The "Kill Matt" in the United States is becoming popular on Solana

Author: Peng SUN, Foresight News

I wonder if anyone has noticed that in the past week, the chaotic dog coins on Solana have given birth to a popular political cultural phenomenon. Their price increases have been astonishing, even attracting the attention of figures like Ryan Selkis, the founder of zkSync, Phantom, and Messari.

They originated from political figures and have spread to entertainment, culture, business, and religious fields. These memes are always based on the playful phonetic variations of English words using vowel letters (a, e, i, o, u), reminiscent of the "Martian language" from 15 years ago. In terms of artistic expression, they stretch their necks and tilt their heads, creating an exaggerated visual effect, perfectly embodying the essence of the foolish youth.

Meme coins of the same style emerge almost daily on Solana, appearing in endless streams, often multiplying by hundreds or thousands. For example, olen mosk (Musk), doland tremp (Trump), jeo boden (Biden), Killary Clenton (Hillary), JFK (Kennedy), berik obema (Obama), whoren (Elizabeth Warren), Puten (Putin), keem (Kim Jong-un), gery gaysler (Gary Gensler, Chairman of the SEC), LEREY (Larry Fink, founder of BlackRock), Benance (Binance), Chungpingzao (Zhao Changpeng), taylur and TelorSwif (Taylor Swift), YEEZUS (Adidas Yeezy shoes), Kenye East (Kanye West), sidny zwine (American actress Sydney Sweeney), juses crust (Jesus), and so on. I have noticed that this thematic style of memes has expanded from Solana to Ethereum.

So, where does the cultural and artistic style of this type of memecoin come from, and why has it become a consensus cultural phenomenon? Today, Foresight News will interpret and analyze this cultural phenomenon from the perspectives of memetics, political science, and history.

Shamat and Internet Memes

Shamat is a characteristic of an era that we can no longer return to. In the medieval Chinese internet led by Tencent QQ, shamat, non-mainstream, and Martian language were the identity and social expression of countless teenagers. It was only many years later that I suddenly realized that this was actually an early form of "internet meme."

In the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, "meme" has two definitions: one refers to interesting things, especially funny images or videos that are widely shared on social media; the other refers to the ideas, behaviors, styles, or instances that are transmitted between people within a culture.

Shamat is different from the text-based emoji packs on current social software or social media, but its language (Martian language) and hairstyles have already become a collective identity under the influence of the early internet. American linguist Edward Sapir once said, "There is something behind language; language cannot exist apart from culture." The cultural meme behind shamat is probably the youth's self-mockery of poverty in the urbanization process, as well as rebellion against family and authority.

In fact, "meme" is a concept of cultural evolution, first proposed by Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins in his book "The Selfish Gene." Why cultural evolution? Let's first look at what "genes" are. Dawkins believes that genes are the basic units of biological evolution, and "replicating genes" are the ancestors of life, which need "natural selection" to survive. Organisms exist to complete the inheritance and reproduction of genes.

In the past few years, most people have probably said something like, "The essence of humanity is a tape recorder." This statement seems to mock others for their imitation and plagiarism, lacking innovation, but upon reflection, you will find that the essence of humanity really is a tape recorder. Because human knowledge has been passed down orally from ancient times to the present, most of it is transmitted from generation to generation. For example, if you hear an anecdote at the dinner table today, it may become a topic of conversation for you and your friends tomorrow.

The process of knowledge and cultural transmission is like biological evolution; only the fittest survive and are widely disseminated. This is what Dawkins defined as "meme," which develops Darwin's theory of biological evolution and possesses fidelity (variability), reproductive power, and lifespan, just like genes. You may even notice that "meme" and "gene" sound quite similar.

From an evolutionary perspective, the internet and memes are a natural pair. Because the internet has a strong capacity for dissemination, it transcends spatial limitations and gives memes unprecedented power and reproductive ability; the "fittest" will be preserved for a long time, otherwise, they will be fleeting.

Another example is religion, which is a form of memetics. Islam, under the lineage of Judaism, emphasizes the dissemination of doctrine, the expansion of followers, and the reproduction of descendants that frighten Europe. If you understand memetics, you will basically understand what the political meme coins that were once popular on Solana are all about.

