memes are the bottom widespread denominator” of data, with the potential to “transmit the identical concepts as paragraphs of labor with just a few strains of textual content mixed with acquainted imagery.” Taraba declares that “memes have the power to cross borders, cultures, and unfold concepts internationally in a manner no different type of media can.” As as we speak’s trendy financial system shifts from a material-based economy to an attention-based one, we have to take into account the power of memes to drive the world’s focus. 

Take Dogecoin, as an example. As an open-source peer-to-peer digital foreign money, Dogecoin sits at a $440 million market capitalization. Because the brainchild of programmer Billy Markus and marketer Jackson Palmer, Dogecoin started as a joke. The founders needed to create a model of Bitcoin with out all of the Silk Highway baggage that forged a stain on the cryptocurrency group. After years of up and down development, Dogecoin reached a 2 billion market capitalization in the course of the early 2018 cryptocurrency bubble. 

Dogecoin’s affect extends past financial development. To judge true affect we must always have a look at Dogecoin from the lens of social affect. Social affect is outlined as “vital, constructive change that addresses a urgent social problem.” In 2014, a fundraiser was established by the Dogecoin group to raise money for the Jamaican Bobsled Team to compete on the Sochi Winter Olympics. The workforce had certified however couldn’t afford to ship their athletes to Sochi. In solely two days, the Dogecoin group raised $50,000 to ship the Jamaican workforce to Sochi. The Dogecoin group additionally raised cash to fund clear water in Africa and to assist canine rescues. The energy of Dogecoin lies in the truth that its group locations a big emphasis on doing good for the world. The sort of group can solely exist when the need for revenue is put aside.

As acknowledged earlier, Dogecoin began and operated as a “joke” for an extended interval. The creators of Dogecoin didn’t severely take into account how far they might take Dogecoin till it unintentionally blew up. What would occur if the creators of Dogecoin actually understood the facility of virality and memetic mutation? At this cut-off date, it could be too late for Dogecoin. Nonetheless, a not too long ago launched decentralized finance undertaking named Tendies (named for hen tenders) might have picked up the baton handed by Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer.

Tendies follows a deflationary token mannequin the place token provide is often drained, rising the worth of remaining TEND tokens over time. Instantly after launch, the Tendies drew $10 million of daily trading volume over two days. It surpassed the quantity of heavyweights reminiscent of USDT and DAI. In flip, the crypto world was stormed with an onslaught of hen tender associated memes. This culminated in TRON founder and residing meme, Justin Solar, tweeting about Tendies being listed on his Poloniex alternate. As of now, the quantity for Tendies has cooled off and the Tendies workforce has been quietly, but diligently, engaged on creating their undertaking whereas persevering with to interact the Tendies group with common contests and giveaways.

As with Dogecoin, we should focus on the layer past financial acquire: social affect. What sort of potential does an imaginary token about hen tenders have with reference to social good? Fairly a bit, really. Tendies was designed, at its conception, to grow to be viral. Dogecoin was a joke, whereas Tendies is a concerted effort to drive adoption via memes. If Tendies succeeds to grow to be a ubiquitous cryptocurrency that permeates all facets of our lives, it will likely be via memes. Think about chopping out firms from profiting off of individuals, effectively, present. Think about anybody with the ability to donate to any charity they need as a consequence of ease of use and ubiquity of decentralized currencies. With the debut of Tendies, many different cash specializing in memetic mutation have emerged. If Tendies or a equally meme-minded coin succeeds on the highest degree, that might occur. And it will likely be via virality.

The builders of Tendies perceive that in as we speak’s consideration pushed world, significance solely exists when folks speak about one thing. This mantra applies not solely to Tendies, however the general crypto world. Exterior of the crypto “bubble,” does anybody actually care about digital foreign money? Why would a random Redditor be keen on decentralized cash? Why would a random Tiktoker care about Ethereum’s 2.0 mainnet?

The reply lies in memes. Within the trendy period, memes within the type of humorous pictures and video clips drive data quicker than every other type of communication. Cash like Dogecoin, Tendies, and different memetically pushed initiatives signify not solely a humorous picture however the promise of a world construct for the folks. We won’t depend on enterprise capital-funded startups or cash managed by large mining swimming pools to dictate the phrases of a decentralized world. We have to hearken to the voice of the folks. The megaphone they use is a straightforward one: memes.