Dingus of the week: Anyone who bought Hawk Tuah girl’s memecoin
We are but sinners in the hands of an angry DOGE
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This week, Donald Trump continued to stock his cabinet with subordinates and sycophants; the police caught Luigi Mangione, who is the alleged shooter in the death of the UnitedHealth CEO; Daniel Penny was acquitted in the death of Jordan Neely, Bill Belichick is going to coach at UNC, and the divorced Stepford Wife prototype Nancy Mace continued to prove that no one dinguses quite like she does by claiming an activist who shook her hand assaulted her. (Which wouldn’t be the first time her claims of victimhood didn’t hold up to scrutiny.)
In all the news about the decline of Western civilization, you might have missed the story that I think sums up this American moment the best.
Haliey Welch, known as Hawk Tuah girl — the woman who went viral because she said she spits during oral sex — and who now has a podcast called Talk Tuah, launched HAWK, a cryptocurrency memecoin. And in news that shocks no one except all the people who lost money on it, the crypto was such a bust that she’s now defending herself against accusations of fraud and heading up a pump-and-dump scam.
People took to X to complain about their lost money, which raises a question: Did Brené Brown go too far when she encouraged us to rid ourselves of shame? If I had lost money because I spent it on memecoin, I would simply take that information to my grave.
I most definitely wouldn’t confess it to an online audience of bots, trolls, and incels. Make shame great again.
Welch has denied all accusations of anything scammy and said none of her team has sold their memecoin. In an attempt to control the damage, Welch and her team held a live event on X, which abruptly ended when Welch said, “Anyhoo, I’m going to go to bed!”
In an extremely cursed string of words, the website Bitcoin News reported, “The event was marked by vicious exchanges between journalist Stephen Findeisen or ‘Coffeezilla’ and Alexander Larson Shultz also known as “Doc Hollywood,” a member of the HAWK team who appears to be some sort of crypto mentor to Welch. Findeisen accused the team of fraud while Shultz vigorously defended the launch.”
But it gets even better, because this Doc Hollywood character is a former DJ who is also Howie Mandel’s son in law.
This whole story raises a lot of questions. What’s a memecoin? How’s Howie Mandel doing? Do any of the words in the preceding paragraphs appear in the Holy Scriptures? Have we as a society fallen from the favor of a terrifying and vengeful god?
Let me answer these questions:
A memecoin is just a digital coin with absolutely no value. They are launched by that teeming hive of influencers that grub along underneath the dank rot of the internet. Investing in them is a pure form of gambling. And as online gambling becomes increasingly popular, and with the promised deregulation of the finance industry under Trump, expect to see more of these cropping up.
Howie Mandel seems fine. He has three kids. He also has a podcast, where he talks about Bitcoin. One of his kids is married to the DJ who was apparently behind Welch’s coin launch. And while all I want is for my kids to be happy, if that were my son in law, I’d maybe fake my own death and relocate to Nevada where I’d work in HR under the name of Ryz Renz.
No.
Yes.
My friends, we have fallen out of the Lord’s favor. Americans are now nothing more than sinners in the hands of an angry DOGE.
Writing about the story in Defector, Patrick Redford argues that the HAWK memecoin is the apotheosis of bag culture, which is an argument that is both interesting and makes me want to light the whole internet on fire.
He sums up the cynical fatalism of this era, writing:
As unlikely as big-time TikTok success is for most people, the barriers to entry are nonexistent, unlike access to the upper tier of American life. Young people today live in a country with collapsing public services, a society actively receding away from them. If they are lucky enough to get into a position to rack up six figures of student debt, they face bleak job prospects and prohibitively expensive housing costs, not to mention the death of the biosphere and its associated shakeups. That aforementioned "pure path"? It doesn't meaningfully exist anymore, so why not play the viral lottery? Why not start gambling? Why not generate AI images of Jesus smoking weed with Santa Claus and harvest the last drops of juice from Facebook's corpse? Why not get involved in cryptocurrency speculation? What is keeping you from getting off your ass and drop-shipping baby products? Sure, the game is rigged, but so is everything, so why not have some fun along the way? Why not at least be on the winning side of something?
Economic alienation through this scammy outgrowth of capitalism, which will only expand under the next administration, means that memecoins and internet virality have more to offer Americans as a path to success than college or a traditional job.
People don’t trust in systems because these systems keep failing them. So we follow our TikTok culture pied pipers into scam after scam. It’s Scamerica and we are all just trying to make a living here.
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And now for something good
Montana’s Supreme Court blocked a ban on transgender healthcare.
A judge blocked the Albertson’s-Kroger merger.
The racists are mad at Caitlin Clark. Maybe they can leave her alone now and stop making her the poster child for their imagined white victimhood.
There is a woman who invents cheeses and lives in the mountains. And I really screwed up, because I didn’t know that was a career option.
Notre Dame reopened after a devastating fire five years ago forced it to shut its doors.
What I am enjoying
This summer, my friend Anna showed me the true joy of a martini. I’d always been a little skeptical of them, seeing as how they seemed like just pure alcohol. But on my trip to Maine with my two dear friends, Anna revealed the power of a martini. How did she do that? Repeatedly ordered one on hot summer days. And I am but a lemming.
This week, after a particularly stupid day, I decided to make a martini with vodka, a splash of vermouth, and the brine of pickled red onions. I felt like a genius, until I realized I’d just invented a Gibson. But it was very delicious.
Also, this week, I ordered bagels from the Local Crumb, which is a bakery run by James Beard Award semifinalist Aaron Hall. I don’t know why I have never ordered bagels from him before. I firmly believe you can get most foods in most places, except bagels and of course Jewish delis. When I bring this up, East Coasters will go on and on about how it’s the water, it’s the water, until I want to drown myself in that very same water.
But it’s not the water. These bagels were absolutely perfect. I ordered a bunch more and they now sit in my freezer awaiting smoked salmon, capers, and cream cheese. New York who? I say as I chew my perfect bagel.
I’m just disappointed she didn’t call it SPITCOIN..I mean it was right there people, c’mon!!
It is only New Yorkers (and by that I mean those people who reside in the Big Apple, not say, me over here in the Central Western hinterlands) who insist the best and only true bagels are from NYC because of the water. The rest of us know the best are probably from somewhere else. San Fran, maybe? The best bagel I've ever had was in Montreal.
Montreal has many best things. Good sex stores. Great food. A clean and artful subway. And they still have phone booths, which is like discovering a dinosaur in the wild.