CAPITALISM: THE IRONIC IDEAL. Comedy gold: the economics of internet irony.
This is the new reality of the financial markets: fortunes are built and markets are moved purely on the basis of whether something is amusing. Making people laugh on the internet has become a credible marketing strategy for a certain kind of entrepreneur. Aspiring tycoons hand free stakes to meme-market influencers such as Musk in the hope they will tweet about it, like a fake-tan brand courting a Love Island Z-lister. It’s a form of mania, clearly, and it’s reminiscent of the frenzied buying which preceded previous stock-market crashes. At the height of the dotcom bubble, investors greedily acquired any stock with ‘.com’ in the name. This time, speculators are hoovering up anything with the potential to go viral online.
Something more fundamental has changed, too. Ordinary punters are influencing the public markets as never before. The internet has democratized investing, thanks to trading apps and cryptocurrencies. In the US, retail investors now account for more trading volume than mutual funds and hedge funds combined. Many of them are young thrill-seekers who want quick, large returns. And the pandemic has thrown gasoline on the fire: when most entertainment options aren’t available, and the Biden administration’s stimulus program is dishing out free money, market speculation becomes the best fun you can have. If you think our investments are mass delusion, ask the irony speculators, what do you think the stock market is? It’s a good question.
The new army of investors congregate on online forums such as Reddit, where they swap tips and screenshots showing extreme wins and losses. This motivates ever more reckless buying. They look for assets which are likely to get a lot of hype and go on huge bull runs. This is why comedy assets are so popular, because they attract attention. To the online retail investor, attention is the most valuable commodity. To that end, they will passionately advocate for their chosen investments, spamming forums and creating memes about the price going ‘to the moon’.
The holy grail in this hype cycle is a tweet from Musk. When it was announced he was hosting Saturday Night Live, dogecoin’s price doubled, as speculators prayed he would ‘pump’ the currency on national television. Instead he called it a ‘hustle’ and the price of dogecoin collapsed.
I hope Remy got out in time: