Author: Frank, PANews
No one could have imagined that after Biden announced his withdrawal from the election, what became popular in the MEME coin world was the dark Trump MEME with laser eyes as the theme - DMAGA (Dark MAGA).
Laser eyes trend appears on Twitter: the "new aesthetic" of Trump supporters
On July 21, US President Biden announced his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential election. Biden said he would fully support and recognize US Vice President Harris' nomination as the Democratic presidential candidate. Along with this news, there was also a collapse of Biden's related MEME coins. According to incomplete statistics, within a few hours after Biden announced his withdrawal, his related BIDEN, BODEN and other tokens fell by more than 60% in a short period of time. Correspondingly, the corresponding MEME coin of the new presidential candidate Harris rose in response, with a short-term increase of more than 2.7 times.
But what no one seemed to have expected was that in this new wave of traffic, the most popular one was not the high-market-value tokens related to TRUMP, but a token called DMAGA, which surged nearly 100 times after Elon Musk changed his avatar to a laser eye, and its market value once approached 83 million US dollars.
Musk seemed particularly excited about Biden's withdrawal from the race. Since the news broke, Musk has retweeted and commented on the topic many times on Twitter. As early as July 19, Musk tweeted: "They're going to take Biden fishing soon," and the news of his withdrawal seemed to confirm his prediction. Subsequently, Musk changed his personal Twitter profile picture to a dark-style picture with laser eyes.
According to KJ Crypto, a member of the DarkMAGA team, the image Musk used is a PFP image created by the DarkMAGA community. Currently, many KOLs have also changed their avatars to this laser eye style. The Dark MAGA community is still constantly creating corresponding images for various celebrities. Users can also upload photos on the official website to create dark style avatars online.
This is different from the red laser eyes previously used by the Biden camp. The laser eyes that became popular on July 22 were composed of blue laser eyes with a red background. On social media, this seems to have become a signature difference between the two campaign camps. Although the style of Dark MAGA looks like it portrays Trump as a dictator and a dark image, it is actually a new political culture in the Trump camp. According to Tim Squirrell, director of ISD Communications and Editorial, in an interview, "Dark MAGA" is becoming a new aesthetic advocated by supporters and more extreme political groups. "It's more of a cultural gene than a political slogan. It's a post-alt-right aesthetic that promotes an authoritarian version of Trump with a dystopian, Terminator-like image. In some pictures, the Trump Tower is painted completely black, and the former president can be seen piercing the screen with his blue laser eyes."
Dark MEME surges, Musk says X is a MEME gold mine
With the success of DMAGA, more and more dark-themed MEME tokens have been born. PANews has simply counted the six dark-themed MEMEs with high market value that appeared on Solana. Among them, DMAGA still has the highest increase, reaching 92 times, and DARKELON's performance is also impressive, with the highest increase of more than 57 times. LASER EYES has a maximum increase of about 47 times, while the remaining dark-themed tokens Dark Harris, DARK JESUS, and DARK TRUMP have a market value of less than one million US dollars, and their prices rise and fall quickly, with huge declines, and they cannot be called true "golden dogs".
The success of DMAGA has also allowed many early planners to obtain extremely high returns. According to the on-chain analyst @ai_9684xtpa, 6 days ago, the address GXZvX...ZG2Ra bought DMAGA tokens worth 48.5SOL. As of now, his cumulative rate of return has reached 7688%, and the overall profit has exceeded $500,000. Of course, this layout may only be achieved by luck. When you choose the wrong direction, you may also pay a heavy price. For example, on July 22, a Polymarket user AnonBidenBull lost $2 million after betting on Biden to win the Democratic presidential nomination, election and general election.
Overall, this dark trend may continue with the promotion of Trump's campaign and Musk and others. Musk seems to be well aware of the surge in tokens brought about by this MEME culture. When he forwarded a list of possible vice presidential candidates for Harris, he commented: "X is now a MEME gold mine."
