‘Hodling’ on: Memetic storytelling and digital folklore within a cryptocurrency world

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Yogarajah, Yathukulan. 2022. ‘Hodling’ on: Memetic storytelling and digital folklore within a cryptocurrency world. Economy and Society, 51(3), pp. 467-488. ISSN 0308-5147 [Article]

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2022.2091316

Abstract or Description

People within the cryptocurrency world come together on imageboards and forums to tell stories about the highly volatile and uncertain world they inhabit. Although they engage with a highly technical digital money form, the stories they share online could be more productively analysed as digital folklore. Through ethnography primarily conducted via 4chan and Reddit, I highlight three types of stories, loosely grouped together within the categories of ‘despair’, ‘comedy’ and ‘courage’. Drawing parallels to folk and fairy tales, I explore how ‘netizens’ use these stories to engage with the uncertainty that characterizes cryptocurrencies. Consequently, I highlight how stories come to make the online cryptocurrency world more inhabitable, as well as allowing people to subvert and resist ‘economic reason’. By foregrounding storytelling, I highlight the fluid, intersubjective and collective actions that help to sustain a volatile and uncertain market that is favourable for those who take to online message boards.

Item Type:

Article

Identification Number (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2022.2091316

Additional Information:

Funding: This work was supported by an ESRC grant ES/P00072X/1.

Keywords:

cryptocurrency; speculation; hodling; storytelling; money; memes.

Departments, Centres and Research Units:

Anthropology

Dates: