The meaning of new value creation generated by "cultural memeification"

Author: [JJ Alicea] Translation: TechFlow

A Society Turned Meme: Rethinking the Essence of Cultural Propagation

Memeification is not merely an internet phenomenon. It refers to the very process by which humans transmit, share, and evolve culture, and its significance continues to deepen with the times. The concept of memes has existed since ancient times, functioning as cultural symbols passed down through generations. Modern people often dismiss memes as trivial or humorous because online expressions frequently contain humor, but the truth is, what truly resonates and touches people’s hearts is the reason—because it contains a core of truth.

As Richard Dawkins stated, a meme is “a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation, that propagates itself within the meme pool, jumping from one brain to another.” This mechanism of propagation reveals the fundamental nature of culture. In ancient societies, religious stories and shared histories were transmitted orally, with each storyteller adding their own perspective, deeply embedding the community’s belief systems. Similarly, modern memes are fragments of thought passed from person to person, changing with each reinterpretation. Both rely on repetition, resonance, and subtle changes during sharing, allowing the cultural core to persist and adapt over time.

Meme Communities: A Bottom-Up Movement of Value Creation

If memes are the basic units of cultural transmission, then communities are the fertile ground where their meaning accumulates. Communities typically feature shared interests and goals, interactions, structures and identities, knowledge sharing, and collective identity.

Historically, social change often began with a small group challenging mainstream culture. The open-source software movement started with a few developers, like the founders of the Linux project, challenging the dominance of proprietary software. The punk rock movement emerged in New York and London, driven by passionate musicians opposing the sophistication of mainstream rock and consumerism of pop culture. VaccinateCA was a group of technologists providing information on vaccine availability to address logistical failures of government systems.

Initially, these movements consisted of passionate supporters sharing a common vision and belief that the world could change, but ultimately they had a significant impact across multiple fields such as technology, finance, and culture. The Linux operating system saves corporations and governments over $60 billion annually in licensing fees, supports over 90% of network infrastructure, and Android powers about 70% of smartphones worldwide. Punk rock became the soundtrack for political and social movements from Eastern Europe to Latin America. VaccinateCA provided information on over 1,000 vaccination points, while Google only listed 127.

This is a grassroots, bottom-up, community-led model of value creation. Its meaning suggests a power dynamic entirely different from traditional organizational structures.

The Memeification of Gold: The Symbolism of Store of Value

The use of gold dates back to ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and parts of Eastern Europe. By around 4000 BC, its unique beauty, rarity, and ease of processing made it highly valued, crafted into jewelry, ritual objects, and symbols of status. But why is gold so special?

Unlike other metals, gold does not tarnish or corrode. This durability gives it the meaning of permanence and stability. Gold signifies resilience against change, obsolescence, and competition, and its value accumulates over time. Gold became a meme asset because its persistence resonated deeply with humanity.

Although gold is one of the largest asset classes globally, its practical uses are minimal—no manufacturing purpose, no cash flow, no business model. Its value derives solely from collective recognition of its worth. While its practical utility is limited, its value stems from beauty, rarity, and symbolic significance in human culture. As more people recognize its value, gold has even gained the potential to serve as a global reserve currency.

Bitcoin: A Digital Meme Asset

Bitcoin (BTC) can be regarded as the first “meme asset” in the digital world—initially seemingly worthless, but now a significant store of value in the global economy.

Bitcoin has not only revolutionized finance but also sparked a cultural movement. Through decentralized technology, Bitcoin enables peer-to-peer value exchange, grants financial autonomy, and has fostered the rise of a global grassroots community united by shared beliefs.

Its emergence immediately after the 2008 financial crisis was crucial timing. It captured distrust in traditional financial systems and created a new narrative of decentralized value. Bitcoin holders buy not because of cash flow but because of its unique value proposition—store of value, faith in the future, and a symbol of a new financial ecosystem beyond corporate and individual control.

The community of Bitcoin holders is more than just investors; it signifies participation in a larger movement. This is evident when comparing “Apple tattoos,” “Uber tattoos,” and “Bitcoin tattoos.”

Community-Driven Value Accumulation Through Meme Coins

Meme coins are an ideal tool to measure community value. They embody cultural tokenization. Meme coins are similar to social networks but bring about fundamental change—in value distribution and control structures.

On platforms like Instagram and Facebook, most of the value created by users is captured by the platform and shareholders. In contrast, in a meme coin ecosystem, users themselves are the creators and owners of network value.

Bonk was distributed via airdrop and quickly became a representative meme asset within the Solana community. Early recipients persisted even after the FTX collapse, continuing to contribute to existing communities and protocols. Bonk’s resilience in adversity turned into a meme and was tokenized. The passion from initial recipients spread to a broader community, increasing Bonk’s value, driving projects like Bonkbot, and generating wealth within the ecosystem. This wealth remains within the community.

This is true grassroots value creation, without external investors, driven solely by human capital that brings value to the community.

Limitations of Traditional Valuation Frameworks: Measuring Community Value

The outside world often underestimates the power and significance of communities. Traditional finance relies on methods taught at institutions like Wharton—DCF (discounted cash flow), comparables, EBITDA. This narrow perspective is why many initially misunderstood the value of GameStop and why crypto assets like Bitcoin are not fully understood by traditional finance.

Today, communities built by various entities—from startups to publicly traded companies, crypto protocols, influencers, and even subreddits—hold immense hidden value. In the future, corporate valuation will extend beyond profits to include the value created and accumulated by their communities both internally and externally.

Over 86% of internet users trust Reddit and its communities more than advertising when learning about new products or brands. Adults under 45 trust social media news more than traditional news networks, and 63% of Generation Z and Millennials trust influencers more than brands. The average member of Generation Z spends 8.5 hours online daily, with 55% using smartphones over 5 hours per day.

TikTok’s book communities have driven sales of bestsellers, with some titles increasing sales by up to 1000% after community recommendations. Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets pushed GameStop’s stock from under $20 to over $300 in just a few days. After a collaboration with Budweiser, sales dropped 26%, AB InBev’s stock fell 20%, and market cap lost $26 billion—caused by conservative community backlash.

The importance of communities is difficult to measure with traditional financial valuation frameworks. Their influence is unpredictable, dynamic, and constantly evolving.

Creating Cultural Meaning That Machines Cannot Reproduce

The future will resemble the past in many ways. Technology will continue to evolve, cities will keep expanding, and culture will adapt to the tools and media of the era. However, delegating cultural creation to machines is impossible because outsourcing to massive data matrices is not feasible.

Machines may produce artifacts similar to memes—optimized by algorithms and mass-replicated snapshots of familiar ideas designed to attract short-term attention. But they lack the deep resonance and transformative power that true memes possess.

Throughout history, culture has always been the result of collective effort, with memes serving as the smallest units of transmission, carrying the ideas and values of their time. Memes are not just fragments of media but carriers of shared meaning. Their prosperity depends not on their creation but on people’s acceptance and dissemination. They emerge not from isolated creation but from shared understanding, humor, and emotion.

In Manhattan’s La Raza Street, there is a small Puerto Rican restaurant called Lincón Chuito. It has no reservations, no reward programs, no points system, no electronic loyalty cards. It does not ask for email addresses for advertising emails, nor contact information. It does not follow the latest food trends on TikTok, nor patent and mass-produce its homemade sauces.

What they run is culture. Honest people cooking fair-priced food—something they have done unchanged for decades. Every community has a clear resonance with how things should be.

That is the secret ingredient—the true meaning of the culture being sold. What communities turn into memes holds more than just monetary value. It is trust, a sense of belonging, and a confirmation of humaneness.