"Caring about Politics Starts with a Meme"

"Caring about politics starts with a meme" reflects the phenomenon of the entertainment of American politics in the image society over the past decade.

On March 5th last week, the United States welcomed the quadrennial Super Tuesday, which is the presidential primary day in the U.S. The most states will hold primaries and caucuses, and the results are strong indicators of the potential presidential candidates for both parties.

Among the political meme coins, the earliest to appear were tremp and boden, with Trump and Biden being the most competitive presidential candidates for the 2024 U.S. Republican and Democratic parties, respectively. As of March 11, Republican Trump was leading with 1,075 votes but had not yet reached the 1,215 vote threshold; Democratic Biden was leading with 1,866 votes but also had not reached the 1,969 vote threshold. (Real-time tracking: Politico)

Why do meme coins featuring political figures exist? I believe the root cause is the "meme-ification of American politics" (The Meme-Ification of American Politics, The New Yorker).

This can probably be traced back to the Pepe the Frog phenomenon in 2015-2016, before the dog coin PEPE in crypto.

Pepe the Frog was created by Matt Furie in 2005 in the comic Boy's Club and began to become an internet meme in 2008, gaining traction as various meme images in 2014. However, starting in 2015, Pepe began to be seen as a symbol of the alt-right, with groups such as Nazi Germany, the Ku Klux Klan, and white power skinheads utilizing Pepe. During the 2016 U.S. election, Pepe memes began to be associated with the presidential election. The alt-right is a form of mainstream conservatism in American society that advocates white supremacy, supports Trump, and opposes immigration and a multicultural society.

In October 2015, Trump retweeted an image of Trump Pepe from the alt-right and added the caption "You can't Stump the Trump" to express his political opinion.

Shortly after, in mid-September, when this Pepe frog became a headline, Hillary stated that most of Trump's supporters were "a bunch of losers," implying negative traits such as racism and sexism. Trump's son then shared a meme of the movie poster for "The Expendables" on Instagram, labeling Pepe, Trump, and other conservatives as "losers."

Before long, Hillary's team published an article titled "Trump, Pepe, and White Supremacists: An Explanation" (now deleted), claiming that "Pepe is more sinister than you think." From then on, Pepe symbolizing white supremacy became a social consensus in the United States.

In 2020, when Biden and Trump were campaigning, the 78-year-old Biden meme had already been shaped by conservatives into "aging," "old," "slow," and even "weak," creating the impression that "Biden is too old to be president." However, Trump is only four years younger than Biden. The key is that Biden belongs to the moderate white faction, advocating for "calm politics," while the alt-right worldview is filled with binary oppositions, black and white, male and female, and racial conflict.

In "The Crowd," the reason why groups can become unconscious is fundamentally that individuals within the group easily fall into metaphysical binary oppositions in emotion and thought, simplifying the world into binaries. This is also why binary computers have defeated ternary computers, as understanding the world through binary opposition is the simplest and most effective approach. Moreover, binaries are indeed components of the world and can explain some phenomena.

Furthermore, in the age of social media, the more extreme and clear-cut the opinions, the more shareable the content becomes. Which side you choose is not really important; what matters is that the internet provides individuals with a space to release emotions, which easily shapes widely circulated internet memes.

The story of memes like Pepe and the U.S. presidential election was born this way. However, memes themselves are a form of comic expression; American political cartoons have existed since the second half of the 19th century. The father of American cartoons, Thomas Nast, had a significant impact on five presidential elections, including supporting Lincoln, Grant, Hayes, and Cleveland, using sharp cartoons to mock election losers. The "Donkey and Elephant" rivalry in American bipartisan politics was also a creation of Thomas Nast, published in Harper's Weekly in 1874 and 1877.

Image source: Helen Kampion, The Donkey and Elephant, The White House.

In the internet age, the medium of political cartoons has changed to memes. But regardless of the form, it simplifies complex politics into symbols that satisfy the public's curiosity and taste for the grotesque, using sharp, satirical, and humorous political commentary to make obscure and serious national politics and leader images more entertaining. This is a characteristic of American democracy, allowing everyone to participate in democratic politics, even though it increasingly tears American society apart.

