Satire, Kayfabe, and Dogecoin: The Myth of Rationality

Satire, Kayfabe, and Dogecoin: The Myth of Rationality

February 8, 2021

The following is a passage from Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground:

In short, one may say anything about the history of the world— anything that might enter the most disordered imagination. The only thing one can’t say is that it’s rational. The very word sticks in one’s throat.

Sometimes the best place to hide something is in plain sight. There is something about our history and the way it has evolved over the years that makes you question the myth of rationality. Every day we proudly say that Human Beings are the most intelligent of beings. In a zero-sum game where we are the only players, that is not much of an accomplishment.

Recently I have found myself questioning a lot of things that I used to consider trivial. There are two words that I think every person should add to their vocabulary: Satire and Kayfabe.

Satire and William Shakespeare

To make a case for Satire I would like to use the example of Shakespeare.

There is a very strong case to be made for the satirical writing of Shakespeare which is very contrarian to popular opinion.

Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet as a joke. It was a story of how pathological relationships can destroy families. Romeo and Juliet both died a miserable death for absolutely no reason. Romeo and Juliet is a satire mocking the idea of true and immediate love. But, the audience took Shakespeare's satirical work seriously, and it became a renounced tragedy. Not just that it became the benchmark of love. It even got to a point where thousands of movies were made ripping off the same story and changing the setting.

Another example is from Hamlet.

To thine own self be true

In simpler words: Be Yourself.

This is one of the most common advice given to youngsters from a young age. But this line was given to Polonius whom Hamlet himself refers to as a tedious old fool.

What makes you even think there is a "self". You are nothing but a collection of personalities you imitate. Most of what is considered internal is actually coming from outside sources. So technically there is no "Yourself" to be. But this satirical nature of the advice got lost over the years and the most useless advice you can give someone is to "Be Yourself".

Kayfabe and Pro Wrestling

Another word that everyone should add to their vocabulary is Kayfabe. Kayfabe is a term that rose out of Pro Wrestling. The technical definition of the word is " a fact or convention of presenting staged performances as genuine or authentic".

So is Pro Wrestling Fake?

The wrestlers are real. ✔️

The ring is real. ✔️

The audience is real. ✔️

However, the matches are scripted, the moves are staged and the reactions on being hit with each move is nothing but acting. ✔️

But this doesn't stop wrestling from having millions of fans all over the world. They watch it for the storylines just like an average person watches a movie or a TV show even when they know it is not real.

We find this phenomenon more often in Reality Shows. All reality shows are scripted, but that doesn't stop these shows from being mainstream. The reason for that is one psychological truth.

The human brain cannot distinguish lies when mixed with layers of truth. The only thing we care about is the story inside our heads that we have constructed around the lies masquerading as facts. Even after knowing that the facts we assumed once to be true are lies we tend to still believe in it because of the presence of some layers of truth. People would still watch sports even if one day it was announced that all sports matches are scripted.

Dogecoin and Future of Crypto

Now, what do these two words tell us about the present and the future? If you were living under a rock, a cryptocurrency called Dogecoin which started as a joke against all cryptocurrencies is now ranked number 10 amongst all cryptocurrencies in the world and is steadily growing. Any person who has been following the crypto industry for the last 10-15 years will go on a rant on how Dogecoin has no future. But what they don't realize is the satirical nature of the world we live in. People don't care about market caps or transaction speed or consensus algorithms, they care about the story behind the coin. Once they believe in the story they will keep believing in it even if it was mathematically and scientifically proven that dogecoin is a joke. Dogecoin reaching 1$ is extremely unlikely given its large market cap but considering the satirical nature of the world we live in, it is certainly not impossible. One of the things that made Facebook successful in its early days was games like Farm Ville. People created Facebook accounts just to create a virtual farm where they can pretend to be a farmer with their friends. Dogecoin is backed by memes, something that certainly should not be underestimated.

Imagine out of more than 2000 cryptocurrencies in the world, the one that is most mainstream is a crypto that was made as a joke to all cryptocurrencies.

So is Dogecoin a fake cryptocurrency?

Dogecoin is a joke on all cryptocurrencies. So it should not have value.✔️

Dogecoin has 1 Million Reddit followers. ✔️

Dogecoin has support from Elon Musk and Snoop Dogg.✔️

Dogecoin has a market cap of billions which makes 1$ extremely unlikely. but that fact is unknown to the average buyer. Also, most people don't care. ✔️

Another person who understands this psychology is Elon Musk. To quote him:

The most entertaining outcome and the most ironic outcome would be that dogecoin becomes the currency of Earth in the future.

There is nothing more fascinating to me than the idea of looking back at this article in one year to see how accurate I was in the deconstruction of Dogecoin and its rise to fame.