Latest news with #meme
Washington Post
5 days ago
- Business
- Washington Post
‘Trump always chickens out' is the exact wrong message for Democrats
Pat Dennis is president of American Bridge 21st Century. Every day is 'TACO Tuesday' for Democrats this week. Ever since President Donald Trump angrily dismissed a reporter's question about the 'Trump always chickens out' trade theory — the market's bet that Trump will back off his trade bluster — it has become a nonstop meme, complete with a taco truck to taunt Republicans.
Forbes
20-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
‘Hawk Tuah' Creator Haliey Welch Says FBI Approached Her Over Failed Crypto Launch
Haliey Welch, the internet creator best known for her viral 'hawk tuah' meme, addressed her controversial failed cryptocurrency coin launch for the first time on an episode of her 'Talk Tuah' podcast Tuesday, stating the FBI and SEC both approached her to investigate after the value of her coin inflated and immediately crashed, though she denied wrongdoing. Welch denied responsibility in the sudden crash of her Hawk Tuah coin and denied she intended to scam her followers, stating she 'trusted the wrong people.' Though she did not name names on the advice of her lawyers, Welch said she launched the coin because she was approached by an unnamed cryptocurrency company, which offered her a deal to launch her own coin, though Welch admitted she knew little about cryptocurrency at the time. Welch said her profile on X was managed by the cryptocurrency company, which gave her lines to say, which she would take videos of herself reading. Once the Hawk Tuah coin crashed in December after reaching a high of $500 million in market capitalization value, Welch said the FBI knocked on the door of her grandmother's house, asked Welch questions and investigated her phone, after which Welch said the investigation was picked up by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which she says also examined her phone. Welch said the agencies cleared her of wrongdoing, and she said she was not named in any lawsuits in the aftermath of the coin crash. Welch said she did not profit off of her Hawk Tuah coin, stating the only money she made was a marketing fee from the company she partnered with, though that money was used for lawyers and crisis public relations management after the value of the coin crashed. Welch announced the launch of her Hawk Tuah coin ($HAWK) in December, which was widely viewed as a 'memecoin,' a cryptocurrency that is created for entertainment purposes and is inspired by an internet trend. Memecoins are typically considered more volatile and are risky investments because they depend on short-lived internet memes. Within one day of the coin's launch, $HAWK plummeted from a $500 million value to $25 million, leading to accusations—which Welch has denied—that the coin was launched as a 'pump and dump' scheme, in which the value of a crypto asset is quickly inflated and then sold off. Some crypto influencers slammed Welch over the launch, including Coffeezilla, a crypto YouTuber with more than 4 million followers, who said in an X space conversation with Welch and her team that the Hawk Tuah rollout was 'one of the most miserable, horrible launches I've ever seen.' He accused Welch and her team of insider trading, which they denied. Welch rose to fame last summer as the creator of a viral catchphrase: 'Hawk Tuah,' a euphemism for oral sex. Welch used the phrase in response to a man-on-the-street TikTok interviewer, who asked her what 'move in bed makes a man go crazy.' The TikTok went viral, and Welch was quick to capitalize on its success. She launched a merchandise line inspired by the phrase and curated a popular social media presence, in which she fraternized with celebrities. She made high-profile public appearances, throwing out the first pitch at a New York Mets game in August and was parodied on Saturday Night Live. She launched her 'Talk Tuah' podcast in September, attracting guests including billionaire Mark Cuban, Wiz Khalifa and JoJo Siwa. The podcast was a surprise success, and in February, market research firm Edison Research said 'Talk Tuah' was the No. 1 new podcast of 2024 measured by weekly audience numbers. Welch's podcast went on a months-long hiatus following her crypto chaos, during which time she did not post on social media. 'Hawk Tuah' Creator Haliey Welch Criticized For Memecoin Launch After Price Crashes (Forbes) The 'Hawk Tuah' Creator's Podcast Ranks No. 5 On Spotify—Here's How She Kept The Meme Going For Months (Forbes)
Daily Mail
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Bodybuilder who went viral with 'fish and rice cake' meme finds love 18 years later thanks to his beloved diet
