Eileen Isagon Skyers: From Speculation to Symbolic Release

They recast speculative investment as a valorized form of cultural participation—transforming economic risk into a mode of self-expression, and volatility into a kind of gamified solidarity.

In today’s post-therapeutic market, irony, detachment, and self-optimization have become substitutes for justice, truth, morality, or political resolve.

The cutesy image of the Shiba Inu, the ambiguous volatility of Pepe the Frog, and the militant bravado of Trump meme coins do not contest economic logics so much as offer a cathartic participation within them. They perform precisely what Rieff recognizes as the function of “releasing symbols”—forms of engagement that facilitate emotional discharge,... See more

systems of moral demand no longer hinge on obedience, guilt, or inherited belief—but instead center emotional relief and self-optimization.21 Rieff identifies a profound shift in the symbolic order of the therapeutic age in which “controlling symbols”—those that once upheld communal order—have been displaced by “releasing symbols,” which prioritize... See more

Philip Rieff’s The Triumph of the Therapeutic (1966) theorizes how modern societies undergo cultural transformation through moments of “engineered symbolic release”—structured breaks from normative social controls that absorb disruptive impulses rather than confront them. Every culture, Rieff argues, functions by organizing moral demands into symbo... See more

Speculators, in turn, look to charismatic leaders as “social proof” that their risk-taking is warranted, and likely to be rewarded. The ritualism of meme coin culture might be described as what Victor Turner called a kind of “communitas”: a social condition in which individuals, connected by a collective suspension of normative hierarchies, adopt n... See more

Influencers, she argues, do not simply advertise products; they perform a deeper ideological labor, personifying aspirational lifestyles and mediating hegemonic values under the guise of personal authenticity.

Indeed, the success of a meme coin depends on its ability to circulate semiotic fragments of itself—images, slogans, icons—that evoke a sense of belonging, rebellion, or humor, however fleeting or contradictory.

Meme coins perform what Wernick identifies as the “double function” of contemporary promotional forms: they serve simultaneously as products and as advertisements for themselves.9 Their appeal rests in the affective atmosphere that they generate across Discord servers, forums, and social posts: the promise of sudden wealth, the pleasure of particip... See more