WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.419 He uses it to buy a cup of coffee. Programmers 00:00:03.419 --> 00:00:05.519 use it to build the actual architecture of the 00:00:05.519 --> 00:00:08.839 internet. And Tidalasign uses it right in the 00:00:08.839 --> 00:00:11.400 middle of his name. Like, look down at your keyboard 00:00:11.400 --> 00:00:13.460 right now. Assuming you have standard layout, 00:00:13.500 --> 00:00:16.379 yeah. Right. Find the number four key. Sitting 00:00:16.379 --> 00:00:18.260 right on top of it is this single character. 00:00:18.339 --> 00:00:20.859 You hold down shift, you press the four, and 00:00:20.859 --> 00:00:23.620 you get the dollar sign. Yeah. It is so ubiquitous, 00:00:23.980 --> 00:00:26.480 so heavily woven into the fabric of your daily 00:00:26.480 --> 00:00:29.420 life, that you probably never you know, stop 00:00:29.420 --> 00:00:32.039 to actually look at it. Most people don't. It's 00:00:32.039 --> 00:00:35.119 just an S with a line struck vertically through 00:00:35.119 --> 00:00:37.020 the middle. We treat it like this fixed point 00:00:37.020 --> 00:00:39.259 of reality. Assume it means one very specific 00:00:39.259 --> 00:00:41.829 thing. Right, which is entirely human, you know, 00:00:41.909 --> 00:00:44.369 to assume that a symbol we see every single day 00:00:44.369 --> 00:00:47.270 has a static universal definition. Exactly. You 00:00:47.270 --> 00:00:51.049 see it on a restaurant menu or a bank statement 00:00:51.049 --> 00:00:54.490 and your brain instantly categorizes it as a 00:00:54.490 --> 00:00:57.689 marker of local wealth. But a disambiguation 00:00:57.689 --> 00:01:01.689 of this single keystroke reveals that it's well, 00:01:01.689 --> 00:01:03.789 it's not a fixed point at all. Not even close. 00:01:04.090 --> 00:01:08.909 No, it is a map of human association. This one 00:01:08.909 --> 00:01:12.120 shape serves as a vessel for physical commerce, 00:01:12.739 --> 00:01:15.420 digital execution, and even abstract artistic 00:01:15.420 --> 00:01:18.879 expression. It's entirely dependent on who is 00:01:18.879 --> 00:01:21.239 reading it and the context in which it appears. 00:01:21.659 --> 00:01:24.180 I mean, meaning is not inherent to the geometry 00:01:24.180 --> 00:01:27.140 of the S on the line, meaning... is assigned. 00:01:27.319 --> 00:01:29.700 Okay, let's unpack this because we are looking 00:01:29.700 --> 00:01:31.859 at a single character today, and we're going 00:01:31.859 --> 00:01:34.359 to explore this massive multiverse of meanings 00:01:34.359 --> 00:01:37.560 that claim this exact symbol. It's a huge map. 00:01:37.659 --> 00:01:40.060 It really is, and the best place to start this 00:01:40.060 --> 00:01:42.500 deep dive is right where you, the listener, probably 00:01:42.500 --> 00:01:45.150 expect, right? The realm of money. Makes sense. 00:01:45.310 --> 00:01:47.609 But we need to completely subvert the expectation 00:01:47.609 --> 00:01:49.650 about whose money we are actually talking about 00:01:49.650 --> 00:01:52.629 here. Because this symbol is, in practice, a 00:01:52.629 --> 00:01:54.569 universal currency adapter. That's a great way 00:01:54.569 --> 00:01:56.609 to put it. And what's fascinating here is the 00:01:56.609 --> 00:01:59.349 scale of adoption. If you look at global currencies, 00:01:59.569 --> 00:02:01.950 the sheer volume of sovereign nations that utilize 00:02:01.950 --> 00:02:04.750 this exact symbol is just staggering. It serves 00:02:04.750 --> 00:02:07.290 as the official designator for over two dozen 00:02:07.290 --> 00:02:09.729 currencies officially named the dollar. Over 00:02:09.729 --> 00:02:12.090 two dozen. And it's not just a North American 00:02:12.090 --> 00:02:14.479 phenomenon. with the U .S. and Canadian dollars. 