Misogyny Memecoins

 

This is where we are in the saga of American history: over the past week or so, a bunch of phallic sex toys have been thrown onto the courts at WNBA games. Many of them have been neon green, though they've been other colors as well. And now a cryptocurrency group is claiming responsibility for the fad, crowing that it is all part of a successful launch of a memecoin, "creatively" named Green Dildo Coin.

What is this all about? 

The WNBA has seen a lot of growth in mainstream popularity in the U.S. over the past few years. On the one hand, this has been great for players, who are being taken seriously as athletes in popular culture at last. On the other hand, it has also made them targets for misogynist, homophobic, and racist haters. Sadly, the favorite leisuretime sport enjoyed by a whole swath of the population now is mocking, harassing and threatening perceived culture-war enemies. Thus, WNBA players and coaches complaining about the annoying rain of silicone phalli on social media have received a flood of replies calling women's sports boring and dumb and the players "dykes." How mature!

As is the norm in the toxic swaths of "manoverse" culture, the aim of the dildo-throwing is to make an assertion of power in the form of sexual dominance, and then to respond when people get annoyed or upset that it is obviously just a joke, presenting the targets of harassment as thin-skinned, weak, and hysterical. It's supposed to be some kind of ultimate verbal wrestling move: the perfect trap to pin your opponents, proving your superior intellect and skill!

In fact, though, it's just pathetic. Boys tossing dildos at powerful women athletes is so juvenile (and I say boys and it is juvenile; of the multiple perpetrators, two have been arrested, and their ages are 18 and 23--legally men, if barely, but in their actions about 12 years old). What is communicated is not that these boys have sexual dominance over WNBA players, but that those tossed pieces of silicone are as close as they are ever going to get to a sexual relationship with one. It's like the sex-toy tossers are eagerly performing an initiation rite to get into a fraternity. . . but it is the Fraternity of Incels. It generates vicarious embarrassment more than anything else. 

Consider the cringe factor of Donald Trump Jr. posting this constructed image of his father on Instagram on Thursday:

 

Junior was nicknamed "Diaper Don" in college for other reasons, but here the tagline "The White House" makes it seem the nickname relates to a braggart claim to be living with President Daddy at age 47. And while I presume the image Junior has created is supposed to get misogynist Barstool-Sports-fandom cred, and frame his father as engaged in derisive sexual dominance of strong women athletes, it looks instead rather like his old man's appendage has mildewed to the point that has just fallen off. . .

Why post such a thing? I'd note that it coincided with the brief burst in value of the "hilarious" Green Dildo Coin. It seems the post was intended as a memetic boost. Memecoins, you see, have no intrinsic value. They are just digital monetary representations of buyers' enthusiasm for an in-joke or celebrity--including the Trump family, which has its own memecoins, the major one being $TRUMP, which has made millions for the presidential family (including major purchase-bribes from techbros seeking influence with the president). The thing is, most memecoins, like most memes, have a very short half-life. What seemed fresh and funny to the ingroup that circulated them soon becomes tired and loses its cool factor. Memecoins are generally not longterm investments, but rather something you purchase making a bet on how high the coin's value will rise, when it has peaked, and how quickly it will fall, buying and selling the coin accordingly.

So we see the birth of a particular dynamic. If what buyers are investing in when purchasing Green Dildo Coins is the virality of the fad of tossing an object onto WNBA courts as a statement, then the maximum value is generated by hyping those stunts while they still have virality and haven't gone stale. And indeed, an online social media team has been assiduously hyping the dildo-tossing incidents, as seen in this comment from the Green Dildo Coin livestream:

“I just got confirmation L.A. is out of the building,” one member of the stream said around seven minutes after [a] sex toy landed on the court at the Sparks game, indicating that the person who threw it had fled without being apprehended.

“There are community members out there putting their f—ing lives on the line, so the least you can do is retweet,” the same member said as the act was beginning to go viral on social media."

The level of breathless hyperbole here is high. Sex-toy tossing is hardly a matter of life and death. But that's to be expected when your goal is to pump up the peak of memetic power before the fad passes and the coin tanks. Memetic boosts from influencers like Don Jr. are a key part of this hyping--and can also function as a sort of "insider trading," if the influencer purchases the memecoins themself.

But there's another reason people buy memecoins, beyond placing bets on whether they can buy low and sell high before the crash. And that's the hope that some memes keep their cachet for months, years, or a generation. Everyday members of MAGA who purchase $TRUMP coins probably hope they are making a longterm investment in the "brand". And what the creators of the Green Dildo Coins are dreaming of is that their "viral stunts" and coin could become part of the longterm lore of MAGA misogyny. That's very evident when you read the description of the coin posted on cryptocurrency exchanges:

"Green Dildo is a vibrant and community-driven meme token that unites individuals who share a profound affinity for all things green, with a special emphasis on candles. Within the crypto space, the term  'green dildos' is widely recognized, symbolizing significant upward movements in price charts. Drawing inspiration from the success of renowned memes like PEPE, Green Dildo aims to leave an indelible mark as TOP G (inspired by the notable figure, Andrew Tate)." 

With an embarrassingly-forced tone of snark, the coin description aims to tie itself to the also-green figure of the cartoon frog Pepe, long used (against its creator's wishes) in misogynist, racist, transphobic, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, and other hate-memes. This use swelled as an alt-right trend on 4chan a decade ago, continued on 8chan, and spread around the manoverse of internet forums, where it persists, if in lower volumes than in the past. Also referenced is Andrew Tate, whose relevance as a key misogynist influencer has persisted for years among boys and young men. Tate has his own memecoin DADDY, which he calls "the coin for the patriarchy" that proclaims "we're bringing the Gs back make me a f***ing sandwich females."

In other words, the Green Dildo Coin team hopes that they can cross over from monetizing a brief fad for sex-toy tossing into monetizing misogyny generally. A green dildo fad will not last, but the hope is that the coin can be tied to a groundswell of fervor that will only grow, seeking to subject all others to the power and control of cis white conservative men--something that is associated with MAGA but which preceded it, and that aims to last long after its current avatar of Trump Senior has left the stage. Just as MAGA harnessed this impulse for political ends, all sorts of players seek to monetize it for their own profit. 

And to do so, those monetizing misogyny have to hype it, especially among the young people who will come into power as this generation of aging political leaders dies off. That's what we see Don Junior doing when he manufactures and promotes his image of his father dropping a green phallic object on WNBA players. He's seeking to propagandize misogyny as much as the passing fad for expressing it at basketball games.

The thing about propaganda, however, is that it only works as long as people take it seriously. They might do so out of fear instead of love, it is true. But if it just fills people with vicarious embarrassment or makes them snicker contemptuously, it fails. 

This may be the Achilles heel of the current administration's approach, which combines authoritarian destruction and cruelty and a show of force with a style of propaganda based on the humor of the sassy, rebellious outsider--which just doesn't fly when you are in charge of the presidency, Congress, Supreme Court, and corporate leadership. 

The joke of administration insiders propagandizing throwing green sex toys at women athletes is the kind of fad that can't last. Instead of projecting some kind of admirable masculine strength, it gives the impression of a batch of pouty boys, sexually frustrated because they don't have the social skills to treat women respectfully, throwing their toys in a temper tantrum as if that will help.  

Whether this will degrade MAGA power over time, or be replaced with classic humorless authoritarian propaganda, time will tell. In the meantime, however, it is clear that influencers of all stripes in the movement are making misogyny sell. In fact, the Sportsbook betting platform is making money by allowing users to place bets on when the next sex toy will hit the court, and what color it will be. . .

This is where we are in the saga of US history today.