Barks vs. tweets | Mint

The Twitterati let us down by not complaining loudly enough that tweets had acquired the semiotic sound of barks after Twitter’s owner Elon Musk replaced its iconic blue bird with an image of the meme dog that inspired Dogecoin. The switch was an act of defiance, a display of Musk’s tomfoolery-led sense of humour. This prank token had undergone a boom and bust, after which Musk was accused by crypto investors of running a pump-and-dump pyramid scam. They sought $258 billion in damages for an allegedly orchestrated heist. As an influencer, Musk had clearly talked it up, once calling it the “future of currency” and himself its “dogefather”. He also sent it down once by laughing it off as a “hustle”. Either way, the billionaire has clearly held sway over its market value. While Twitter’s canine makeover might be just another joke, Dogecoin’s value soared after the move, which seemed timed to accompany his effort to get those charges dismissed. The latest upshoot, however, only reminds us of what market manipulation looks like. This is uproarious in itself. Whether or not any law was broken by his clowning, fun and finance don’t always mix too well.