Thoughts and Opinions #0/ AWAGMI?
An introduction to CT (Crypto Twitter), loaded acronyms, and how I decided on my substack name.
Different social media platforms each have their own subcultures. For instance, reddit users tend to disapprove of replies that are brief and contain emojis, citing the need for intellectual discourse within every reply. I once was particularly amused by a reddit reply which was downvoted to oblivion simply because the reply was a simple ‘😃’ . On the other end of the spectrum, twitter users have to condense their thoughts within 280 characters, or risk having to do ‘threads’ of tweets which are honestly so exhausting to read that specialized tools have been created just to read these threads. Needless to say, the crypto communities differ greatly between each platform. CT (Crypto Twitter) is a pretty vibrant (and melodramatic) place, where anonymous accounts using fake anime or pepe personas are commonplace and accepted. I personally tend to hang out more on CT these days, as opposed to the echo chamber which I think reddit is.
So, with that 280 character limit in mind, many twitter users resorted to acronyms to express themselves. Terms like ATH (all time high), FOMO (fear of missing out) and NFTs (non fungible tokens) were popular and consistent throughout my early years on CT. These terms were pretty innocuous in and by itself - they were, well, simply acronyms, used as such for convenience and ease. Yet, by late 2021, an whole other class of slang acronyms had pervaded throughout CT, and these suddenly weren’t as simple as before.
Loaded Acronyms:
gm/gn - good morning/night
WAGMI - we are gonna make it
NGMI - not gonna make it
There is a whole other backstory behind these loaded acronyms (yes i termed this myself). Basically, the NFT (Non Fungible Tokens) PFP (Profile Picture) market was booming in mid-late 2021.
Fueled by the success of NFT PFP projects like CryptoPunks, Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), many projects tried to replicate their growth by creating their own ‘limited 10k PFP collection’. Some did well, most failed miserably. CryptoPunks or BAYC were early movers, and buyers who bought them generally were more invested in their vision, and were less interested in flipping it for a quick profit. As such, their respective communities were generally recognized to be stronger, more mature and were likely able to better articulate the project’s vision to outsiders. These new NFT PFP projects sorely lacked the community strength and fortitude their forebearers had, and like many new startups, had to rely on growth hacking. In traditional companies, growth hacking is done by say, providing limited vouchers or discounts to new users so that their userbase would grow. In NFT PFP projects, growth is determined by the floor price of the NFT PFP collection, which is in turn determined by new buyers willing to raise the floor price. And there was no better way to get new buyers by growing your project personal shill army on twitter to increase engagement. And hence, began the use of loaded acronyms.
gm
Suddenly, gm wasn’t just good morning.
gm became an subtle declaration that you belonged to that community.
gm became an unspoken commitment that you are back to the NFT PFP shill grind to raise engagement on twitter.
gm became an unstated agreement, that at least within this pretend family, you would not dump your NFT below floor price before enough exit liquidity was available.
People would just reply gm to another tweet of gm, resulting in a whole load of gm spam. It was sort of an acknowledgement that they were in the inner circle, and they knew what was up. It was reminiscent of that little subtle head tilt and nod you do when you walk past someone you know.
gm soon also got popular with the non-NFTs crypto crowd mid-late 2021. Non-NFTs project owners, token creators, traders, started using gm to foster community bonding and interact with others. As the market started on its downturn in December 2021, the thinly veiled façade of gm started to frazzle. The eventual decline of the gm trend followed the increasingly bearish sentiment on CT.
WAGMI/NGMI
NGMI
WAGMI and NGMI were pretty dissimilar in their nuances and expression, even though both were used in the same circles. Like gm, WAGMI and NGMI seemed to originate from NFT PFP circles, and spread to the rest of CT with time.
NGMI was often used when trying to make a point which the person didn’t really have conviction for himself. If you don’t get it, you NGMI. It was essentially just CT speak for
'I’m right, you’re wrong, you’re dumb, I cant support my points so I don’t want to argue further. fk u'
condensed in 4 letters. Pretty impressive huh. NGMI indicated flat out disapproval and disagreement, and was often a conversation breaker in the same way a ‘k’ would end a text conversation.
WAGMI
On the other side, WAGMI was used a lot more positively. It was CT speak summarized with
We are early adopters, we are investing in the future, 99% of the world don't use crypto yet. WAGMI.
WAGMI was generally used by non-influencers who required a bit of hope and affirmation, people who needed to hear themselves saying that at some point in the future, they were gonna be rich. Nothing wrong with that of course. However, for influencers, WAGMI was often used to induce a sense of FOMO by implying that if their followers didn’t buy the same tokens as the influencer did, the followers by exclusion would NGMI.
During market downturns, WAGMI was a rallying call, a marching flag in a supposed battle against ‘market makers’ and ‘whales’ who were only selling so they could buy back lower. WAGMI implied that if you would just hold your bags, every bagholder would eventually make it at some point down the road.
WAGMI was arguably more popular than NGMI with mainstream influencers who liked to pander to their followers and paint a perfect world where everyone would get rich. When mainstream celebrities (like Mark Zuckerberg’s sis) started getting on the WAGMI bandwagon, disdain was clearly expressed by the crypto community who screamed ‘cringe’ and ‘top signal’. This was a little surprising to me, since well, don’t you want them here to pump your bags?
My theory is that deep in their hearts, the detractors are not at that stage of financial freedom they would like to be at, and are thinking ‘if these normies are already here, are we really still early? How can I still make money then’. CT in a sense, likes to be exclusive. The term normies are often used in the same way ‘muggles’ were used in Harry Potter, with a digital scrunch of the nose and ‘i got into crypto earlier than you so i am better/smarter/richer/(insert superiority)’. And the American dream of CT is to get rich before the normies jump into the fray.
One interesting thing to note was there was a huge spike (blue arrows) on the use of NGMI vs WAGMI on December 2021. I recall those months after to be brutal and many people lost a significant % of their portfolio. Probably in that period NGMI was thrown around a lot at ‘panic sellers’. Who knows haha.
AWAGMI?
This brings us to AWAGMI. Are we all gonna make it? I can say with certainty, no. Some of us will make it, many won’t. I particularly disliked WAGMI out of all the loaded acronyms. Crypto is a zero-sum game. For every winner, there is at least a loser. Crypto is extremely intense, unforgiving and merciless. My portfolio has weathered multiple >50% losses throughout the years, and I have thankfully been able to get back up. But many didn’t, and ended up cutting their losses and brushing off crypto as a fraud, never to return. To see newcomers fooled into this bed of WAGMI lies feels extremely dishonest to me. AWAGMI is a doubt cast on WAGMI.
This is not to say crypto is a scam. At the end of it all, crypto is a unique blend of cutting edge computer science research and financial tools working towards a better permissionless and trustless system. We are still years from that and bad actors will be sure to capitalize on these new and unknown financial instruments. Till then, I only aspire to get by with small scratches, and to be an objective voice of reason in the wild west of the crypto world.