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Article author: JJ Alicea Article translation: Block unicorn
From a historical perspective, Memes have always been part of human experience, representing the migration of cultural products between generations—these ideas have lasted and significant significance, and have developed snowballed in various eras.Memes are the focus of society, and they carry value in the form of collective influence.
Nowadays, people often associate Meme with triviality and even funny, mainly because the Internet Meme is usually mainly humorous.However, humor resonates precisely because it contains a trace of truth.
“Meme by from a braintransferTo another brain, self-propagation in the Meme library, this process can be called imitation in a broad sense.Just like genes through sperm or eggs from a bodytransferTo another body, self-transmitting in the gene bank,MemeexistMemeThe communication mechanism in the library is also transmitted from one brain to another.” ——Richard Dawkins
Meme is the basic unit of cultural communication.In ancient society, religious stories and common history were often passed on from person to person in oral form, and each narrator would add his own perspective or polish.This process helps to strengthen the beliefs and values of the community, embedding them deeply into the cultural structure.Similarly, in modern society, Memes are the transmission of cultural fragments or ideas from one mind to another, and these Memes evolved with each retelling or reinterpretation.Both modes of communication rely on repetition, resonance, and subtle changes that occur as people interpret and share, allowing the essence of the thought to continue and adapt over time.In this way, Meme is a modern narrative tool that distiles complex ideas into simple and easy-to-disseminate forms, conveys cultural information and spreads rapidly around the world.
Community
Meme is the basic unit of cultural communication, and the community is the ecological environment in which Meme accumulates value.In other words, Meme is an important idea, and the community is the people who are concerned with the ideas.
The community usually has the following prominent characteristics:
1. Common interests and goals
2. Communication and interaction
3. Structure and identity
4. Knowledge and resource sharing
5. Collective identity
Community usually starts with a handful of individuals working to disrupt mainstream culture.The open source software movement originated from a small group of developers, such as those who promoted Linux projects, who challenged proprietary software dominance and advocated free access and modifiable code.The punk rock movement began in cities like New York and London, driven by a small group of passionate musicians, artists and fans who reject the sophisticated voice of mainstream rock and the consumerism of pop culture.The VaccinateCA organization is composed of a group of technical optimists who are committed to spreading the supply of vaccines to as many people as possible to fight a system of government that is subject to logistical constraints.
These communities were initially highly localized, with only a few faithful believers sharing visions and collective beliefs about the plasticity of the world.These communities ultimately have had a profound impact on areas such as technology, finance, culture, art, entertainment and medical care.
The Linux operating system saves enterprises and governments more than $60 billion in licensing fees each year, Linux supports more than 90% of network infrastructure, while Android built on the Linux kernel powers approximately 70% of smartphones worldwide.Punk rock became the soundtrack for political and social uprisings in regions such as Eastern Europe (such as the Solidarity Union Movement in Poland) and Latin America.Punk fans and bands popularize zines, a small self-published magazine that often focuses on music, politics and alternative lifestyles—becoming a grassroots pioneer in modern blogging and independent digital journalism.VaccinateCA provides reliable vaccine supply information for more than 1,000 vaccination sites, while Google offers only 127 options – thus improving the efficiency of vaccine distribution.
This is a bottom-up, community-driven grassroots value creation.
Meme (meme)
The first use of gold can be traced back to ancient civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt and parts of Eastern Europe.In 4000 B.C., gold was valued for its unique beauty, rarity and plasticity, making it a symbol of jewelry, ritual supplies and status.Meanwhile, copper, silver and bronze are also popular for making tools and decorations.So, what makes gold so unique?
Unlike other metals, gold neither loses its luster nor corrodes, which gives it lasting properties, symbolizing eternity and stability.The longevity of gold means resisting change, obsoleteness, competition, and thus having the chance of continuing to survive in the future.Gold has become a Meme with lasting influence because it is important, unique, and resonates with humanity.
Gold is one of the largest asset classes in the world, but it has no practicality—no production uses, no cash flow, and no business model.It is valuable only because we collectively give it value.It is a metal with limited efficiency, but its perceived value comes from its beauty, rarity and its symbolic significance in human culture.It is not a useful commodity like crude oil, nor is it a valuable representative of ownership like Apple stock.However, as gold’s collective influence continues to grow and more people adopt it, it has become a store of value tool, and may even become the world’s reserve currency, which may replace another Meme – the US dollar.
Some might say that Bitcoin (BTC) was the earliest “Meme coin” in the digital sense—a asset that seemed worthless at first, but has now become a global store of value across economies.
Bitcoin not only triggered a financial revolution, it also inspired a cultural movement.Through decentralized technology, it achieves the rise of peer-to-peer exchange of value, financial autonomy, and the rise of global grassroots communities bound by shared beliefs.
The birth of Bitcoin coincides with the moment of significance following the 2008 financial crisis, which touches on a widespread distrust of traditional financial systems and creates a new narrative of decentralized value.People buy Bitcoin not because it has potential cash flow, but because of its unique value proposition: it is a store of value, a belief in future rises, and most importantly, a new financial ecosystemThe symbol of the company or individual is free from the control of the company.It is a trustless asset that can support an economy without trust.
