Enter the Meme [Part 1 – General Peperon]

Dear colleagues and meme enthusiasts,

the MMMRKT team is proud to announce yet another great development that has taken place over the course of the last months.

As you might have noticed our scouts and affiliated traders have been going out of their way to find the freshest memes and have discovered some genuine masterpieces of meme art. In the last weeks, we got our hands on a absolutely fantasitc Pepe Tarot Set that previously has never been seen before. Thanks to our MMMRKT branch in Argentinia, led by our expert trader Joaquín we were able to buy it directly from the source.

And thats where the real news begin. As you have noticed the focus of the MMMRKT lies on trading memes. But as we have outlined in an article, written in 2015, regarding the globalisation of memetics, the source of the trade lies in the many men and women creating these awesome memes. We therefore have decided to create a new ongoing article series called “Enter the Meme”, where we want to put the spotlight on these individuals that do enrich our daily lives with their masterfully crafted memes and without whom traders like us would not exist.

You might have guessed it already, but thanks to Joaquín we were able to do an interview with the Argentinian lad who brought us the Pepe Tarot Set. Note that this interview has been conducted via phone and was, as per request of the interviewed, not recorded. Therefore the answers to the questions asked are based on notes that were taken during the interview and do not reflect the original tone of the interviewed but are a comprehensive summary of the key points that were mentioned.

Meet General Peperon from Buenos Aires

MMMRKT: So tell us something about yourself.

G.P.: My name is General Peperon, I am 24 years old and I live in Buenos Aires the capital city of Argentinia. I am studying biology at the moment and before that I have studied one and a half years of psychology.

MMMRKT: When did you first start to use the internet?

G.P.: It must have been around the year 2008 when I was 15. At that time I was mostly just browsing and enjoying the huge amount of content I suddenly had access to. It was a source of really cool information for me, because it was so unregulated back then. I actually learned english through the internet.

MMMRKT: What was the first meme you came into contact with?

G.P.: I think that would be some text based memes. Think of those chain letters you get sent and you have to forward to a certain amount of people so something good happens, or likewise, if you don’t, bad fate will come to you.

MMMRKT: What are your thoughts about Pepe?

G.P.: For me it is a symbol of an unsatisfied sector of society. The frog analogy has come up in various cultures in human history. Take the play “The Frogs” of Aristophanes for instance. In an infamous passage the frogs start to troll the god Dionysus himself.

Pepe the frog also represents chaos to me. Something that lives in all of us and cannot be subjugated. It looks so smug that you just cannot best it, no matter in what form it appears, it covers all facettes of life.

MMMRKT: When did you make your first meme?

G.P.: The first meme I made is the meme_magic.gif

It represents the chaos around Pepe. Chaos is often depicted with an 8-pointed arrow. The numbers represent the repeating digits which are the driver of this chaotic behaviour as seen on 4chan. Out of a sheer unlimted amount of content that is produced by humans all around the world, seemingly arbitrary numbers are validating or invalidating this content.

MMMRKT: Why did you decide to make the Tarot set?

G.P.: I was depressed at the time. A girl I loved turned out to be not compatible with me. I always have been a fan of pixel art, so in light of the circumstances I just thought to myself “fuck it” and started drawing a pixel art template for a Tarot card to cope with the feelings.
I locked myself into my autist cave and just drew the template in three days. Since I already had done a meme before and I was enchanted by the meme magic I was seeing all around the internet, I thought that Tarot in principle serves as a tool for illumination too, just like meme magic. Hence I decided that a Pepe would perfectly match this Tarot card template and it looked really funny. So I just went on and created the whole set of major arcana.

MMMRKT: What are your future plans regarding the creation of memes?

G.P.: It really humbles me how my artwork got accepted that quickly and is being spread around. It makes me proud, but on the other hand, it is one reason why I would like to stay anonymous. I just want the people to share the memes and not me. In memes we are all equal. I don’t want to have the memes linked with me as a person.

For the future I am planning on releasing the minor arcana of the Tarot set in the Pepe pixelart style, which consists of 56 cards that can be compared to a traditional set of spanish playing cards.

MMMRKT: Thanks for the interview!

G.P.: My pleasure.

Concluding this interview, we at MMMRKT hope you enjoyed the first part of our series giving some insights into the life of a meme craftsman that has brought us some very enjoyable memes and is one of the reasons why we do love our job so much. Keep an eye open for his skillfully crafted pixel art. When you see this Pepe, it might come from Buenos Aires.

A new journey

Dear memetraders and colleagues,

It has been roughly three months since we asked for your help in finding out where this ancient Pepe originates from. We have not been idle either during this time. After collecting information from countless of experts and surveying anything that could possibly be helpful in solving this mystery, still much remains in the dark. We did however get some valuable intel from our contacts at the french national archives in Paris and were able to identify documents that mention a curious finding of a mysterious idol in the jungles of northern Madagascar by french expedition troops in 1895.