A bodybuilder who became an internet celebrity with his 'fish and rice cake' diet has now found 'the love of his life' through a reality TV dating show. Danny Andrews, 35, became a 16-year-old viral sensation after a 2007 documentary called Baby Faced Body Builders showcased his peculiar fitness regime of eating fish and rice cakes at regular intervals throughout the day. Danny, then aged just 16, later took himself off all social media after suffering from a negative backlash online in response to the broadcast and multiple internet shares. But he has since embraced his meme fame, and featured on several TV dating shows such as First Dates, Celebs Go Dating and most recently Channel 4 's Love Triangle eight months ago. And now he says he has met the love of his life, 29-year-old Bristol-based social media manager Sadie Bass - despite initially going on the show primarily for fun and to promote his rice cake business. Sadie says she is smitten - while dubbing her partner 'meme royalty'. Danny, now living in Preston, said: 'I went on Love Triangle to have a holiday and have fun - and promote the rice cakes. 'I never thought that I would meet the love of my life on there, but Sadie's absolutely my soulmate and I'm so happy that embracing the meme has led to us meeting. 'We've been together for eight months now, but we couldn't go public with our relationship for the first seven months as we had signed an NDA so not to ruin the show. 'Things are going along really well though since going public. 'She's moving from Bristol to my four-bed house here in Preston to move in with me, after our first holiday to Tenerife in two weeks' time, and I can't wait.' Sadie added: 'I knew of the video - I used to live with my cousin who would watch the meme. 'He showed me it, and my friends and I would quote it all the time and laugh about it. 'When I met Danny, I didn't realise he was the guy from the meme. I didn't know until some guys ran up to us asking him for pictures. 'I was confused, I was thinking he was some big celebrity. He awkwardly told me he was the fish and rice cake man - I thought it was hilarious. 'I am dating a legend - he is British meme royalty.' In the original clip from Baby Face Body Builders, Danny revealed to producers his itinerary for the day including his very repetitive diet. Appearing in the show, Danny shared his meal plan ahead of a 'Mr Cumbria' bodybuilding competition. In the video, the producer asked what he was preparing - to which he replied: 'Just me fish for me 12 o'clock meal, which I'll have with a rice cake.' Revealing the 'very strict diet' given by his trainer, Danny went on to say he started the day with fish and a rice cake at 8am. That would then be followed by fish at 11am and then moving on to the same breakfast meal again at midday. He then detailed six different meals, all of which included the same two ingredients. Danny now says he remains thankful for the meme - and that without it Sadie would not have typically gone for a self-professed 'gym lad'. He said: 'I wouldn't be her type normally as she doesn't go for gym types, and vice versa - she's into poetry and is a bit more introverted than me. He says his girlfriend Sadie Bass (pictured) is now planning to move in with him in Lancashire 'Gym lads tend to have a bad stereotype and I must look like a prat, because everyone always says they're surprised when I meet them in person. 'If I had met her on a night out, it probably wouldn't have worked because of preconceived ideas about how we both look, so the show has worked. 'Or if we had met on a dating app, she would have definitely swiped past me, which is why I'm so glad we did the show because we had a spark. 'You hear about dating shows and a lot of it is for fun, exposure and clout, and a lot of relationships are "showmances". I've done all of them, but now I've got the real deal. 'I'd never do reality TV again, but I'm very thankful to have met Sadie through it.' Sadie was initially unaware about the meme, which Danny says helped their relationship blossom at the start. He only explained it to her after a group of people approached him to ask for pictures in Manchester's Trafford Centre. He said: 'In the Trafford Centre people were asking for photos, so I had to explain it to Sadie, but she didn't judge me or find it cringey. 'She thought it was funny and by then we were fully together so it hasn't affected the relationship. 'It's not too bad getting recognised now. At the start when it first came out, I'd say 80 per cent of the comments on social media were negative and that's why I came off those platforms. 'But since embracing it, I'd say 80 per cent of my interactions are positive. But even if you were Mother Teresa, you'd still get bad comments.' Danny has used his experience of being associated with rice cakes to create a firm in the food industry from March last year onwards. He works with business partner and friend, Zack McGuirk, 38, employing five people. Danny said: 'People would stop for photographs and laugh their heads off and they would always think of me with rice cakes. 'I thought I could create a protein rice cake and I asked my friend Zack if we should go for it. 'We've had lots of success in the first year, and we've done it all ourselves - all the merch is made and sent out off our own bat. 'Lots of memes come and go, but people still remember mine because it was the first internet meme, and now younger people watch me on TikTok. 'It's crazy that I make money from something that I used to absolutely hate. 'It's mainly online sales off the website at the moment and to get to the next level we need to get into supermarkets - and we're in talks right now.