Returning to the discussion of memes on Solana, let's first look at tremp, which has increased nearly a thousand times since February 28, with a current market cap of around $29 million.

The meme for tremp features a blonde middle-aged man full of energy, with the slogan "mek memes gret agen."

Tremp has meme-ified the political appeals of President Trump's campaign:

• He is the billionaire president on Solana.
• His job is to make more and more money.
• He wants to destroy joe boiden.
• He aims to unify the memes on Solana.
• Finally, give your vote to Trump in 2024!

In contrast, Biden's boden is aging, but perhaps it is a self-mockery from Biden supporters, expressing support for Biden and using memecoin to rally votes.

Boden was launched on March 4 and has also increased over 1,000 times in the past week, with a current market cap of about $40 million.

In fact, both tremp and boden are political symbols of this period, resulting from the meme-ification of American politics. For example, yesterday, Ryan Selkis, founder and CEO of Messari, tweeted that tremp's market cap had surpassed boden, but then the crypto wallet Phantom asked Ryan in the comments if he had voted for boden.

Driven by the U.S. presidential primaries, similarly themed world political figure memes have also appeared on the Solana stage, such as Hillary, Obama, Kim Jong-un, Kennedy, Warren, Putin, Hitler, and so on. At the same time, these memes have spread from political figures to business, entertainment, culture, religion, and criminals.

Overall, the Solana Trump and Biden-themed memes inherently carry a nature of entertainment, but the memes derived from tremp and boden have already stripped away political factors, leaning more towards "entertainment to death." Most of them lack solid fundamental support and often experience extreme volatility. Nevertheless, as memes, they have succeeded.

Back to 2012: The Misspelled Spider-Man, the Exploding Spoderman

Where did the misspelled Trump and Biden-themed meme coins come from? This is a question many people have.

Currently, it seems that the anime prototype with a tilted head is Spoderman. According to the Know Your Meme website, Spoderman is a misspelling of Spider-Man, first appearing on March 29, 2012, on FunnyJunk as a Microsoft Paint image. It is one of the ugly versions of Spider-Man artwork, posted by the user vilfederation, and over five years, it received over 770 likes and 64,000 views.

Initially, people shared Spoderman images and commented on them, including deliberately misspelling the letters of Spider-Man, with Mary Jane and Green Goblin also rewritten as mari jene and grn gublyn.

On March 30, Spoderman appeared in Dolan's comic, which was also published on FunnyJunk:

On April 12, a YouTuber named Dolan Duk uploaded "The Uncle Dolan Show Episode 1," in which Dolan and Gooby encountered Spoderman.

On July 23, the Spodermen channel launched on YouTube, now with 317,000 subscribers; the last video was uploaded in 2018, and the first video, "Spoderman Theme Song," received over 680,000 views in five years.

On September 10, 2016, Behind The Meme shared "What is Spoderman? Explaining the History of the Spider-Man Meme" on YouTube, which has over 1.25 million views.

Clearly, the Spoderman meme has long been recognized as an internet meme. If you check Spoderman's YouTube channel, you will also find that this meme has been associated with American politics and presidential elections around 14 years ago.

Having explored the history of Spoderman, let's return to the tremp and boden-themed meme coins. If there are no errors in the investigation, their origin is Spoderman. Because over the past decade, Spoderman's internet influence has been astonishing.

On January 24, 2024, the Spodermen-themed meme coin Spoody officially launched on Solana, with a peak increase of nearly 100 times and a current market cap of $2.3 million. Notably, on March 5, Spoody announced that it had obtained the copyright for Spodermen from the original creator's estate.

References: Shang Xinxin: "From the Perspective of Language Memes on the Transmission Characteristics of Internet Buzzwords," Modern Language, October 2022; The Paper: "The Birth of Trump Memes: When Political Figures Become Entertainment Stars," September 2016; BBC: "Pepe the Frog meme branded a 'hate symbol'," September 28, 2016. NFT Now: "Political Memecoin Mania Sweeps Solana With Biden and Trump-Themed Coins," March 7, 2024.