00:02:14.979 --> 00:02:18.500 You can literally trace this symbol on a massive 00:02:18.500 --> 00:02:21.000 geographical tour. You really can. Like you find 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:23.599 it heavily anchored in the Americas with the 00:02:23.599 --> 00:02:26.599 Bahamian, Barbadian, and Belize dollars. But 00:02:26.599 --> 00:02:29.840 then it completely crosses the Atlantic to Africa, 00:02:30.180 --> 00:02:32.680 where both Liberia and Namibia use it for their 00:02:32.680 --> 00:02:35.539 respective dollars. Right. And if you keep spinning 00:02:35.539 --> 00:02:38.360 the globe into the Asia -Pacific region, it represents 00:02:38.360 --> 00:02:40.460 the Brunei dollar, the Singapore dollar and the 00:02:40.460 --> 00:02:42.639 Fijian dollar. And it doesn't stop there. It 00:02:42.639 --> 00:02:45.680 also completely crosses linguistic and historical 00:02:45.680 --> 00:02:48.319 boundaries by acting as the primary symbol for 00:02:48.319 --> 00:02:51.020 the peso. Oh, yeah. Seven different nations, 00:02:51.300 --> 00:02:54.219 including Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, the 00:02:54.219 --> 00:02:57.060 Dominican Republic, Mexico and Uruguay, they 00:02:57.060 --> 00:03:00.500 all rely on that exact same S with a vertical 00:03:00.500 --> 00:03:03.439 strike to represent their pesos. But wait, doesn't 00:03:03.439 --> 00:03:05.900 that create a massive functional problem for 00:03:05.900 --> 00:03:08.500 global trade? How so? Well, if I'm traveling 00:03:08.500 --> 00:03:10.780 and I see a price tag with a dollar sign on it, 00:03:11.120 --> 00:03:14.340 that item could be priced in an Argentine peso, 00:03:14.759 --> 00:03:17.159 a Namibian dollar, or a Singapore dollar. They 00:03:17.159 --> 00:03:20.580 all possess wildly different economic values. 00:03:21.199 --> 00:03:24.759 So how does a symbol survive when it introduces 00:03:24.759 --> 00:03:27.909 like that much potential ambiguity? Well, it 00:03:27.909 --> 00:03:30.870 survives precisely because it has transcended 00:03:30.870 --> 00:03:33.650 the English word dollar or the Spanish word peso. 00:03:33.830 --> 00:03:35.849 Oh, interesting. Yeah. What you are witnessing 00:03:35.849 --> 00:03:39.710 is a semantic shift. It has become a global shorthand 00:03:39.710 --> 00:03:42.770 for the abstract concept of value. OK. So when 00:03:42.770 --> 00:03:45.050 a traveler sees that symbol, even in a foreign 00:03:45.050 --> 00:03:47.349 country, their brain doesn't necessarily read 00:03:47.349 --> 00:03:50.129 the local currency name. Their brain registers 00:03:50.129 --> 00:03:53.009 the concept of commercial exchange like an immediate 00:03:53.009 --> 00:03:55.449 visual cue. Exactly. It's an immediate visual 00:03:55.449 --> 00:03:57.740 cue that an economic transaction is available, 00:03:58.099 --> 00:04:00.379 it strips away the friction of local language 00:04:00.379 --> 00:04:02.740 and replaces it with a universally recognized 00:04:02.740 --> 00:04:05.699 icon of trade. Which totally explains the other 00:04:05.699 --> 00:04:08.580 category in our deep dive today. Yes, the outliers. 00:04:08.699 --> 00:04:10.939 Right. These are the countries that don't call 00:04:10.939 --> 00:04:12.800 their money a dollar, and they don't call it 00:04:12.800 --> 00:04:15.960 peso, but they still co -opt the exact same symbol. 