Associated Press
06-05-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Rocket Launcher Announces Major Airdrop Program: Farm Rocket Fuel, Earn Rewards, and Get Ready for Takeoff
05/06/2025, London, UK // KISS PR Brand Story PressWire // Rocket Launcher , the pioneering platform for creating and launching meme coins on Solana, today unveiled its highly anticipated Rocket Fuel Airdrop Program. Designed to reward loyal users and onboard newcomers, the campaign offers multiple pathways to earn Rocket Fuel — the key to claiming future airdrops with serious upside. As meme coins dominate crypto culture, Rocket Launcher provides a safe, intuitive, and zero-cost entry point. Through a unique community voting system, anyone — from seasoned degens to crypto-curious explorers — can effortlessly launch a meme token in just a few clicks. 'We built Rocket Launcher to lower the barrier for meme coin creation and make the experience fun, fair, and community-driven,' said Wasabi, CEO of Rocket Launcher. 'The Rocket Fuel Airdrop is our way of giving back to the early believers who engage, create, and share. It's not just a reward program, it's the fuel for the next wave of Web3 culture.' The Rocket Fuel Airdrop Program Rocket Fuel is the core of Rocket Launcher's new reward system. Users can accumulate it by completing on-platform tasks, inviting friends, launching tokens, and participating in trading activity. The more Rocket Fuel you collect, the greater your share of the upcoming airdrop. Ways to Earn Rocket Fuel Include: Daily Tasks: +200 Rocket Fuel per day Referrals: +500 Rocket Fuel per friend, +10% of their future fuel forever, +100 for your friend Trading Activity: +200,000 Rocket Fuel for generating 100 SOL in trading volume Meme Coin Creation: +100 Rocket Fuel per token Token Launch with Liquidity: +50,000 Rocket Fuel Token Trading Volume: +2,000 Rocket Fuel per 1 SOL traded A Loyalty dashboard on the Rocket Launcher site makes it easy to track progress, view available tasks, and monitor eligibility for airdrops in real time. Built for the people, Rocket Launcher hands over control to its users, letting the community vote on which tokens to launch and rewarding those who participate. For more information, visit Rocket Launcher's website and follow the community on Telegram and X . About Rocket Launcher Rocket Launcher is the ultimate tool for effortlessly launching your meme coin. For just 0.001 SOL, you can generate an idea and an image, then launch it in just a few clicks on Raydium — no coding or complex setup required. Your token goes directly to Raydium, skipping bonding curves, with 0 SOL needed for liquidity pools thanks to our v3 liquidity pools. Plus, memes are generated based on top-performing meme coins, ensuring you're always on-trend. Available now on Solana, Rocket Launcher makes launching a meme coin as easy as saying pump. Media Contact Rocket Launcher PR [email protected] This content was first published by KISS PR Brand Story. Read here >> Rocket Launcher Announces Major Airdrop Program: Farm Rocket Fuel, Earn Rewards, and Get Ready for Takeoff
Yahoo
23-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Should You Buy the Solana Dip Right Now?
