For weeks, WNBA fans and players kept an eye out for green dildos flying toward the court, a phenomenon that started July 29 during a game between the Golden State Valkyries and the Atlanta Dream and occurred during at least six more games around the country. Players, coaches and fans expressed shock and frustration.  

Online, an entirely different group of people were following the games. Instead of focusing on the athletes, the cryptocurrency enthusiasts were posting derogatory comments about the WNBA and scanning the stands, awaiting the emergence of the green sex toy, based on a meme coin they launched the day before. They quickly claimed credit for some of the incidents, which were designed to create publicity for the meme coin and drive up its value. The meme coin’s value jumped 300 percent in its first week and traded over $1.3 million in a single day.

“We didn’t do this because we dislike women’s sports or, like, some of the narratives that are trending right now are ridiculous,” the spokesperson for the group told USA Today under the condition of anonymity. “Creating disruption at games is like, it happens in every single sport, right?”

For these women athletes, it wasn’t a harmless disruption. It was a safety concern and deeply disrespectful. Humiliation, often lewd, has long been used to make women feel uncomfortable or diminish their athletic accomplishments. The WNBA has grown significantly in the last two seasons with record attendance, television viewership and financial investment. As they negotiate for higher salaries, players are fighting to be respected.

“Everyone’s trying to make sure the W is not a joke, and it’s taken seriously and then that happens,” Sophie Cunningham of the Indiana Fever said during an August 5 podcast interview, referring to the first dildo being thrown. “I’m like, how are we ever going to get taken seriously?” 

The 19th spoke with experts about the popularity of meme coins, how online jokes can lead to violence and what can be done about it. 

What are meme coins? 

A meme coin is a type of cryptocurrency based on Internet memes or viral trends. Because they are not tied to any specific technology or practical application, they are known for their extreme price volatility. 

Molly White, a researcher, engineer and prominent writer who focuses on the cryptocurrency industry, said a lot of times meme coins come down to what cryptocurrency groups find funny. 

“It’s often misogynistic and racist,” White said. “I think it’s part and parcel with a lot of the behavior that we see in the crypto sector, broadly speaking. A lot of the jokes and meme coins are fundamentally incredibly bigoted. The more shocking it is, the funnier people in these spaces tend to find it.” 

White, a longtime critic of the crypto sector, said the financial terminology that is used in describing crypto can be misleading for the inexperienced and that many people lose a lot of money because they think they are investing and have protections similar to if they were investing in the stock market. 

“It’s really not investing; the speculation that happens around meme coin is sort of more like gambling,” White said. “And not only that, it’s almost like gambling at a rigged casino. If you go to Vegas, and you’re in one of the legitimate casinos there, there are some requirements there. You can’t weight the dice, and they have to publish the odds at the tables so you know how lucky you have to be to win. That’s really not the case with a lot of crypto trading, which happens on marketplaces that have very shady backgrounds and do a poor job of controlling market manipulation.” 

After President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission released a memo that neither “meme coin purchasers nor holders are protected by the federal securities laws.” Trump has openly embraced crypto since taking back the White House, and his family has generated around $4.5 billion in crypto wealth since January. 

“We are really in a Wild West situation when it comes to meme coins because there is no oversight at this point in time,” White said. 

Because meme coins rely on virality and face thousands of competitors every day, creators have been known to use extreme and sometimes illegal stunts to get attention and news coverage. People have set themselves on fire, shot guns out of windows and threatened to hurt themselves and their own families. 

How does an online joke turn into a dangerous trend? 

Pasha Dashtgard, director of research at the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL) at American University, said “the weaponization of humor” is a common strategy used by extremists to recruit people to their movement. 

“This is how it works: Your entry into this space is as a joke, through memes and humor, with the idea that it gives you plausible deniability,” Dashtgard said. “Rather than being held to some academic or professional standard, you can write yourself off as ‘I’m just joking around, so if you’re offended, don’t follow up with me. Don’t hold me accountable.’” 

But for the people who are being radicalized, Dashtgard said they understand — sometimes subconsciously — that this isn’t really a joke.

