YOLO Forever

Money is a bet on the future.

By 2020 there was no longer a clear path to ‘the good life’. Millennials and Gen Zs, in debt and with no chance of financing their futures through so-called legitimate channels, were investing in high-risk, high-return stocks for the chance to ‘win’ a down payment. On forums like r/WallStreetBets, r/Preppers and even r/RedPillWomen (where so-called ‘Tradwives’ debate the economics of happily-ever-after), tales of hard work rewarded, prudent investment, or ‘winning the system’ have been replaced by all-in bets and grim self-reliance. Money is a token, a bet on the future. But what happens when that future is broken?

This talk frames crypto and the cultures surrounding it — Bitcoin prepping, toxic retail trading and even dreams of stay at home girlfriends — as a response to the fact that middle class society no longer has a clear pathway to what we might call ‘the good life’ (and working class and poor communities never had it in the first place). All that’s left is a desperate bet on a broken future. What cultural texts reflect this shorn fantasy of the good life, from girls lip syncing along to Kali’s Area Codes on TikTok, to WallStreetBets threads on Reddit, to Netflix’ Beef and the novels of Paul Murray?

RACHEL O'DWYER is a lecturer in Digital Cultures in the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. She is the author of Tokens, (Forthcoming Verso 2023) Longlisted for the FT Schroders Book of the Year Award 2023 and selected as one of Wired, LA Times and GQ's Top Books of 2023. She was formerly a research fellow in Connect, the Centre for Future Networks and Communications in Trinity College Dublin and a visiting Fulbright Tech Impact Scholar in collaboration with the IMTFI at University of California, Irvine. Her research and writing focuses on the intersection of cultural and digital economies.

YOLO Forever was presented at University College Cork on June 25, 2024. It was funded by the ARTFICTIONS project and the Future Humanities research
cluster for Digital Cultures, New
Media & Cultural Analytics.

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