14 September 2021, Somewhere in the Metaverse - UplandDood (@Just1Dood)

Written on 13 September 2021

The last few days have been sorta a roller coaster ride. I ended up not spending much time on ReadCash nor NoiseCash, though not necessarily bad. I was distracted by the happenings in the smartBCH sidechain. It was a good distraction. I'm learning new things. And it has been an eye-opener and exciting, to say the least.

One of the...actually, two of these distractions were meme contests. The first one was organized by BitcoinCash Argentina (ARG) and the immediate next one was by Knuth (KTH).

I'd heard about the ARG meme contest in their discord channel on 11 September 2021.

Eleven hours later, the contest was announced on Twitter in the following post:

In the hours between the preview announcement and the actual announcement, I'd started thinking, researching, planning, and completing the memes.

Though I don't know much about this token, I did check on basic information such as price and maximum supply. I was driven by the fact that a country's name was on this Token. Something that no one should take lightly. To me, this could be something big even though the maximum token supply was substantially big.

This coupled with the fact that Argentina has one of the highest inflation rates in Latin America; Bitcoin Cash Argentina (ARG) is something I'm very interested in and should base my memes on.

The First Meme Entry: Don't Do It!

The first meme I had in mind was a tease, where on 22 May 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz had spent 10,000 Bitcoins on two pizzas. At the time of this writing, those two pizzas would have been worth well over $440,000,000!

You see, we will not make history as Laszlo did. He is a hero in many regards. If it wasn't for him, we probably wouldn't have today's cryptocurrency growth.

So then, we are no Laszlo, and hence the first meme then is to make sure those who bought ARG shouldn't be a monkey and spend them on pizzas!

The Second Meme Entry: ARG...!!!

After I was quite satisfied with the first meme, I proceeded to work on my second one.

This time, I have wanted to play with the token's name - ARG. I was thinking about how to get this into everyone's mind? And since the first one I'd used a monkey, I thought why not use another monkey to convey the message.

This was when I came up with the following meme idea:

I think the message was simple and clear.

The Results

I was quite upbeat and thought that at least one would make it into the top 10 winner's list.

Apparently not. Once I saw the winner's list, I was extremely disappointed. Disappointed not because I was beaten by much better memes (although a couple of them were very good), but by some that were not funny and/or with fewer "likes" and "retweets".

I figured, if those who were judging this meme contest didn't get the joke, then a history lesson is in place. I don't believe the need to explain jokes in the meme. That's just me.

I had taken snapshots of both my "Don't Do It!" and "ARG...!!!" Tweet results after the winners were announced.

When I checked my "Don't Do It!" meme, I had 11 Retweets, 1 Quote Tweet, and 16 Likes. Not bad at all. And in fact more than some of the finalists.

Out of curiosity and to find out what I'd done wrong and how far I was from the winners' results, I did some investigation a day after the contest had ended.

I took snapshots of each winner's posts to see what each post's Retweets, Quoted Tweets, and Likes were.

I found out that my first "Don't Do It!" meme in terms of RTs and Likes was higher than 6 of the winners'.

I was more surprised when I checked my "ARG...!!!" meme results. At the snapshot time, I had 11 Retweets, 3 Quoted Tweets, and 21 Likes!

For those who are interested, here is the Tweet link to the winner's announcement.

TL;DR: Summary of the 10 winners' results taken one day after the snapshot of my results:

• 2 RT 6 L,

• 20 RT 1 QT 46 L

• 3 RT 1 QT 15 L

• 2 RT 5 L

• 20 RT 1 QT 47 L

• 20 RT 28 QT

• 11 RT 16 QT

• 6 RT 2 QT 12 L

• 3 RT 1 QT 13 L

• 10 RT 2 QT 23 L

My Disappointment

I thought I'd missed the intention of what was required but it doesn't seem so. It is this point that is difficult for me to swallow.

I will not make a big fuss in the group's Telegram channel. I'm writing here to put my thoughts into words. Hopefully, from here I can learn what had gone wrong and a record for myself to improve in the future.

I can understand the Telegram group admin/owner being swarmed with thousand and one things to do and plenty of messages to reply to. Multitasking is a b1tch! I can empathize. Mixed with lack of sleep, it is a slippery slope to making unwise decisions.

It is noble of the project to decide to award all participants with something but the damage was already done. Unless the service recovery gives a BIG WOW factor, it is a day late and a dollar short.

From my experience, a FIRST CLASS service recovery can be a better marketing tool than the initial award. But in the end, I felt that it was an afterthought and an "Oh, okay. We'll give you something too. Here's $0.15 for your effort."

Heartfelt Feedback

What I learned from this is that, if ever I were to organize something like this, it is imperative to not change/add to the conditions once it has started.

This was what had happened in this case.

• Initially stated conditions:

• Updated conditions after the contest have started:

Why is this so important? You can't move the goalposts after the game has started. It speaks of the integrity of the whole process.

Final Thoughts

Despite the disappointment, I have learned something else. It is that I'm satisfied with my product even though I'm not proficient in design apps. I'm also quite happy with how my creativity came out through these memes. My Twitter friends attested to that through their comments and separately, a friend, @MoreGainStrategiesin a DM said this after I showed him my two memes:

I have done some self-reflection after going through the above. I try to be objective in my documenting my experience. I hope if the organizer read this they will take it as constructive feedback for future improvements.

In the end, if you ask me if this is a good project, I'll say, "Yes". This is because of what I have stated at the beginning about Argentina. I see a need for this project. I do wish them much success. I'd initially thought of putting some money in but due to the above experience, I'll observe on the sideline for now. My sentiment may yet change. That's left to be seen. I do want to be a part of this. I really do.

I'm at a loss in a way. What do you think? Do leave your comment and hopefully, it may clear some of my doubts.

Bitcoin Cash Argentina, I do wish you all the best. May you do something wonderful for Argentina's population of 40 plus million people.

Friends, thank you for reading. See you soon in another article. Yes, I'm thinking of another similar meme experience.

Disclaimer: This is Not Financial Advice. Do Your Own Research.

Sources:

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