They supposedly followed a trade route across the island established by the Persians in the year 600 A.D. when they ventured off into the jungle, following a trail caused by the vegetation constantly trodden down, hoping to find water since they ran low on supplies. Instead of water they found ruins covered in vegetation, which upon closer inspection turned out to be a small temple. Needless to say, being thirsty and feeling the sun set while amidst a deep jungle, they did not pay much attention to it. Yet a lieutenant, one who later reported about the troop movement, was still curious enough to peek inside the forsaken temple and grab an idol that immediately caught his eye. In his report he wrote down:

“When I removed the vines that were blocking the entry into the stone temple, I glanced at an object located in an overgrown protrusion. It shimmered of vibrant colors that seemed to be covered by a thin layer of moss.”

he then adds this diffuse description a page later:

“After brief cleaning it looked like a frog carved out of an undefinable material, giving one the illusion of it being formed in different geometric shapes and colours.”

When reading these lines our contact in France was certain, that it was of relevance to us. And indeed it was. The properties he describes resemble the Pepe we are researching and even though the description is vague at best, it is intriguing.

Unfortunately this is all we have for now, the idol is not mentioned in the soldiers report any further and its whereabouts remain unknown. The lieutenant shows up as a casualty of a shipwreck, that occured shortly after the second french Madagascar exepdition. We can only speculate whether or not he had the idol with him at this point.

Anyways, we got our first clue. And given the sentiment our experts have expressed, they mostly agree with the conclusions we drew so far. This was enough for us to send out our team of archeologists, researchers and daredevils led by Dr. Dr. Philbert McTwaine to investigate. Starting point: Northern Madagascar.

Our team landed in Maroantsetra where they stocked up on supplies and hired locals to start an expedition into the part of the Masoala Reserve where the french soldier reported the finding. At this time, they are setting up camp in one of the outskirts of the reserve to plan the next steps in following the footprints of the french lieutenant.

We will update you as the expedition advances.

A call for the crowd

Fellow memetraders,

there is this one unidentified Pepe that is sitting in our safe for over a year now. We initally assumed that it might be a Peekasso, because it was found in an abandonned city house in Paris, but upon further research it became clear that we had gotten our hands on something even more incredible (and that just shortly after accquiring the first confirmed 3rd Reich Pepe, what a summer). The Peekasso theories were to be disproven by scientifically analyzing the age of this Pepe resulting in a timeframe around 4000 BC. Some of our most renowned experts in the field, that we like to call in such cases, could not come up with a conclusive theory of its origin. However, we couldn’t possibly leave it there and not dig deeper, so we thought of something.

Given the fact that many well versed memetraders are visiting our market frequently, we agreed on giving it a chance, once again, and gather your knowledge to determine where we continue with researching this Pepe.

That’s right, you will help us decide where we will send our research team next.

This is the piece in question

Based on our belief in the wisdom of the crowd, we will adjust the first continent of our expedition, looking for evidence of this wonderful Pepes past. What we would like to know is, where on our blue planet this Pepe evolved 6000 Years ago.

Meanwhile, we will be assembling our research team, led by Dr. Dr. Philbert McTwaine to go out there and finally reveal what this Pepe is hiding from us.

Dr. Dr. Philbert McTwaine hunting mountain cougars

Thanks for lending us a hand.

Your MMMRKT Team

Evidence of Pepe in the 3rd Reich?

Dear memers, fellow traders,

we from MMMRKT would like to inform you that we were able to fetch an extremly rare Pepe on an auction in Amsterdam earlier this week.

The rarity of this particular piece stems from its origin.

It was found in a suitcase that belonged to a german officer of the Wehrmacht, who reportedly, just before getting captured by allied forces in the spring of 1945, executed a fleeing POW named Anatol Stuckowski.

Anatol Stuckowski had written a letter to a guy named Francis D. Blumenthal, which the allied soldiers who opened it first, interpreted as worthless. And on a first glance, it might very well have been dismissed as unimportant clutter amongst the valuables, such as the jewelry, that were also found in said suitcase. Fortunately, one of the soldiers examined the letter more thoroughly and noticed that the stamp looked nothing like the ones he had seen quite a few times before, so he kept the letter and a few years later sold it to a collector.

Upon closer inspection through experts, the authenticity of the stamp was verified. It is made of exactly the same paper, uses the same ink and has the same ¹⁴C amount as other common stamps of the Deutsche Reichspost during the war.

However, the motive it is depicting is puzzling the experts:

“It seems to be based on a common German stamp from WW2 but the depicted face is not, even though it resembles humanoid characteristics, recognizable at all.”

Is what they will later say in an interview with the local press.

This was sixty-five years ago and declared a curiositiy, as stamp collectors rejected the idea of it being a legitimate post stamp of any value. It got buried and forgotten in a collection in Maastricht (NL). Until this tuesday, when MMMRKT scout Miranda got her hands on it, sensing that she might have hit something there.

