Why does the younger generation prefer memes? Popular memes are like addictive short videos that are hard to stop?

Bitcoin was once the "gateway" to the crypto world, but it is no longer so for ordinary retail investors. Memecoins, as a monetized attention market, are becoming the entry point for new users.

Currently, there are many discussions about the value of MEME, such as cultural factors, zeitgeist, dissemination effects, etc. Each perspective has its own foothold and theoretical explanation. However, regardless of the angle, it is a narrow understanding of value to measure the worth of MEME from practical aspects like utility and practicality. Just like in the irreversible trend of currency overproduction, the era has chosen MEME, and blockchain is its best carrier.

MEME is part of the spiritual needs and new value standards of the younger generation. They care less about grand meanings and prefer to find happiness in small things, using humor to combat seriousness. A meme that resonates with them is both a recognition and a victory in life, and this victory holds immense value in the blockchain world. For them, rationality and ideals are outdated; they prefer entertainment and consumption, with no concept of crypto shame or crypto casinos. MEME is a norm in their lives, a different form of play.

Among current internet products, the most similar to memes is short video content. Here, we refer to short videos rather than short video platforms. In fact, these short video platforms are more like public chains, and memes share some commonalities with short videos: both are not serious, spread quickly, and have a broad community base, although people tend to forget them quickly. Some short video creators' incomes have already equaled or even surpassed those of publicly listed companies. Additionally, the market value of memes has reached several hundred billion dollars, even beginning to seize market share from traditional altcoins.

The rise of short videos and memes indicates a fact: people are increasingly valuing their emotional worth. After World War II, everyone wanted peace, and the demand for emotional value has also increased significantly. Emotional value is the third major demand of humanity, aside from sleep and food.

The influence of emotions on humans has existed since ancient times. Sex is one of the oldest demands in the world, indicating that humans have always pursued emotional value, which is etched in our DNA. Throughout human history, emotions have influenced historical processes to some extent. For example, in "The Iliad," the Trojan prince Paris, enamored by beauty, abducted Helen, the queen of Sparta, ultimately leading to a ten-year war and the downfall of a nation. In the famous Peloponnesian War, Pericles was deemed cowardly by the emotionally charged Athenian populace for insisting on defense, leading to his dismissal. As a result, Athens lost that war to Sparta, marking the end of Greece's glorious classical era. The Declaration of Independence of the United States explicitly states that the pursuit of happiness is an inherent right of every individual. Kennedy defeated Nixon in the presidential election partly due to his excellent oratory skills and more vibrant image, winning the support of that year's American voters.

Today, in some developed countries, the sex industry has been included in GDP and is subject to taxation. Not only the sex industry, but also entertainment, video games, and film can be categorized as emotional value industries. Broadly speaking, alcohol and tobacco also belong to the emotional value sector. In a market valued at over a trillion dollars, we must confront the evolution of memes from being perceived as air coins to a unique economic form.

The value of memes is actually a direct reflection of human emotional value. So, does the future of the crypto industry only consist of memes? The short video industry is already highly competitive. When you open an app, what you see is mostly homogenized content. Some creators, in order to attract traffic, even produce vulgar, sensational, or even illegal content. Similarly, after the dividend period, meme coins will also enter a fiercely competitive era of existing stock. Now, a meme even needs to differentiate between uppercase and lowercase letters due to intense competition. Given the short cycle of memes, once they lose their wealth-generating effect and popularity, it becomes challenging to accumulate capital.

In other words, the gap between leading value coins and memes will continue to widen in the future. Short videos cannot completely replace movies and TV series, and memes cannot fully replace tech coins and value coins. Value coins, especially public chain infrastructure, provide a platform for meme coin creators. Ethereum can be likened to Douyin, while Solana can be compared to Kuaishou. The innovation of memes is ongoing, while the development of infrastructure is relatively slow. In the current boom of memes, we need not overly worry about the future of value coins and altcoins. New platforms and carriers will undoubtedly emerge.