With the price of Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) down by 36% in the last 30 days alone and the blockchain rocked by several high-profile scandals and outright scams, investors are wondering whether there's a juicy opportunity to buy the dip here -- or whether the digital coin's glory days are firmly in the past. There's a correct move to make here, so let's analyze the situation and chart a course for your portfolio. Generally speaking, when an asset experiences a deep decline in its price, investors need to figure out why. Then, with those reasons in hand, they must compare their original investment thesis for buying the asset and determine whether that thesis is still valid in light of the new events that drove the decline. In Solana's case recently, the decline's drivers are a short-term symptom of the blockchain's success. As you may have heard, it's the chain for gambling on meme coins. You've probably also heard that Solana is where a lot of fraudulent activity happens. And as you can probably guess, very frequently it is the meme coin activity that is fraudulent in one way or another. There are some downsides to being a leader in minting new meme coins. But some sketchy schemes are larger and more attention-grabbing than others. In an international scandal that's still fulminating, in mid-February the president of Argentina, Javier Milei, endorsed the launch of a meme coin on Solana called $LIBRA. After its market cap initially soared to $4.5 billion, it subsequently crashed roughly 90%. Then, in the aftermath, certain cryptocurrency influencers in the Solana community in the U.S. claimed that they had launched the token in conjunction with Milei as part of a bribery scheme for purposes that are currently unknown. Furthermore, there are allegations that insiders linked to the token were able to cash out roughly $107 million, which would imply that the entire launch was a pump-and-dump scheme if the allegations are proved to be true. Legal investigations are ongoing in Argentina to uncover more details. It's unclear how the saga will be resolved, but one thing is clear: This is terrible publicity for Solana on multiple fronts. It doesn't look good when heads of state are implicated in potentially criminal meme-coin launches. Nor does it look good when highly visible influencers associated with a chain are exposed as promoting such activity, since it dramatically reduces the level of trust that fosters more investment dollars to flow in regularly. But does that mean you should avoid buying Solana entirely, even when it's a lot cheaper than it was before? Think about why investors dumped Solana recently. The whiff of scandal is never appealing when it's wafting over your investments. But a meme coin fiasco committed on Solana's blockchain does not imply that the core reasons for buying it are reduced in any way. After all, it still has a huge and growing ecosystem of projects in decentralized finance, art, artificial intelligence (AI) -- and yes, meme coins. Its smart-contract functionality is still being actively developed. And it's still an inexpensive and quick blockchain to transact on, compared to older chains like Ethereum, which is enabling Solana to siphon value from its clunkier competitors. All of these things drive higher demand for the coin. If that isn't enough, regulators are currently moving forward to approve the trading of Solana futures contracts on some exchanges, and it might also be held in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) quite soon if those also get approved. That kind of regulatory permissiveness would be a massive green light for the coin's future value. And in case you forgot, during the FTX scandal of early November 2022, Solana was the chain that was most affected by the wrongdoing and the subsequent fallout, losing more than 61% of its value in just a week after FTX went bankrupt. This scandal isn't nearly as bad, and the coin's price still eventually rebounded after the FTX crash. So, should you buy the dip with Solana? I think you should, assuming you can accept that it's a risky cryptocurrency play and that you might need to wait a bit for its price to recover from the current level. With more than one driver of higher prices already at work, the crypto will likely clear this bump in the road in due time. Ever feel like you missed the boat in buying the most successful stocks? Then you'll want to hear this. On rare occasions, our expert team of analysts issues a 'Double Down' stock recommendation for companies that they think are about to pop. If you're worried you've already missed your chance to invest, now is the best time to buy before it's too late. And the numbers speak for themselves: Nvidia: if you invested $1,000 when we doubled down in 2009, you'd have $363,307!* Apple: if you invested $1,000 when we doubled down in 2008, you'd have $46,607!* Netflix: if you invested $1,000 when we doubled down in 2004, you'd have $552,526!* Right now, we're issuing 'Double Down' alerts for three incredible companies, and there may not be another chance like this anytime soon.*Stock Advisor returns as of February 21, 2025 Alex Carchidi has positions in Ethereum and Solana. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Ethereum and Solana. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Should You Buy the Solana Dip Right Now? was originally published by The Motley Fool Sign in to access your portfolio