Coincidentally, while researching the history of a rare Pepe that was found in Theben during the summer of 2015, Miranda stumbled upon Stuckowskis letter, when asking a local collector about whether he had come across anything resembling her Egypt Pepe. He answered, that he was unsure if he had seen one that looked like hers but he felt reminded of something, that he had bought years ago.

You might have guessed it already. It was Stuckowskis letter, with the stamp on it, in a bundle of other items that he wanted to auction. Miranda sent a picture of the stamp to the MMMRKT HQ and it was clear that we had hit the jackpot.

We would not be the traders that we are, if we let a chance like this slip, so we sent Miranda to seal the deal in the auctionhouse winning us this remarkable Pepe, which is not just its value measured in BTC but also a part of our history.

We are proud to present to you, the first confirmed 3rd Reich Pepe:

And there is more. A few very important questions regarding this remarkable find are still open. Who is that guy using this extraordinary Pepe stamp in a time period that has never been linked to Pepe phenomena and what could he possibly write about?

While we do at least know that Stuckowski was a POW killed in the final days of the war, we know absolutely nothing about Mr. Francis D. Blumenthal. His name was compared to the local land registers of the time period but turned up no results.

We can only hope that the key to this mystery lies somewhere in the text Stuckowski wrote. The bad news is, that it is in German and we have not been able to properly translate it as of now.

Stay tuned,

Your MMMRKT Team

Monthly Meme Outlook

Fellow memetraders,

MMMRKT proudly presents you the monthly meme outlook for November.

The biggest loser:

Paul Blart Mallcop memes have declined in price since september. You haven’t seen us offering them because we are well aware of the vaporwarey nature of newly trending memes and therefore always observe the market for a reasonable amount of time before buying in.

Our advice:

If you are one of the unlucky investors, sell your Mallcop memes for any price. There is, if at all, a negligible chance of recovery and as rumours have it, Kevin James is close to default.

The biggest winner:

An all-time classic, much like gold, and an ever so safe investment is feeling an upwards trend again. It is our beloved Gnomechild. We at MMMRKT are already keeping our eyes open for the latest Gnomechild memes because, like every classic, the demand for it always exists and cycles through different growth phases. Merges with other memes are likely to produce safe and profitable investment chances.

Our advice:

Grab them Gnomechild memes when you feel the price is right.

Big Time Investors trust MMMRKT

You might remember our story on the potential price surge of trump memes we published two months ago.
MMMRKT learned that one of the most successful investors, Donald J. Trump himself, now started to invest in his own memes, following our advice. This move however has caused some controversy as experts have claimed insider trading.
Stay tuned and keep an eye on your trump meme prices, as we have yet to see how the market will react to this.

Trendspotting: John Cena

During August, our traders at the MMMRKT HQ have observed a steady increase in John Cena related meme prices. It is too early to predict the impact the new memes will have on the market but they undoubtably are leaving their marks already, therefore setting the stage for a solid growth scenario.

Outlook:

Investing in a young meme is a venture, but the potentially high reward makes this pick a choice for agressive short to mid-term traders that like to take calculated risks.

Report: Meme Trading – a global phenomenon

From the trollface to the current meme market, lie about seven years. Seven years of transforming our dreams into memes.

The implications of this statement are quite considerable. Seven years in a time, where humanity connects and shares thoughts as freely as never before, enabling the meme culture to grow exponentionally.

It therefore is not surprising, that the globalization of the meme market is not just a theory, but its effects can already be observed today. One, that most analysts agree on, is the drastic rise of competition in the meme-markets.

Against the backdrop of this development India has already started to include meme-trading classes in primary school, acknowledging the countries need of good meme traders in the future.

In the short term a price decline due to new competition might not look like a big deal, but we must not forget the mid to long term implications. Many men and women already struggle to feed a family by creating memes. These pepople will be affected the most and in the end, the meme economy is based on them.

We believe meme traders like us have the responsibility to share our wealth to give the hardworking memers a break and some time to enjoy the fruits of the rarest trade they help to create.

Identified!

Thanks to an extensive market study, MMMRKT was able to rate the rarity of this formerly unidentified pepe.

The updated stats are:

Condition: AA

Rarity: Uncommon

Price: 0.15 BTC

A new category

We at MMMRKT believe in pushing the boundaries when it comes to the discovery and distribution of new, original internet art. Recently, accusations have reached us, entitling us as “a sleazy website that promotes underage meme consumption in order to profiteer”.
We like to point out, that we believe in a free market and that the responsiblity regarding the consumption of memes lies in the hands of our clients. Furthermore, we do not profit from sales conducted via our platform.

So without further ado, we like to present you our latest masterstroke, a new category of original meme artwork and with it, this inalienable philosophic masterpiece by an author that wants to stay anonymous, just in time to give you some food for thought for the upcoming week of meme trading.