The Big Bitcoin Theory: Writers Throw Sneaky Shade at Bitcoin

@thedesignflaw
12-01-2017

This contains spoilers. You’ve been warned.

Well the king daddy of cryptocurrencies has officially hit the mainstream with the airing of “The Bitcoin Entanglement,” the latest installment of the seemingly infinite, expanding, universe of The Big Bang Theory. That’s 11 seasons of Howard’s gargantuan belt buckles ladies and gentlemen… pretty impressive. As a bitcon idealist myself, I couldn’t help but keenly anticipate exactly how producer Chuck Lorre and his writing staff would handle this foray into something I’d be very surprised if they really understood. I expected a somewhat superficial overview of the “honey badger” currency that has for years just seemed to parkour its way out of any and every attack… and superficial it was.

But under that surface, I feel like I got more than just a plot line out of bitcoin in this episode. I sensed a distinctly negative, almost subliminally delivered, and frenzied depiction of the world’s first global censorship resistant decentralized currency. The plot was simple and harmless enough: Boys mine bitcoin, boys forget bitcoin, boys search for bitcoin, boys lose bitcoin. I mean, come on… we knew these guys weren’t walking away from this episode as bit-millionaires. But the devil is in the details, and I’m thinking those details were not designed to cast bitcoin in the best light.

Forget that the price doubled in the roughly six weeks between filming and airing ($5000 to $10,000). Forget that this sound money is saving lives in countries with collapsing economies like Venezuela and Zimbabwe. Let’s talk about the subtle little jabs the BBT creative team took at bitcoin, and just how, um, tangible they are. I’ll give the caveat that some of these quotes took place 7 years earlier in the episode’s timeline, so they may have been MORE true then than now. But that doesn’t mute the naked effect of pall-casting.

Erectric Radyrand

While a crying politician IS music to my ears, I never could have imagined that sentiment would take such a literal turn. But that’s exactly what happened when a viral video of Japanese politician Ryutaro Nonomura weeping last week was recently mashed up with some sick guitar work. If someone can throw together a video of John Boehner accompanied by mouth harp, I’ll be all set. This video is courtesy of rinrinrin fishmusic. The guitar player so nice they named him thrice.