00:04:16.180 --> 00:04:19.579 We're talking about the Brazilian Rial, the Nicaraguan 00:04:19.579 --> 00:04:23.879 Córdoba, the Samoan Tala, the Tongan Pawanga. 00:04:24.029 --> 00:04:26.089 Like if you land in Samoa and you see a price 00:04:26.089 --> 00:04:29.290 tag with our familiar little symbol, it has absolutely 00:04:29.290 --> 00:04:31.329 nothing to do with a dollar, it's a dollar. It's 00:04:31.329 --> 00:04:34.769 almost like the symbol itself bulldozed its way 00:04:34.769 --> 00:04:36.509 into these different cultures. I'd say it is 00:04:36.509 --> 00:04:38.930 less about bulldozing and more about adopting 00:04:38.930 --> 00:04:42.610 a globally recognized standard. If a nation wants 00:04:42.610 --> 00:04:46.089 to clearly signal. to both its citizens and international 00:04:46.089 --> 00:04:49.230 participants, that a number represents a fluid, 00:04:49.529 --> 00:04:52.910 exchangeable value, while adopting the most recognizable 00:04:52.910 --> 00:04:55.389 financial symbol on Earth is a highly efficient 00:04:55.389 --> 00:04:57.790 way to do it. It acts as an economic anchor. 00:04:58.189 --> 00:05:00.990 Exactly. You know, there is also a historical 00:05:00.990 --> 00:05:03.810 casualty in this financial list from the source 00:05:03.810 --> 00:05:05.810 that really stands out to me. The South Vietnamese 00:05:05.810 --> 00:05:08.889 Dung. Yes. The South Vietnamese Dung used the 00:05:08.889 --> 00:05:11.629 exact same symbol, but it ceased to circulate 00:05:11.629 --> 00:05:14.430 in 1978. Right. It's basically a ghost currency 00:05:14.430 --> 00:05:16.930 now. Yeah. The physical paper and coins are gone 00:05:16.930 --> 00:05:19.810 from the markets, but the memory of that economy 00:05:19.810 --> 00:05:23.329 is still tethered to this one specific keystroke. 00:05:23.589 --> 00:05:25.649 Which is pretty profound, really. It serves as 00:05:25.649 --> 00:05:28.810 a reminder that governments rise and fall and 00:05:28.810 --> 00:05:32.089 paper money is inherently temporary. But the 00:05:32.089 --> 00:05:34.810 symbols we use to represent them often endure, 00:05:34.810 --> 00:05:37.750 you know, just waiting to be reassigned. OK, 00:05:37.829 --> 00:05:40.360 here's where it gets really interesting. We've 00:05:40.360 --> 00:05:42.399 been looking at currencies that intentionally 00:05:42.399 --> 00:05:45.819 use the exact same character. But as we move 00:05:45.819 --> 00:05:49.139 across this map of human association, we run 00:05:49.139 --> 00:05:52.139 into these incredible doppelgangers. Ah, the 00:05:52.139 --> 00:05:54.759 visual twins. Yeah, completely different systems 00:05:54.759 --> 00:05:58.100 that feature characters that look suspiciously 00:05:58.100 --> 00:06:01.110 like our ubiquitous money symbol. but operate 00:06:01.110 --> 00:06:03.610 with totally different origins or purposes. Right. 00:06:03.750 --> 00:06:05.449 And in the financial realm, the most prominent 00:06:05.449 --> 00:06:07.829 example of this parallel evolution is the Saffron. 00:06:08.149 --> 00:06:10.990 Visually, the Saffron is very specific. While 00:06:10.990 --> 00:06:12.889 the standard symbol we've been discussing usually 00:06:12.889 --> 00:06:15.009 features just one vertical stroke, especially 00:06:15.009 --> 00:06:17.829 in modern digital fonts, the Saffron strictly 00:06:17.829 --> 00:06:20.850 requires two parallel vertical lines struck through 00:06:20.850 --> 00:06:23.589 the S. And that subtle geometric distinction 00:06:23.589 --> 00:06:26.060 carries an entirely different legacy. The Sifron 00:06:26.060 --> 00:06:28.860 is the official marker for the Cape Verdean Escudo. 