It was Elon Musk who once said “Who controls the memes, controls the universe”. In Crypto, “Who controls the memes, controls the memecoin price”. Memes are a powerful tool for those who understand that & know how to use them.
“Meme” was first coined by Biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book ‘The Selfish Gene’. Meant to be analogous to a human “gene” that is replicated and passed on, the “meme” was conceived as a “unit of culture” (an idea, belief, pattern of behavior, etc.) which is “hosted” in the minds of one or more individuals, and can replicate itself in the sense of jumping from the mind of one person to the mind of another.
Just as it is for a human gene, success for a meme is based on it contributing to the effectiveness of its host. A weak meme will die out quickly, while a strong meme will replicate and continue to be passed on and survive. Basically human beings want to copy, replicate and mimic other humans, so strong memes will continue to survive.
Take that same concept with memes(memetics), add a coin/token/“unit of account”(crypto) that can be actively traded and a global, instant communication platform(X/Twitter) and things get pretty interesting when these things come together, that is basically the ingredients of what makes a “memecoin”.
If a memes power comes from the ability to be able quickly replicate ideas or beliefs across humans beings, then the memecoins power comes from the ability to “meme” itself into a coin/token with value by using X to replicate and quickly form consensus among groups of people that the coin/token should have a value.
If that small group knows how to use the power of memes, it can rapidly grow into an ever larger group, with the memecoin rapidly increasing in price which in turn fuels attention. Anyone who chooses to buy a “memecoin” is hopefully aware that it’s just a memecoin, meaning you shouldn’t have an expectation for it to keep going up or to reach a certain price. The most likely scenario is you buy it then the hype dies, the coin price tanks and you will lose money.
Memecoins are still a pretty new concept but watching culture(memes), value(coins) and social media(X/twitter) be used in this way is pretty interesting.