Meme Economy

Meme Economy

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Updated Jul 29, 2020 at 05:58AM EDT by shevyrolet.

Added Nov 11, 2016 at 04:07PM EST by Adam.

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The 2 Schools of MEMETIC ECONOMICS Raritismm Massivism Buy Very Early, Sell Mid Term Buy Early, Sell End of Term Financially Risky, Takes Initiative Financially Conservative, Cautious Really dislikes Normieization of a Meme Doesn't Mind Normieization as Much More Niche Memes More Popular Memes

About

Meme Economy is a satirical concept and internet subculture in which memes are discussed in the jargons of the financial industry, as if they are commodities or capital assets with fluctuating values. Since its inception as a community on Reddit in 2016, the joke has spawned a number of spin-off projects built around the fictional meme market infrastructure.

Origin

On September 28th, 2016, killameme7[3] created the subreddit /r/MemeEconomy. The subreddit's description reads:

"/r/MemeEconomy is a place where individuals can buy, sell, share, make, and invest in memes freely. You'll also get updates on the market and be able to collaborate with other fellow dank meme traders."

As of November 11th, 2016, the subreddit has 31,941 subscribers.

Precursor

The first instance of memes being discussed as stocks came on June 11th, 2012. Redditor HomeButton submitted a post titled “Mad Karma with Jim Cramer” to the /r/AdviceAnimals[1] subreddit, which featured a screenshot of Cramer hosting Mad Money with the headline news ticker edited to list trending memes on Reddit instead of stock quotes. The image macro was captioned with "Dump all your karma in pictures of feet" (shown below), referencing a foot photograph post that had reached the front page the day before.[2] Prior to being archived, the post received over 4,300 up votes and 100 comments. The following memes became known as Mad Karma With Jim Cramer.


DUMP ALL YOUR KARMAIN PICTURESOF FEET Coa 14 Karma Trends Shift Move Your Karma Now Calvin & Hobbes (C&H) 6.11 Pictures of Breasts (BOOB) 9.21 Mocking People (MOCK) 8.1 Pictures of Cats (CATS) 8.24 Louls C.K. Clips (LCK) 6.42 Good Guy Greg (GGG) 5e So

Spread

The subreddit was rocked during the Meme Renaissance of Me_IRL when memes were posted at "an unsustainable rate."[4] They've also responded intensely to memes related to the 2016 United States Presidential Election and other major events.

On October 17th, LuckyCosmos posted a pinned thread[5] explaining the way the subreddit and "meme trading" works, including a FAQ. Memes are bought and sold on "GoodBoyPoints (GBP)."

Drought Speculation

On January 9th, 2017, Reddit user deros94 wrote a report about an early-2017 meme drought and posted it to the subreddit.[6] The piece, shown below, argued that the early-2017 meme landscape was a "barren wasteland" and memes cropping up on /r/me_IRL of late had been forced and rehashed ideas.


FLASH ARTICLE Early Year me_irl experiencing a devastating post-holiday meme shortage BY /U/DEROS94 ith the holidays wrapped up, meme farmers have returned to tend to their fields and plant We Are Number One successfully weathered normie floods and continued the impressive consistency of La the new year with fresh crops. Usually, a steady pro- zyTown. The Gordon Ramsay sub-meme Lamb Sauce duction of fresh images make for some cheap and reli- is an emerging contender in the economy with signifi able GBP. Both resident and visitors alike head to the cant distribution coming from Dankmemes. Clearly the frontpage expecting a new wave of content to consume. drought trend is localized to Me_Irl, which has been so To their dismay, recycled content and reposts fill the desperate as to begin acquiring Lamb Sauce shares by me_irl market. Simple and forced sub-memes, low-ef- shaken farmers. fort karma grabs, and dusty reposts are clear markers of a meme drought. Consumers have been surviving on Bamboozled and ıok Upvotes, two trends tied to the aftermath of /u Trekking through this barren wasteland, users will find Lordtuts betrayal of trust in December. A fake Wendy's a forced meme trend created by /u/KingOfKuballe recy- Twitter ad of sat at the top of the market using the 1ok cling the highly volatile singing competition format from Upvote format got a top post on Fridav, an unprecedent- Meme of 2016. While not the worst format, it signifies edmove by the consumers in a pre-Bamboozled market the problem facing the new meme crops. A lack of origi- Bee Movie, Social Anxiety, and even 4chan reposts lit- nal content from farmers has forced distributors to push ter the frontpage. All other content is various reposts lesser known sub-memes and reposts of post-collapse lacking the originality and trend rotation that brought trends. The image failed to garner any truly genuine Me_Irl to its powerhouse status. support. Dustv memes like Bionicle's presence on the frontpage show stagnation as distributors and farmers It is early into the year, and Me_Irl is still rebuilding lose confidence in original content. Other major markets are outpacing Me Irl's original content by a significant margin. Dankmemes have ar- rived in New Year blazing it up, with their “Meme of the Year" contest becoming a huge success. Its winner Take advantage of the weak market by investing in low IPO offers as farmers regain confidence and look to make easy GBP with little original competition. 1ok Up vote and Bamboozled investors should be ready to sell at any moment as the market moves back to its roots. JANUARY 9, 2017

The Daily Dot[7] covered deros94's report, noting that the January season tended to be slow for memes, as internet users look to rely on old memes while truly viral trends begin emerging.

NASDANQ

On September 29th, 2016, Redditor Darkpitt registered the domain NASDANQ.com[7] and posted an announcement plans to turn it into a meme exchange marketplace on the /r/MemeEconomy.[9] On February 22nd, 2017, Redditor AchillesDev, one of the voluntary developers working on the NASDANQ project, posted an update[10] revealing that the team has officially formed a company under the name NASDANQ LLC and the alpha version of the platform will be ready for launch within two weeks, equipped with basic functionality, such as buying and selling memes and setting firms. On April 12th, 2017, Nasdanq launched their closed beta, providing testers with access to basic functionality on the site. That day, Redditor Icedog68 posted a screenshot of his site profile (shown below).


NASDANQ 曽Firm ||血Market | | + More Profile Icedog68 Net Worth: 181.29GBP Portfolio Portfolic WMB Statements Icedog68 Funds available: 181.29GBP Transaction history Panda2| 356.86GBP Action: buy Sell Shares Action: buy Bought 356 8668P of shares of SPND2 pr 12 2017,703 14 PM Trump memes |461.84GBP Bought 46184GBP o shares of STRMP Sell Shares Apr 12.2017 702-14 PM

MemeTrades

On February 3rd, 2017, a group of Redditors on /r/MemeEconomy launched MemeTrades.com[8], the first online stock brokerage platform for internet memes, where visitors can participate in mock-trading memes as virtual commodities by logging into Facebook.

Meme Insider

On January 25th, 2017, a group of Redditors on /r/MemeEconomy digitally released the first issue of its monthly news magazine titled Meme Insider[12], which offers various insights and advices on the market conditions of meme exchange in the vein of financial news magazines like Forbes.

Search Interest

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