When Richard Dawkins coined the term “memes” in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, he unwittingly became a media scholar and peered into the future of technology and society. He described memes as infectious gene-like bits of culture that spread through personal social networks. They act as cultural replicators of ideas, behaviors, or styles that spread from person to person. His concept seems taken for granted nowadays and common both in scholarship and popular culture. However, his memes faced derision and dismissal in the academy initially.

Communication and media scholars did not know what to do with the concept for the next 25 years until memes sprung up on the Internet in the 2000s and became a staple in the digital media landscape. While legacy media has become fractured and diversified, memes have become a common Internet language and cultural reference. They are much more than simply funny or annoying content. They are media that share affect and common experiences and instruments for creating meaning in our lives. While we drive cultural and social value to them through communication, they do not have economic value. This changed in 2013 with the launch of the first memecoin called Dogecoin. For the first time, a meme had a dollar value (actually a fraction of a cent at the time). This is interesting in the evolution of memes and the Internet and introduces a new process of financialization in the form of the tokenization of culture.

While memecoins seem frivolous and silly, they present an opportunity to explore critical elements of blockchain phenomenon outside of the typical avenues of Bitcoin and Ethereum, which can be polemic. In this talk, I explore the relationship between economic value and social value of memecoins and how this gives insight into how culture and community building drive value in the blockchain space through communication in digital networks. I also touch on the evolution of memecoins and the rise and significance of cat-themed memecoins.

About 10 years ago, Dr. Chow-White started working in the applied world with organizations such as teams in sports analytics and other big data applications in various sectors. Currently, he's working with an AI and data science firm applying text analytics and advanced statistics to prediction markets. A mix of computational communication science, statistics, and computing science.

Peter is a Professor in the School of Communication and Director of the Gena Lab at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. He researches the development and adoption of digital technologies and culture in social media, big data, sports analytics, blockchain and health. The work in the Gena Lab is both scholarly and applied communication research for engaging the news media, industry, and policy makers about innovative digital and human solutions to improve organizations and society. He is also a member of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at the University of Cambridge and has positions in Computing Science and Business at SFU and the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. He graduated in 2007 with his Ph.D. from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California.

This program is open to all eligible individuals. USC Annenberg operates all of its programs and activities consistent with the University’s Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor.

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