When the internet and the first personal computers were first invented, marketers had to invent reasons for people to buy them. That's right. People didn't immediately rush to the first Apple store they could find to buy a $500 personal computer that could do little more than a digital calculator today.
So Apple had to find a way to advertise computers to people. They needed to find a use for computers. That's right — Steve Jobs and his partner basically had to find a use case for personal computers.
Does that sound familiar?
They had to tell people that personal computers are great for stuff: like making recipes, teaching kids maths, and balancing checkbooks.
This is getting really familiar, isn't it?
Yeah, computers are great for things like that, but as everyone soon learned, that doesn't even scratch the surface of what they are great for.
This stage of innovation, where people advertise an amazing product by just scratching the surface of its potential so that it can be relatable to people, is where Web3 is right now.
And that's why memes have (and could) become such an important aspect of it.
The History Of Memes
While we may think of memes as something that is a 21st-century invention or edgy Bois on 4chan and Tumblr, it's important to remember that we've always had memes.
And I don't just mean we've always had memes from the modern era or even the era before the modern era. I mean since ancient Egypt. Pictures that convey an idea have always been a staple of our civilization, and it seems they've taken on even greater relevance today.
In fact, it's gotten to the point that a huge part of every new technology is usually converted, in some way, to serve the needs of memes.
When the printing press first became important in Europe, the first newspapers carried memes (which were called political cartoons at the time). When color printers were invented, the very first thing we used them to do was make even more colorful political cartoons.
Even when the internet was created, the first images to be communicated were memes. These pictures go by different names — but at their core, they are funny images— or even ideas in some cases that have a shared meaning and that instantly transmit information.
And right now, it seems like memes may be the driving force of Web 3.0
The Potential Of Web 3.0
In theory, Web 3.0 is a game-changer. In a lot of ways, Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 were game-changers too — but it's generally agreed that Web 2.0's revolution was the more important of the two. This is despite the fact that some claimed that the internet, in Web 2.0 format, wouldn't be more important than the Fax Machine.
Today, we already have structures that are already put in place in preparation for Web 3.0. We already have a Bitcoin payment processing gateway and business crypto wallets like Coinspaid. With wallets like Coinspaid, you can accept payments in Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT, and other digital currencies.
On the blockchain end of things, there are other tools available right now that allow you to access infrastructure, earn yields, and integrate DeFi solutions. Ankr decentralizes Web3 infrastructure, an important next step in DeFi. If “decentralized” infrastructure is centralized, then it defeats the purpose. It becomes vulnerable to attacks and regulations. Polygon and Binance are already using this protocol to supplement their own networks.
To learn more about the past, present, and future of Web 3.0, I suggest podcasts or some light reading. *Beyond Bitcoin: Decentralized Finance and the End of Banks *is great if you want to dive deeper into the complexities of this new paradigm.
The Memification Of Web 3.0
The scale of the changes that Web 2.0 brought to our world shows just how immense Web 3.0 could be. Unlike Web 2.0, Web 3.0 will be heavily based on machine learning, artificial intelligence, and will create even more transparent systems for the web to run on.
But this doesn't mean that Web 3.0 won't have similarities with Web 2.0. One similarity is certainly the fact that memes are shaping up to be an important part of the infrastructure of both webs.
And that similarity is shaping up to be a huge part of Web 3. In fact, it may be the single most important cultural factor driving the popularity of Web 3.0.
There are a lot of components that make up Web 3.0, but of all those components, three stand out right now. The first is the blockchain, the second is a cryptocurrency, and the third is NFTs.
And two of those three elements have significant communities built around memes.
According to Binance, meme coins are meme-inspired cryptocurrencies. In 2021, eleven years after Bitcoin, the meme coin market saw unbelievable growth. To really understand that growth, it's important to look at the price of the foremost meme coin, Dogecoin, a coin that was based on the meme of a popular dog called Doge.
In December of 2018, Dogecoin was worth around $0.017. In less than two years, the coin went from being worth $0.017 to being worth $0.50, which means it experienced a 20,000% increase in just around three years or so.
The thing to remember about this coin is that it really doesn't have a great use case. It's basically a coin that was made as a joke. And just because it went viral as a meme coin, it created a community that was capable of giving the coin a 20,000% increase. If you'd bought just 10,000 dollars worth of the coin at any time in 2018, you'd almost certainly be a millionaire because of it. Elon Musk even made Tesla merch available to buy with Doge.
Companies aren’t the only ones accepting crypto as payment. El Salvador, Canada, Australia, and even many businesses in America now accept crypto. There are even Meta-malls that allow you to buy digital assets in the metaverse. Hype creates creativity and innovation.
All of that was done because of a community based on a meme. Crypto isn't the only element of Web 3.0 that has a huge meme influence either.
NFTs, which could be a lot more, are essentially being marketed by memes these days. Coincidentally, some of the most expensive NFTs in the world are memes. Right near the top of that list is the NFT of the dogecoin itself, which recently sold for four million dollars.
The Disaster girl NFT, sold by Disaster girl herself no less, sold at around $500,000. The Overly Attached Girlfriend NFT, sold by the girl in the meme herself, raked in $411,000. And lastly, a literal flying, rainbow, Pop Tart cat meme sold for $590,000.
Why That Could Be A Good Thing
The question you're probably asking yourself right now is why. Why are memes such a huge driving force on the internet and the world?
But the question shouldn't be why. We already know the answers that we need to know. For some reason, memes and virality are very essential tools for bringing groups of people together. They essentially work like flags — they signal camaraderie, they are a quick way of spreading information, and they are funny.
And just like making recipes and the ability to create cookbooks were used to market the very first personal computers, memes can be an important channel for creating the first Web 3 communities.
The Memification of web 3 is pretty inevitable, and meme coins and NFTs will always be important. The only question that remains is whether they can be used to drive adoption.
Right now, Web 3.0 is growing slowly. It's an exciting space, but it's also a space that's sparsely populated. Building more products around memes could just be that magic pill to populate the space, and create the economy needed to truly build a connected Web 3.0.
Featured image from freepik.com