00:06:29.600 --> 00:06:31.699 And historically, it was also the symbol for 00:06:31.699 --> 00:06:33.959 the Portuguese Escudo, which was the national 00:06:33.959 --> 00:06:36.540 currency of Portugal for nearly a century. Another 00:06:36.540 --> 00:06:39.259 ghost currency. Exactly. The Portuguese Escudo 00:06:39.259 --> 00:06:41.459 was rendered defunct by the introduction of the 00:06:41.459 --> 00:06:44.060 euro. But for decades, if you were walking the 00:06:44.060 --> 00:06:46.459 streets of Lisbon, you were dealing in Sifrons. 00:06:46.899 --> 00:06:49.839 It demonstrates how a very simple typographic 00:06:49.839 --> 00:06:53.699 concept. like an S -curve intersected by vertical 00:06:53.699 --> 00:06:57.360 lines, can independently evolve as a financial 00:06:57.360 --> 00:06:59.480 marker in completely different parts of the world. 00:06:59.579 --> 00:07:02.540 Yeah. But the disambiguation takes us even further 00:07:02.540 --> 00:07:05.459 away from finance into a realm where the shape 00:07:05.459 --> 00:07:07.620 has absolutely nothing to do with wealth. We 00:07:07.620 --> 00:07:10.180 are leaving banks entirely. Entirely. We are 00:07:10.180 --> 00:07:12.300 entering the world of alphabets, specifically 00:07:12.300 --> 00:07:14.660 the Armenian alphabet. This is a great example. 00:07:14.779 --> 00:07:16.920 There is a letter in the Armenian alphabet, the 00:07:16.920 --> 00:07:20.519 letter O. And it heavily, heavily resembles the 00:07:20.519 --> 00:07:22.740 modern dollar symbol. It really does. It features 00:07:22.740 --> 00:07:25.699 an S -like curve with a distinct vertical line 00:07:25.699 --> 00:07:27.879 running cleanly through it. And I have to push 00:07:27.879 --> 00:07:30.220 back on the idea of independent evolution here. 00:07:31.079 --> 00:07:33.800 Like, is it just a coincidence that a letter 00:07:33.800 --> 00:07:37.019 in the Armenian alphabet looks almost exactly 00:07:37.019 --> 00:07:40.550 like the emblem of Western capitalism? Did they 00:07:40.550 --> 00:07:43.009 see a financial document and just copy the shape? 00:07:43.269 --> 00:07:46.269 Well, actually, it is an entirely organic coincidence. 00:07:46.589 --> 00:07:48.810 Wait, really? Yeah. And it raises a fascinating 00:07:48.810 --> 00:07:51.769 point about visual convergence. OK. Think about 00:07:51.769 --> 00:07:54.870 it. The human hand, when writing quickly, only 00:07:54.870 --> 00:07:58.569 has so many simple, distinguishable, and repeatable 00:07:58.569 --> 00:08:00.810 geometric strokes it can invent. Does that make 00:08:00.810 --> 00:08:03.209 sense? You have curves, you have straight lines, 00:08:03.269 --> 00:08:06.290 and you have intersections. In Portugal, or Cape 00:08:06.290 --> 00:08:08.769 Verde, a specific combination of those strokes 00:08:08.769 --> 00:08:11.069 evolves into a financial marker, the cifrone. 00:08:11.329 --> 00:08:14.350 Right. But in Armenia, that very similar combination 00:08:14.350 --> 00:08:17.089 of strokes exists as an entirely separate phonetic 00:08:17.089 --> 00:08:19.769 letter within a written language. It is a fundamental 00:08:19.769 --> 00:08:22.250 building block of phonetics, representing a specific 00:08:22.250 --> 00:08:24.750 sound in their alphabet. It's just a wild cognitive 00:08:24.750 --> 00:08:27.170 disconnect. It is. If you were conditioned by 00:08:27.170 --> 00:08:29.930 modern global markets, you could be reading a 00:08:29.930 --> 00:08:32.889 beautiful Armenian poem, and visually your brain 00:08:32.889 --> 00:08:35.470 is just seeing financial symbols embedded in 00:08:35.470 --> 00:08:37.889 the middle of the words. Right, which feels weird 00:08:37.889 --> 00:08:41.009 to us. It creates a sudden, jarring friction. 