Such wisdom. Many life lessons. Very wow.
In February 2010, Atsuka Sato, a Japanese kindergarten teacher, unintentionally changed a part of the future. All she did was upload a picture of her dog, a Shiba Inu. You probably have seen this ‘doge’ once or twice, or maybe a couple of hundred times.
Atsuko uploaded the picture, and people found the look in the dog’s eyes, well, funny. They paired it with some ‘thoughts’ he has in Comic Sans, posted it to 9gag and they made a whole generation chuckle. To this day, the meme format still circulates the internet.
But this picture of a dog led to a series of events nobody could’ve predicted. Dogecoin would hit the crypto market three years after the picture was uploaded, as a complete joke. Now, in 2021—we know that neither crypto nor dogecoin is a laughing matter.
Dogecoin and its community are a special part of the crypto world. Not only because of how it came to be, but also because the community actually puts forward some values that we could—and probably should—apply to many other aspects of modern life.
So, what could you learn from this group of Redditors who turned a meme into millions of dollars? This article won’t help you decide whether to invest in DOGE or sell your coins. Instead, we look at other values: the life lessons we can learn from the Dogecoin community.
Community matters
Crypto communities are a real thing, but there’s none quite like the Dogecoin community. Reddit is its home base, and they have about 1.7 million ‘subshibers’. Their community is very much alive, growing every day, and incredibly active.
Why would you invest in something like dogecoin and then keep posting on random threads about it? Can’t you just watch your investment grow or plummet in silence?
Apparently not. Dogecoin really reinforces the importance of community. People want to be a part of something bigger than themselves and connect with other people. Initially, there were even people who simply bought Dogecoin to be a part of the community—not even thinking about the possibility that one day they could make bank.
While it was never the idea behind it (it really was just a joke), what Dogecoin really understood well is that if you want a lot of people on board, you need to keep it light and make it easy to connect. Now that it’s actually a real thing, they even mention its strength on their own website.
Now, in 2021, this is still relevant. While the future of Dogecoin is uncertain, people still involve themselves with it. They want to be part of something that is culturally, and possibly historically, significant.
What can you learn from this?
Whether you are starting a business or have a big idea, don’t try to launch it alone. Find people who share your vision and make it easy for them to connect. Then, watch it snowball.
Kindness comes first
The Dogecoin community is known for being very generous. The power of the internet has proven to be helpful to people time and time again, but the Dogecoin community takes it even further.
The critics often said that a meme-based cryptocurrency has no real-world utility. It’s not of real value to anyone, if you strip it from its possible financial winnings. The community proved the critics wrong.
Internally, the Dogecoin community is very supportive and doesn’t leave anyone hanging. With the Dogecoin Christmas hack, 11 million doges were stolen. At the time, that was worth approximately $12,000.
It didn’t take long for the community to come together to reimburse the victims of the hack. Two days after the DOGE was lost, the freshly formed community—it was only a few weeks old—started the SaveDogmas wallet and donated 15 million DOGE.
But the kindness of the shibes goes much further than its own community. In fact, it goes all the way to Brazil and Kenya.
When the two-man Jamaican bobsled team surprisingly qualified for the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia they were happy, until they found out they didn’t have enough money to actually go.
The Dogecoin community saw the heartbreaking news and said: not on our watch. They contributed $30.000 to the Jamaican dream. The team came in last on all of their runs, but at least they made it to Sochi.
The community’s kindness goes beyond relatively funny support. They took on a more serious problem when they raised $50,000 to create two wells in Kenya in 2015. Together with the New York-based nonprofit Charity: Water, the Dogecoin community raised the 40 million dogecoins, at the time the equivalent to $50,000, and converted it to cash.
What can you learn from this?
For many businesses and people, figuring out what value they bring to the world is a real struggle. Maybe you are a family business that sells paper supplies. Maybe you’re an accountant. You’re trying hard enough not to make the world worse—how to make it better?
Acts of kindness can be done by anyone, at any time—and we should all do it more often. Take your entire team out for a beach clean-up walk. Organize a dinner for your local shelter, or simply donate the money you’d spent on your chai latte to something that really breaks your heart. It’ll make you feel a lot better than Starbucks does.
It’s important to laugh
In its essence, Dogecoin turned out to be a multi-million dollar joke. Wasn’t the meme itself funny enough? Why would anyone go to such great lengths to create something as complicated as a cryptocurrency?
Because the world needed it. It still does. The field of cryptocurrencies can seem scary and complicated. Dogecoin made it fun and easier to understand. It opened the world of crypto up to a larger audience, who could either ridicule it or invest in it—but either way, they got to know it a little better, and probably laughed at a meme or two along the way.
What can you learn from this?
Take yourself a little less seriously. No need to make a fool out of yourself, but use a bit more humor in your business and professional life. At the end of the day, B2B is still human to human, so go ahead and make that joke. It might brighten up someone’s day.
Nothing is set in stone
If you ever think you can’t make a change in this world, think of Dogecoin. Rather, think of that innocent, Japanese lady who just wanted to show off her cute dog.
While unintentionally, this series of events shows how much is possible—if only enough people come together. The market of cryptocurrencies is a very serious one, and a lot of people are losing or gaining their life savings with it.
But people still have an impact—it’s not an abstract concept that is out of control. Elon Musk can tweet one thing and the next day, the market is on its ass, or on the rise again. Who knows?
What can you learn from this?
That you have the power to make significant changes. Start close to yourself—how can you do things differently? What have you always found strange or unnecessary, and how would you do it?
Stand for what you believe in
A CNBC article by Taylor Locke Is titled ‘’This ‘dogecoin millionaire’ refuses to sell and bought during the dip — now his stash is worth $2 million’’.
You’ll see plenty of more titles like this when you Google Dogecoin, but you’ll also find the complete opposite: people who couldn’t sell their coins fast enough, or critics who want Dogecoin gone altogether.
Sure, the future of Dogecoin is uncertain. You might get rich, you might go broke. But a lot of people who are holding on to their coins, sometimes for dear life, do so out of principle. They believe in the message Dogecoin sends to the world, and want to be the messengers.
These people are referred to as Diamond Hands. They hold on to their coins because of what they represent—or because they’re serious about the investment and are playing the long haul. People, who sell under pressure when the price falls? Those are the Paper hands.
What can you learn from this?
If you believe in a concept, stick to it. All too often, we bail on an idea as soon as we hear the first criticism. But imagine what would’ve happened if people like Thomas Edison had listened to those critics and stopped pursuing what they thought would change the world?
Get organized
The last life lesson is much more practical than the other ones. We can keep this sweet and simple.
When Dogecoin took off, many people who had initially bought it frantically started looking for the electronic wallets that held the coins.
Many of them didn’t find them. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Dogecoins have been lost, due to disorganization.
What can you learn from this?
Organize your computer and your printed files. You know you have to.
About the author
Vicky Frissen is a freelance copywriter based in Barcelona. She helps brands and businesses stand out from the crowd by putting some personality in each piece of copy she writes—whether it’s a 1,000-word blog post or a short and snappy Instagram caption.
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