Hawk Tuah

I don’t gamble. But in October 2016, I made a bet. It was obvious Trump didn’t just have skeletons in his closet but a walk-in necropolis. As we stumbled toward November, the question wasn’t whether one of these skeletons would break free, but just how bad the October Surprise would be. It was supposed to be a polling-shifting, election-sealing, reputational nuclear bomb. And if you read the press, that’s what the “Pussy-Grabbing Tape” was. But to me, it was just another example of Trump being vulgar. And Trump had always been vulgar. And voters liked that he was vulgar, or didn’t care that he was vulgar, or liked that he was so unlike other politicians that he could be vulgar.

The Hawk Tuah girl, a young woman famous for a viral video in which she tawdrily describes a sex act, launched a meme coin this week — because of course she did. It instantly lost over 90 percent of its value. This, too, comes as no shock. But out of ignorance, stupidity and greed, many people put their real money into $Hawk and lost it all. And so, 2024 ends with assassinations in the middle of New York City, attempted coups in South Korea and @jiggadrin_ tweeting out that his $35,000 in “$Hawk is now $2,000 after ten minutes of buying,” and that “I am a huge fan of Hawk Tuah but you took my life savings.” In some replies, he tried to spin this as a joke post. But it appears he genuinely lost the money, as did many others.