Bitcoin holders feel like they are part of a larger group—a community, not just financial investors.If you are skeptical about this, search for “Apple Tattoo” or “Uber Tattoo” and compare it to “Bitcoin Tattoo.”
Assess the value of the community
Outsiders often ignore the power and value of the community, just as they initially misunderstood Bitcoin.In the traditional world of finance, professionals often rely on analytical methods taught in schools such as Wharton—discounted cash flow, comparative analysis, cash flow, and EBITDA.Therefore, companies shape their own measurements and reports around these frameworks.This limited perspective is exactly why many people initially misunderstood GameStop’s value, and why crypto assets like Bitcoin and Meme coins are still misunderstood by traditional finance.
Today, the communities created by these “companies” have great value.The “company” here can refer to anything – a startup, a public company, a crypto agreement, a KOL, a creativity, or even a subdivision (subreddit).Over time, a company’s evaluation depends not only on its profits, but also on the value created and accumulated by its community – both internal and external (e.g. Reddit + GameStop).
More than 86% of Internet users trust Reddit and its community more than advertising when it comes to understanding new products and brands; adults under 45 trust more news on social media platforms than traditional news networks; 63% of ZGenerations and millennials trust internet celebrities more than brands.Generation Z members use the Internet on average for 8.5 hours a day, 55% use their smartphones for more than 5 hours a day, and Americans send an average of 94 text messages a day.
TikTok’s book community has driven the bestsellers in the publishing industry, with some books growing sales by 1,000% after the community gained recognition.Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets community was able to push GameStop’s share price from under $20 to over $300 in just a few days.After the collaboration, Budweiser’s sales fell 26% and InBev’s share price fell 20%, resulting in a loss of $26 billion in market capitalization – all caused by its conservative community.
Community cannot be accurately predicted by traditional financial assessment frameworks because their meaning and impact are dynamic and often growing, shrinking and changing.They cannot be simply included in the tables and lists of investment specifications or financial models.
Financial companies often ignore the enduring power of communities, view them as anomalies, underestimate their influence, and think that these are just futile behaviors.
We believe that as the speed of connectivity accelerates and online interaction continues to grow, the community will continue to grow and exert greater influence.The popularity of digital platforms makes it easier than ever for individuals to find and connect like-minded groups, breaking down the geographical and social barriers that once restricted the formation of communities.
Meme Coin: The carrier of community ownership
Meme coins are the perfect tool to measure the value of a community.They are tokenized expressions of culture.
Similar to social networks, the value of Meme coins comes from the communities in which they gather.However, they represent a fundamental shift in the way value is allocated and controlled.Unlike platforms like Instagram or Facebook, the value generated by user activities (content creation, interaction and data) is mainly captured by the platform and its shareholders, while Meme Coin subverts this model, allowing users to become the creators of network value., also become its owner.
Bonk is distributed to users through airdrops and has quickly become Solana’s preferred Meme coin.The initial recipients were those members who remained committed to existing communities, protocols and core infrastructure after the FTX crash.Bonk became a tokenized symbol of resilience in the face of adversity, with the initial recipient’s enthusiasm spreading rapidly to a wider user base, pushing up Bonk’s value and creating wealth within the ecosystem.These wealth remained in the community, supporting the development of projects such as Bonkbot, bringing huge value to Solana, product users, and the Bonk tokens themselves.
This is grassroots value creation – bottom-up, community-driven, there are no external investors, only the human capital within the community creates value for the community.
With the further digitalization of world assets, more Memes can be monetized, manufactured and created spontaneously—expanding the concept of “Meme” to anything with social significance and transforming it into a community through immutable smart contracts.Tools for monetization.
future
The future will look like the continuation of the past, technology will continue to develop, cities will continue to expand, and culture will adapt to the tools and media of the times.However, machines still cannot seize the right to produce Meme.Culture—including its creation, dissemination, and persistence—its creation, dissemination, and persistence—cannot be outsourced to large floating-point matrix operations (refers to techniques that use floating-point numbers to perform matrix operations).Although machines may be able to generate products that seem to be Meme—but are hollow, snapshots of familiar ideas optimized by algorithms, replicated in large quantities for instant attention—they will lack the deeper resonance of the real Meme.The power of change.
Throughout history, culture has always been the result of collective efforts, while Meme is the smallest unit of cultural transmission, encoding the concepts and values of its era.Memes are not just simple fragments of media, they are also carriers of shared meaning.The vitality of Meme comes from being accepted, not being created.Their birth is not an isolated creation, but a chemical reaction of common understanding, humor and emotion.
There is a small Puerto Rican restaurant called Rinconcito on Loisaida Avenue in Manhattan.There is no reservation service, no rewards plan, points system or electronic membership card here.They won’t ask for your email address to send accurate ads, and there is little contact information to get them.You won’t see them compromise on TikTok to cater to certain outrageous trends, nor bottle and sell the sauces they patented for and to the public.
They trade culture, honest people cook food with good heart and fair prices – always for decades.In every community, this method resonates deeply, and people will agree that this is what life should be.And this is their secret recipe – culture, waiting to be sold.
