Hack Tuah
Spit on that Chart
Morning
Today's story is as incredible as it is banal.
Summing up life in all its originality and madness.
Grab some popcorn, a glass of juice.
I'll take you to some internet corners.
Imagine. One night, you're roaming streets with a friend. A random stranger asks you something. It’s recorded. You're drunk, you tell a joke. Sincere, trashy and a bit funny. The next day, you're an Internet icon. Parabolic ascent. Life-changing event.
First lesson: in a world where information is distributed at sonic speed to potentially billions of pairs of eyes. The slightest original idea can make you a millionaire, a star or a meme. Original can mean brilliant. Can also mean completely stupid. In a world ruled by entertainment, pleasure and instant gratification: whatever side of the curve you're on, originality has a bright future.
The story goes on, you build a career on your new-found fame. Millions and millions of views. Everything you do turns to gold. You meet celebrities. All doors open. A solid community builds behind you.
Second lesson: communities and cults quickly form around ideas, people and celebrities. In a world where everyone feels increasingly alone, the semblance of belonging to a group becomes vital: influence has a bright future.
It's when you're on top that the dangers multiply. Icarus' wings only begin to melt as he approaches the sun. There's a trend involving large memecoin communities. Printing massive amounts of money this year. You've got coins capitalizations worth billions of dollars. Among the biggest coins in the top 100, there are 8 memecoins.
Dogs, pepe the frog, penguins... Below that top 100: dozens and dozens of communities trying to make their way on the internet using the power of virality. Cats, gigachads, sigmas and funny monkeys try to get a piece of the mindshare. Combining the distribution powers of tiktok, instagram, twitter and youtube.
Mindshare... interesting word. The most important commodity in this world is attention. But mindshare: it's more than that. Mindshare is a measurable datum, as some companies are already doing so, and deliver mindshare graphs by sector.
Imagine your mind divided into a kind of compartment where certain companies fight for it. Mindshare isn't attention because attention is volatile and pointless. Mindshare is an emotional attachment to a value, a company, a movement, a philosophy...
Solid communities are being built around Internet culture. They want to capture parts of your mind to turn you into an engaged user. The ultimate soldier because he believes in something. And belonging to a community that is potentially the next big thing can pay off massively.
Back to our story. New internet icon: why not launch your own meme? It could help the community if it's done properly. Keep spreading your influence, capturing some mindshare and amplifying it.
The follower has two incentives to invest in it. A possible return on investment if the influence of this movement continues to grow. The feeling of being part of a greater whole, with tokens proving that they belong.
We're right at the junction where the old world meets the new. We used to invest in companies. And anyone who has invested in a company has every reason to encourage others to do the same. But it was tedious, you had to go through a bank: lots of intermediaries and fees.
Now, the zoomer can invest in ideas, movements, people... turn into an aggressive (or not) trader with just a phone in your pocket.
(Little digression, I believe the world will be entirely tokenized in a few decades. We'll come back to it later this year. Community tokenization is only a new way of making communities evolve organically. The participant has a share in the community. He has every reason to convert new followers and spread the gospel. The community's organic and financial power grows with each new convert. In a world where everyone feels alone, these online cults and communities have a bright future.)
In theory, if you have a big community. It could be a good idea to tokenize your community. But that's just the theory. Because in execution. Disaster strikes.
The new Internet star launches her project. After a rocketic rise, the new coin funds are vaporized. Investors are seeing their money melt away. Everyone's looking for someone to blame.
Third lesson: I can't comment on the execution because it's technical. And I can't make assumptions that I’m not sure to be true. The law is getting involved and the Internet detectives are doing their job.
The lesson when you're on top is that blind spots will multiply. Any new project can be a danger. If badly executed, lightning can strike. If it's a disaster, it's not lightning, it's a tsunami. The universe being a joking place, the star's latest podcast, which has since disappeared, is called HOW TO AVOID GETTING CANCELLED.
I've seen so many of them.
I have risen and fallen so many times.
“Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings
who thought themselves good because they had no claws.”
Nietzsche
Easy to be an angel when you have no power. But the real tests come when our influence and power grow. Everyone has their sins. Some get lost in the greed. Others in gluttony. Others in sloth. Or lust.
My sin has always been arrogance and pride. The human in me grows wings of wax every time massive success smiles on him. A cycle of self-sabotage can begin; the cosmos likes to teach humility in the worst possible way.
We all want more. Grow, stretch, expand. It's human because we're like the universe, constantly expanding. But we must always bear in mind that the higher we go, the more dangers multiply.
New opportunities appear. But also ill-intentioned people will start to roam around you. Light attracts. Both the good and the bad.
I wish us the best but:
May success not change us.
May success not turn us into what we hate.
May success not make us forget where we come from.
May success be a source of happiness and not a source of unhappiness.
May success not make us forget those who were there for us at the very beginning.
2025 is coming.
We all want more.
What I wish for us?
All the success we ever dreamed of.
Without ever forgetting.
It's when you're on top that the biggest dangers multiply.
Success is full of pitfalls and dangers.
A meteoric rise with a helping hand from the cosmos.
A meteoric fall at the slightest error.
The final boss is always yourself.
Have a great sunday.
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Some old awesome posts you might want to visit.
Interesting article on the trends going forward. How do you suggest the old timers keep up with this overwhelming events that lean towards extremism?