Lioncash (Liya Zhang)

Meme: Lioncash

Name: Liya Zhang

Date: 9/17/2012

Operation Lioncash is an anonymous meme that involves printing a “lion” (>:3) over the face of the bill and then releasing them “back into the wild.” It started on April 17, 2008 by the member of the /b/ (random) image board hosted by 4Chan, of putting the lion smile ">:3" on the face of George Washington. It is also a global scheme to replace all money in the world with “lioncash”.

The operation stated the mission which could be concluded into only one sentence: “For each participant to print lions on as many of his or her duckets as possible, until all money is converted to lion money, thus uniting the world by breaking down financial barriers.” The reason posted on the Internet seems obvious: hope break down financial barriers with single currency. As to me, the reasons for its popularity may meet more than it.

(1)   Social behavior under the context of upcoming financial crisis

During the financial crisis which was gradually starting to surface before August, 2008, Nothing seems to be going right as for many people. To some extent, doing such a simple and crazy stuff like drawing a handful of “lioncash” became a direct way to build up a “utopia” world which viewed as reasonable and rational. The so called hope or emission do bring individuals courage and passion to “save world” through replacing all of the money in the world with “lioncash” against the status they hate: single currency.

(2)   Special pleasure doing illegal things being anonymous

At the beginning of the spread of meme, some worried about being prosecuted for writing on money. But more individual hold this kind of mentality- knowing it illegal but keep doing it because no one cares if it is defacing government property. “People are basically evil.” The lack of legal clarity surrounding this sort of minor alteration of paper money (There aren’t any laws that stipulate writing on dollar bills is illegal.) means it is pretty much OK to do so. In other words, people could behave improperly, with little harm, and for the most part, gaining great deal of pleasure and satisfaction. Also, the behavior on the internet, uploading the pictures or videos, as well as submitting comment could remain anonymous. No one knows who draws, uses or encourages others to do the same thing. Anonymity became worldwide, enhancing the pleasure among whom getting into the process.

Originated in 4Chan, the one who started the meme initiated others by printing the following words, “From now on I’m going to add a lion to my bills… I wonder how long it will take for another b-tard to see one… Conversely, I wonder how long it would take America to break if every b-tard put lions on bills.”  According to its mission statement, this global operation seeks to convert all regional currencies into the universal lioncash, thus uniting the world by breaking down financial barriers.

(The picture below shows several samples of “lioncash”)

At the first beginning, there was only “lioncash” made on base of dollar bills, but gradually it became worldwide, spreading from North America to Asia, Europe, Australia or even Africa. Moreover, some videos, words and pictures display or analyze the “lioncash” spread rapidly through the Internet.

Moreover, the earliest usage of “lion face” as an emoticon stems from another meme popularized on 4chan’s /b/ board in 2006. However, I regret that I cannot find any other memes emerged from this or influenced by this.

When it comes to how popular it became and over what time span, from line chart named “interest over time” of “Google Insights” on the key word “lioncash” (web search), the data peaks up around April and May in 2008, then dramatically drops down to 14 in June and fluctuates slightly afterwards. The meme booming in several days but the fact of hotness period- only about 2 months or even shorter makes the meme kind of like ephemera.