deciding to write this at the start of my day versus at the end of my day. we’ll see how it goes!

a few things I want to talk about:

>social capital and political influence

>investing (???) in archetypes

SOCIAL CAPITAL AND POLTICAL INFLUENCE

We all know what memes are, at this point. I’m not going to waste everyone’s time trying to provide a properly granular definition.

what I find particularly interesting is how they’ve been able to influence the sociopolitosphere; the intersection of the socialsphere and politics.

I’m a pretty firm believer that the reason Trump has success his first around was because of the memes. it’s like doing little bumps of propaganda that can be infinitely, and easily!, replicated and communicated at the speed of light.

not surprisingly, I’m a big believer in Joe Biden very much lacking in social capital, along with Kamala, with their big memetic moments amounting to, what, Dark Brandon and Brat Summer, respectively? that’s not going to cut it. they’re selling a lame party to what’s fundamentally the content equivalent of cokeheads.

this brings us to the current moment, where, for the past handful of months, fatface JD Vance memes have been a repeating trend. do I need to connect the dots here or do you see what’s developing?

every JD Vance meme is another bump for his social capital. it’s another micrometer of free neural real estate that he occupies in the attention-hijacking hivemind click factory of social media.

I personally will be watching closely to see what he does. the moment he acknowledges the bit and tries to get involved, it’s over. the whole thing will crumble. imagine Truman Burbank figuring out his whole life is a show but still trying to go along with it? it would change the entire dynamic, the entire vibe.

unrelated but notable: interesting how observing The Bit fundamentally changes it. hmm. wonder what’s going on there?

JD Vance is having his Truman Burbank moment. as soon as he tries to get involved, it’s like a moment of self-awareness, like snapping back into reality, like consciously thinking about how you’re walking or breathing, and suddenly it doesn’t feel so natural. if he has this moment, it’ll kill the meme and likely tank his social capital, until someone can find a way to settle the waters of the meme stream.

so, yeah, something to think about I guess.

INVESTING IN ARCHETYPES
(OBVIOUSLY NOT ADVICE)

word on the streets is that Discord is eyeing an IPO opportunity. they did this back in 2021 and ended up backing off and waiting. we’ll see what happens this time.

but let’s say they do, what then?

here’s some reckless speculation: me thinks they’ll look an awful lot like Reddit and Roblox.

What is Discord, after all? a platform for gamers. it’s where the gamers and terminally online gather. where else do gamers and the terminally online gather? reddit. roblox fits into this equation as simply a gaming-platform development environment. easy to see how that slots into this culture.

just for funsies, I’ve included some snips of their 1Y, YTD, and 6M charts. see below:

Perhaps you’re connecting the dots here, but if not, my point is that all 3 of these platforms — Reddit, Roblox, and Discord — serve as gathering places for similar types of peoples.

so, when I hear things about Discord eyeing an IPO, I ask myself “hmm, I wonder how that stock is going to perform?”, and my answer would probably be something like, “ok, well, I know these other two similar things that serve similar people, who likely have similar product taste and demands etc etc etc, so maybe I’ll study how those two things performed and see if there’s something useful to prep for Discords IPO.”

this information also serves to fuel a larger hypothesis, structured around the title of the section. is there a way to build psychological profiles of consumer subcultures and use that as leverage for asset management strategies? surely someone is working on this. if you know of anyone, please do send me their contact information :)

that’s all I have for today. There is much work to be done in the realms of Content, Community, and Capital. see you guys in the arena!