00:08:41.360 --> 00:08:44.179 But to the Armenian reader, there is no friction 00:08:44.179 --> 00:08:47.639 at all. It's just a sound. The context completely 00:08:47.639 --> 00:08:50.659 dictates the reality of the shape. Context determines 00:08:50.659 --> 00:08:53.730 function. And that principle that the surrounding 00:08:53.730 --> 00:08:56.169 environment completely rewrites the meaning of 00:08:56.169 --> 00:08:58.809 the symbol brings us to the most radical shift 00:08:58.809 --> 00:09:01.230 in our analysis. We have to move from the physical 00:09:01.230 --> 00:09:03.490 world of printed money and written alphabets 00:09:03.490 --> 00:09:06.269 into the invisible digital architecture that 00:09:06.269 --> 00:09:09.090 actually runs our modern lives. Because in typography 00:09:09.090 --> 00:09:11.929 and computers, the dollar sign isn't about money 00:09:11.929 --> 00:09:15.909 at all. It is used as a sigil in computer programming. 00:09:16.110 --> 00:09:18.809 And the word sigil is incredibly appropriate 00:09:18.809 --> 00:09:22.090 here. Historically, in various mythologies and 00:09:22.090 --> 00:09:25.450 occult practices, a sigil was a painted or drawn 00:09:25.450 --> 00:09:28.210 symbol considered to possess magical power. Oh, 00:09:28.210 --> 00:09:30.330 wow. Yeah, it wasn't just a picture. It was a 00:09:30.330 --> 00:09:32.809 mechanism that supposedly caused an action to 00:09:32.809 --> 00:09:34.669 happen in the real world. And in programming, 00:09:34.850 --> 00:09:36.830 it kind of does have that exact power. It does. 00:09:36.909 --> 00:09:38.789 So what does this all mean for someone who doesn't 00:09:38.789 --> 00:09:42.529 code? Let's use an analogy. In code, the dollar 00:09:42.529 --> 00:09:44.960 sign acts almost like an escape hatch. Okay, 00:09:45.059 --> 00:09:47.039 I like that. When a computer is parsing through 00:09:47.039 --> 00:09:49.639 lines of text, it's generally just reading letters 00:09:49.639 --> 00:09:52.059 and numbers. But when it hits that specific symbol, 00:09:52.480 --> 00:09:55.379 it's a trigger. It tells the computer, stop reading 00:09:55.379 --> 00:09:57.200 this as standard English. We are going through 00:09:57.200 --> 00:09:59.779 the escape hatch. Execute a specific command 00:09:59.779 --> 00:10:02.850 now. It fundamentally changes how the parser 00:10:02.850 --> 00:10:04.850 interprets the characters that immediately follow 00:10:04.850 --> 00:10:07.990 it, and our disambiguation highlights its specific 00:10:07.990 --> 00:10:10.750 use as the standard alias for invoking jQuery. 00:10:11.090 --> 00:10:12.570 Right, and for those who don't spend their days 00:10:12.570 --> 00:10:15.730 staring at code editors, jQuery is a highly popular 00:10:15.730 --> 00:10:18.809 JavaScript library. Yes. Think of a library in 00:10:18.809 --> 00:10:21.750 programming like a massive prepackaged toolbox, 00:10:22.429 --> 00:10:24.029 instead of a developer having to write a hundred 00:10:24.029 --> 00:10:26.809 complex lines of code from scratch just to make 00:10:26.809 --> 00:10:29.049 a drop -down menu work on a website. Which