Y’all remember back when money was just… money? paces across stage Man, nowadays you got people investing their life savings in something called “MoonPuppyElonRocket Coin.” What kind of name is that?

imitates crypto bro voice “Nah man, you don’t understand, it’s gonna revolutionize the way we buy digital pictures of bored monkeys… TO THE MOON!”

I’m sitting there like, brother, the only thing going to the moon is your blood pressure when this thing hits zero.

takes drink of water

These crypto folks got their own language too. They be like “Yo, did you see the new white paper?” White paper? In my neighborhood, the only paper we cared about was green! But now I got my nephew talking about “diamond hands” and “HODL.” I’m like, boy, you can’t even hold onto your phone for more than six months without breaking it!

And don’t get me started on these NFTs. People paying millions for digital art that looks like something my 5-year-old could make if I gave her an iPad and too much sugar. At least when I waste my money at the casino, I get free drinks and a buffet!

walks to other side of stage

Every day there’s a new token. CatCoin, DogeCoin, RatCoin… what’s next, PigeonCoin? “Revolutionary new cryptocurrency for urban birds!” Get the fuck outta here!

And these crypto bros be having meetings in something called “Discord.” Back in my day, discord is what happened when you played the wrong note in band class. Now it’s full of people typing “wen moon” and posting rocket emojis.

leans on microphone stand

But the worst part? The worst part is these influencers. Every Instagram model suddenly became a financial advisor. “Hey queens! 💅 Just mortgaged my house to buy SuperShibaCumRocket tokens! Don’t forget to use my referral code!”

shakes head

Y’all know what happens when your financial advisor’s main qualification is having 100,000 followers on TikTok? The same thing that happens when you let your drunk uncle do your taxes – somebody’s going to jail, and it probably ain’t them!

takes another sip

And these blockchain people… man. They talk about “decentralization” like it’s gonna solve racism or something. “The blockchain gonna fix everything!” Really? The blockchain gonna fix my knee that’s been hurting since ’92? The blockchain gonna make my ex-wife stop calling?

I saw a dude the other day wearing a shirt that said “Ask Me About Mining.” Mining? Brother, you live in a studio apartment in Brooklyn. The only thing you mining is your mama’s patience!

dramatic pause

But you know what’s crazy? In the end, all this crypto stuff is just teaching us the same lesson we already knew: If something sounds too good to be true… it’s probably got a Telegram group with a Russian guy named Dmitri who’s about to disappear with everybody’s money.

adjusts mic

Y’all remember that song “Big in Japan”? Man, in the 80s, EVERYBODY was big in Japan. Japan was buying everything. Rockefeller Center, Pebble Beach, Michael Jackson’s catalog… They was shopping like they just got their first credit card!

imitates 80s businessman
“Hey man, what you doing?”
“Oh, just buying Hawaii real quick. You want some?”

normal voice
Japanese businessmen were walking around Manhattan like they owned the place… because they DID own the place! The whole country was flexing with that bubble economy money. Real estate to the moon!

paces thoughtfully

But here’s the crazy part – all that money? It wasn’t even real! It was like unrealized gains before we even knew what unrealized gains were. They invented that “I’m rich on paper” shit!

leans forward

Speaking of paper billionaires… let me tell you about these tech bros today. At least the Japanese bought real stuff. These new cats be like “I’m worth 200 billion!” But try to buy a sandwich with that stock option pack…

imitates tech founder
“Sir, this is a Wendy’s. We don’t accept unrealized gains as payment.”

shakes head

The Japanese bubble was like the beta test for what we doing now. They had real estate, we got JPEGs of monkeys. They had Sony, we got startups that ain’t never made a dollar. Progress, right?

takes drink

And you know what’s wild? When Japan’s bubble popped, they at least had some dope ass buildings to show for it. All these companies now? Their assets is literally in the cloud. Not even the real cloud – the metaphorical cloud!

gets animated

We got billionaires out here playing space cowboys, but their whole net worth could disappear faster than a Snapchat message. One bad tweet – POOF! – there goes 50 billion! That’s some next level gambling right there.

imitates financial advisor
“Sir, your portfolio is worth negative infinity dollars.”
“How?!”
“You tweeted about crypto while Mercury was in retrograde.”

straightens up

Japan in the 80s was like the prototype for all this crazy shit we got now. They was doing billion-dollar deals while drinking sake in karaoke rooms. Now we got bros making billions while posting memes from their gaming chairs.

shrugs

At least back then you could touch the stuff you was overpaying for. Now? These tech billionaires be like “Trust me, bro, this line of code is worth more than your whole family tree.”

imitates tech bro
“Yeah, we don’t have a product yet, but our TAM is everyone who’s ever breathed oxygen. That’s like… at least 12 people!”

shakes head slowly

We really went from “Big in Japan” to “Big on Paper.” And that paper getting thinner every day… but hey, at least we got some funny tweets out of it!

walks across stage

Man, you could always spot these “Big in Japan” cats in Hollywood. They’d be posted up at Sunset Strip clubs, looking like they raided David Lee Roth’s garage sale.

imitates musician at bar
“Yeah man, my album tanked harder than New Coke here… but in JAPAN? pulls out wrinkled magazine That’s me on the cover of ‘Tokyo Rock Gods Monthly’!”

normal voice
You run into these dudes at The Rainbow, they living in a studio apartment in North Hollywood with five roommates, driving a ’84 Civic… but supposedly they got platinum records in Osaka!

imitates conversation
“Bro, where’s your mansion?”
“Oh, uh… all my money’s tied up in yen. Exchange rates, you know how it is…”

takes sip of water

Every failed actor and musician in LA had that Japan story. It was like their backup girlfriend in Canada, except this one bought their albums! Japan was like the rich uncle of the music industry – always there to bail you out when America wasn’t feeling your sound.

struts across stage

And the best part? In the 80s, nobody in Hollywood could read Japanese! You could show up with a Japanese newspaper talking about a fish market, claiming it was your album review.

holds up imaginary newspaper
“See right here? Five stars! …What do you mean this is a sushi menu?”

leans forward

You’d see these cats at the Guitar Center on Sunset, telling war stories about their Tokyo tours… meanwhile they can’t even afford to pay the late fee at Blockbuster. But in Japan? They swear they got their own action figure!

imitates desperate musician
“My record label dropped me, my girlfriend left me, and I’m living in my van… but my pachinko machine comes out next month in Shibuya!”

Man, Japan was saving more careers than rehab! It was the original GoFundMe for desperate artists. Before SoundCloud, before YouTube, before OnlyFans – there was just “But I’m big in Japan!”