Memecoins and the Monetization of Community
#Sorry Elon
In May 2021, Elon Musk promised to launch a satellite in 2022 to achieve the first crypto-funded mission to space. Unfortunately for Mr. Musk, however, his promise has been broken. On December 15, a rival memecoin, DogeBonk, launched its own community-funded space mission and successfully reached the stratosphere.
DogeBonk is the First Memecoin in Space #SorryElon
An onboard camera filmed the launch, and a meme was revealed at the peak of the flight. The meme shows a dog with a bat “bonking” a Dogecoin symbol, with a tear-streaked Elon Musk in the background. #SorryElon was trending on Twitter for days. They followed this up with a billboard placed directly outside the SpaceX Hawthorne factory, proclaiming his loss with the message: “SORRY ELON 2ND PLACE IS STILL GOOD”.
All exceedingly silly, but why is this important? And what on earth is DogeBonk?
It starts with a dog with a bat.
In an era of peak corporate nihilism and social imbalance the simple image of a dog with a bat in the act of “bonking” can be an oddly powerful thing. The DogeBonk meme began a fresh surge of original and organic content, the scale of which has not been seen since 2016’s epic memetic arc. Through simply editing photos of already existing memes, films, and even classical art DogeBonk has captured the value of this memetic concept in the form of the $DOBO token. The goal?
“To meme DogeBonk into being the biggest memecoin of 2022.”
The DogeBonk community has rapidly evolved from a small community of meme lords into “an exponentially growing swarm of mostly anonymous growth marketers and content creators, self-organizing into what is essentially a worldwide, virally growing marketing agency.”
Tens of thousands of original creative projects and memes have been uploaded and shared in the community, including song parodies, movie edits and even video games.
The dog with a bat meme has become a symbol to rally around; a means to illustrate the absurdity of the financial system at large and the possibility of a new way of doing things.
$GME and WallStreetBets already proved the power of a weaponized community when they took on Wall Street itself and won. Memecoin communities are the $GME of Web3.0, groups of motivated people exercising newfound power simply by tokenizing the value of their will on the blockchain. Regulators have yet to catch up, and a new zeitgeist is forming. Memecoins are becoming credible as serious digital assets because they represent the community behind them.
“Clown World” emerged from the depths of cyberspace, the perfect term to describe the new zeitgeist, a movement born out of Gen Z’s dissatisfaction with a broken financial system from which they are barred. The dog with a bat is here to help.
Watch Bonkin’ in the Clown World (Official Music Video) HERE.
The community is what drives DogeBonk, so let’s dive in!
Meet The Memesters
In the cryptocurrency landscape anonymity, or pseudo-anonymity is the norm: it is still unknown who Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin is, for example.
When did you get involved with cryptocurrency?
In 2016 I read an article in The Economist about Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency and decided that it was worth investing. I was lucky enough to buy at the right time and made a decent amount of money.
What is your relationship with memes?
I’ve grown up on the internet so I feel a strong connection to memes. Often memes are able to convey an idea more effectively than with words. We can express abstract ideas quickly and effectively across the internet in the same way religious iconography can express complex subjects. Also, funny dog go bonk, haha.
What is the future of DogeBonk?
No one knows what the future holds, but I envision us as the center of the memecoin ecosystem. So much of the industry is false promises, toxic communities and awful memes. We try to show what a determined community can create together, and I hope through the ecosystem we’re developing around MemeTools and our upcoming NFT platform, we will keep driving the push towards quality in memes and memecoins on the blockchain.
How did you feel when the DogeBonk became the first memecoin in space?
It’s not every day that a bunch of strangers come together around a dog coin to one-up the richest man in the world. It was a very proud moment for everyone in the community.
When did you get involved with cryptocurrency?
I think it started from being interested in computers and programming; the decentralized nature of Web3 and felt very appealing. Then the market crashed due to covid and since then I’ve gradually invested more and more into cryptocurrencies.
What is your relationship with memes?
Memes are a natural by-product of the internet and the ability to effortlessly communicate and share media with everyone in the world.
What is the future of DogeBonk?
I think it’s clear that DogeBonk is the only memecoin with memes, and also makes things happen. Most other so called “memecoins” post their icons and some unsubstantiated claim like “we will go to the moon because … because we just will, ok?”. Shiba Inu holders don’t seem to even understand basic economic concepts like market caps for example. I’m certain that 2022 and beyond will be very bright for DogeBonk.
How did you feel when the DogeBonk became the first meme to enter space?
This solidified the fact that we’re vastly different from anyone else in the memecoin ecosystem. We beat the richest man in the world at his own game.
Do you consider memes to be art?
I personally am kind of conservative in my definition of art, and there’s a difference between say a painting someone spent months to complete, and a photoshopped dog with a bat. I don’t think memes are in any way inferior to the traditional definition of art, just different. Art used to be something to cherish. Now literally anything could be art. This interview answer is art.
When did you get involved with cryptocurrency?
It always was part of my living without knowing it in 4chan /biz since I was 13 years old.
What is your relationship with memes?
I like memes a lot, I’m a kind of stressed person IRL (in real life) not sad but worried. I just having fun in the Bonkverse.
What is the future of DogeBonk in your opinion?
I just say future is bright like any crypto in general, but this coin could go really far as anyone and even devs imagine.
How did you feel when the DogeBonk became the first meme to enter space?
It was an Amazing moment. /OooOOOOoooOooOOOOooooooh like we say.
Santovi
When did you get involved with cryptocurrency?
I’ve known that crypto was the future of finance since I heard about BTC in 2012.
What is your relationship with memes?
I’ve been meme-ing since I was a teenager discovering the Something Awful forums. I’m from the era before rage comics and twitter screenshots and have watched memes evolve over the years.
What is the future of DogeBonk in your opinion?
DogeBonk is the catalyst that will cause people to take memecoins seriously and it is already well on its way to mainstream adoption.
How did you feel when the DogeBonk became the first meme to enter space?
Relieved! Glad that all the planning and work we put in weeks beforehand finally came to fruition. It was a beautiful moment in our community.
Do you consider memes to be art?
Yes, but I also consider memes to be in their own category from art. Memes can be considered art, but art cannot be considered a meme until it is accepted socially.
The DogeBonk team ended 2021 by beating Elon Musk and becoming the first memecoin in space. Less than a quarter of an hour later they announced that their NFT marketplace was in the final stages of development. A few weeks later was the surprise release of MemeTools V2, an upgrade to Dogebonk’s wildly popular memecoin listing site – Memetools.app
Despite some volatility in the markets over the winter months the DogeBonk team continues to push ahead with updates, events, and endless community projects and activities. MemeTools has shown incredible growth already, and the NFT marketplace has the potential to become the premiere destination for NFTs on the Binance Smartchain.
One of the developers, quoted in a recent article in The Independent, expresses the unerring confidence of the community perfectly:
“Dogebonk is the real memetic answer to the ridiculous Clown World. We are the first memecoin in space. We have the funds to do funny things, and we want to meme DogeBonk into being the biggest memecoin of 2022.”
You wouldn’t put it past them…