is 00:10:29.049 --> 00:10:31.730 tedious. Very. They can just borrow the pre -written 00:10:31.730 --> 00:10:34.509 tool from the jQuery library. And the key to 00:10:34.509 --> 00:10:36.950 opening that toolbox is the dollar sign. If we 00:10:36.950 --> 00:10:39.289 connect this to the bigger picture, the irony 00:10:39.289 --> 00:10:43.370 here is profound. Oh, so? The architects of early 00:10:43.370 --> 00:10:45.970 programming languages and the internet needed 00:10:45.970 --> 00:10:49.090 a symbol on the standard QWERTY keyboard that 00:10:49.090 --> 00:10:51.269 was not an alphabet letter and not a number. 00:10:51.370 --> 00:10:53.350 Right. They needed a special character. Exactly. 00:10:53.450 --> 00:10:56.179 They needed a dedicated special operator. The 00:10:56.179 --> 00:10:58.419 dollar sign was already physically stamped onto 00:10:58.419 --> 00:11:00.299 the typewriter keys for accounting purposes, 00:11:00.379 --> 00:11:03.679 so it was simply drafted into the matrix. We 00:11:03.679 --> 00:11:06.980 took the ultimate historical symbol of physical 00:11:06.980 --> 00:11:10.080 commerce, the icon of the real, the peso, the 00:11:10.080 --> 00:11:12.960 Tala, and we repurposed it to be the foundational 00:11:12.960 --> 00:11:15.759 trigger for JavaScript libraries. It literally 00:11:15.759 --> 00:11:19.279 became the currency of code. the utility tool 00:11:19.279 --> 00:11:21.679 of the Internet. You literally cannot have modern 00:11:21.679 --> 00:11:24.700 digital banking or e -commerce or global financial 00:11:24.700 --> 00:11:27.759 markets without the underlying code that heavily 00:11:27.759 --> 00:11:30.159 relies on that very same symbol to function. 00:11:30.279 --> 00:11:32.519 It's completely interconnected. The symbol for 00:11:32.519 --> 00:11:34.519 physical wealth became the workhorse for the 00:11:34.519 --> 00:11:36.879 invisible digital infrastructure that now runs 00:11:36.879 --> 00:11:39.399 the entire global economy. It's a closed loop. 00:11:39.600 --> 00:11:42.039 A closed loop that perfectly illustrates how 00:11:42.039 --> 00:11:45.080 a symbol sheds its old skin. Yeah. When a software 00:11:45.080 --> 00:11:47.940 engineer is writing jQuery, their brain isn't 00:11:47.940 --> 00:11:50.919 processing the concept of a Namibian dollar or 00:11:50.919 --> 00:11:53.320 a defunct South Vietnamese dung. Definitely not. 00:11:53.519 --> 00:11:56.159 They are thinking entirely about functions, variables, 00:11:56.600 --> 00:11:59.610 and manipulating digital environments. The symbol 00:11:59.610 --> 00:12:02.370 is completely divorced from its financial origins 00:12:02.370 --> 00:12:05.730 in that specific context. Divorced from finance, 00:12:06.250 --> 00:12:08.789 drafted into the matrix, and finally co -opted 00:12:08.789 --> 00:12:11.750 by culture. Yes, the final frontier. Because 00:12:11.750 --> 00:12:14.909 if money represents physical power and code represents 00:12:14.909 --> 00:12:17.730 digital power, the final frontier for the symbol 00:12:17.730 --> 00:12:21.320 is cultural capital. We see this acutely in film 00:12:21.320 --> 00:12:24.279 and music where artists hijack the symbol for 00:12:24.279 --> 00:12:26.419 their own messaging. Well, artists are constantly 00:12:26.419 --> 00:12:28.379 searching for ways to communicate vast amounts 00:12:28.379 --> 00:12:31.220 of emotional or thematic information with as 00:12:31.220 --> 00:12:33.879 little effort as possible. Maximum impact. Exactly. 