“It is a persuasive tactic. It is meant to be resonant — like a dog whistle of sorts,” Dashtgard said. 

As the manosphere — a network of online influencers promoting male supremacy and far-right ideologies — has grown and become more mainstream, young men are being radicalized into male supremacy at higher rates. And a small contingent of those men are “taking their online behavior into the offline world,” Dashtgard said. 

“This isn’t serious, until it is serious — and then it’s like disrupting a professional  basketball game in order to embarrass and humiliate these women who are working,” Dashtgard said, adding that it’s not a coincidence that the majority of WNBA athletes are Black women, who often face disproportionate hate. 

As a researcher of extremism, Dashtgard said there are levels of radicalization before violence. For example, someone who is posting vitriol on 4chan is one level. Doxxing and harassing women reporters online would be a higher level. And if you are attending a nationally televised event like a WNBA game to throw a sex toy, that is an even higher level of investment in and endorsement of male supremacist ideology. 

“So the next step is more violence: intimate partner violence, domestic violence, violence against random women on the street,” Dashtgard said. “If this [WNBA trend] becomes a phenomenon that a bunch of young people take up as funny, that then imperils women. It makes it less safe to be a woman in public — which is, in a sense, the broader aim.” 

How concerned should WNBA fans be about attending future games?

Fans shouldn’t be too concerned. 

White said it is challenging to sustain the value of a meme coin. There are thousands of new ones that emerge everyday, and even the more successful ones typically get headlines for only a couple of weeks before the joke gets old and attention and value drop. There are a few exceptions, such as the $TRUMP meme coin that the president announced days before his second inauguration. Shortly after launch, the coin’s value on paper soared to more than $10 billion.

It’s hard to predict which way things will go with any given meme coin.

“Either the whole thing dies out with the early buyers making a lot of money, but the majority of people losing money,” White said. “Or the creators of the token are incentivized to up the ante and do something more dramatic and attention-getting.” 

As it stands, the WNBA announced that anyone who intentionally throws an object onto the court would be immediately ejected and face a minimum one-year ban, in addition to being subject to arrest and prosecution by local authorities. Two people have been arrested so far.

What can be done to minimize violence and combat online misogyny and hate? 

White warned that giving dangerous trends attention is oftentimes exactly what feeds their longevity. However, she said, when it becomes increasingly shocking and dangerous, the solution isn’t ignoring it and hoping it goes away. At some point, people need to discuss what’s happening. 

“Rather than starving it of attention, I think it is a phenomenon that needs to be grappled with by broader society,” White said. “There’s going to be attention paid to it, whether it’s big media outlets or social media, and so giving it an accurate accounting is ultimately important.” 

White said there should be consequences for bad behavior. Ideally, she said, there would be discouragement from external parties. Meme coin platforms — where the coins are bought, sold and launched — would monitor their platforms more. Organizations, like the WNBA, would eject people and prosecute criminal activity. And the federal government would tighten up regulations for meme coins. 

Dashtgard said his focus is on engaging with susceptible young people before they are radicalized. 

In partnership with the Southern Poverty Law Center, Dashtgard said PERIL released a guide last year called “Not Just a Joke.” The goal is to arm authority figures, like parents and educators, with the knowledge to reach young men without condemning or humiliating them. Dashtgard compared this method to a vaccine: You inoculate people against propaganda by giving them a small dose and explaining what persuasive mechanisms are being used to change their beliefs. 

“But the vaccine doesn’t work if you are already sick,” Dashtgard said. “If you are already bringing a dildo to a WNBA game, you are too far down the rabbit hole for a simple redirection.”

Then, Dashtgard said, the situation is more similar to rehabilitating alcohol or drug addicts. 

“What can be done for a guy like that?” Dashtgard said. “Honestly, not much. He has to want to come out of this. Maybe it’s his wife, a girlfriend, a friend, a family member, a cousin, a brother, a best friend, somebody in his life has to help him recognize the harm that he’s doing. And he has to want to change.”