00:12:33.980 --> 00:12:36.100 They want an immediate, visceral reaction from 00:12:36.100 --> 00:12:38.919 the audience. And utilizing a globally recognized 00:12:38.919 --> 00:12:42.039 shorthand for value, excess, and ambition accomplishes 00:12:42.039 --> 00:12:44.000 that instantly. Hollywood understood this over 00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:46.320 half a century ago. The Deep Dive brings up a 00:12:46.320 --> 00:12:49.500 1971 film simply titled with the single keystroke. 00:12:49.899 --> 00:12:52.299 Just the symbol. Just the symbol. The movie is 00:12:52.299 --> 00:12:54.879 explicitly known and spoken out loud as Dollars. 00:12:55.100 --> 00:12:56.539 They realized they didn't even need to spell 00:12:56.539 --> 00:12:58.879 the word on the poster. No letters at all. You 00:12:58.879 --> 00:13:02.000 put that single shape on a marquee in 1971 and 00:13:02.000 --> 00:13:03.879 the audience knows exactly what the stakes of 00:13:03.879 --> 00:13:05.840 the plot are. The symbol itself is the plot. 00:13:05.980 --> 00:13:09.029 It is a pure distillation of theme. And we see 00:13:09.029 --> 00:13:11.889 musicians adopting the exact same strategy. For 00:13:11.889 --> 00:13:15.090 example, the soundtrack to the 1971 movie is 00:13:15.090 --> 00:13:17.309 also just called Dollars. Oh, right. And the 00:13:17.309 --> 00:13:19.570 musician Mark Sultan released an album titled 00:13:19.570 --> 00:13:23.049 Simply with the Symbol. It forces the viewer 00:13:23.049 --> 00:13:25.909 to engage with the concept of wealth or commercialism 00:13:25.909 --> 00:13:29.029 before they even hear a single track. But when 00:13:29.029 --> 00:13:31.970 you look at modern rap and hip hop, the symbol 00:13:31.970 --> 00:13:34.149 is weaponized in a totally different way. How 00:13:34.149 --> 00:13:36.490 do you mean? It gets multiplied. We have a song 00:13:36.490 --> 00:13:39.230 by the late rapper XXXTentation called Dollar 00:13:39.230 --> 00:13:42.830 from his album. And the rapper Gunna has a track 00:13:42.830 --> 00:13:45.129 also called Dollar from the album, One of One, 00:13:45.470 --> 00:13:48.049 three in a row. It is no longer just a functional 00:13:48.049 --> 00:13:50.669 marker of a price tag. No, it becomes a logogram 00:13:50.669 --> 00:13:55.110 for excess. When Gunna or... XXSentation use 00:13:55.110 --> 00:13:57.570 multiple dollar signs as a track title, they 00:13:57.570 --> 00:13:59.909 are entirely bypassing the English alphabet. 00:14:00.169 --> 00:14:02.549 They don't need phonetics at all. Exactly. They 00:14:02.549 --> 00:14:05.490 are communicating a highly specific, attitude 00:14:05.490 --> 00:14:08.730 success, swagger, unyielding focus on capital 00:14:08.730 --> 00:14:12.509 through pure visual iconography. But the absolute 00:14:12.509 --> 00:14:15.370 peak of this cultural hijacking is the American 00:14:15.370 --> 00:14:18.370 singer Ty Dolla Sign. Oh, this is a perfect example. 00:14:18.450 --> 00:14:21.669 He visually stylizes his professional alias as 00:14:21.669 --> 00:14:25.509 Ty, T -Y. followed by the symbol. Right. Your 00:14:25.509 --> 00:14:27.750 brain encounters an S with a line through it, 00:14:28.070 --> 00:14:29.929 and instead of reading it as a financial indicator 00:14:29.929 --> 00:14:32.049 or an escape hatch for a JavaScript library, 00:14:32.490 --> 00:14:34.549 your brain automatically translates it into the 00:14:34.549 --> 00:14:36.710 spoken syllable's dollar sign. It is a brilliant 00:14:36.710 --> 00:14:39.269 cognitive trick. It completely hijacks our alphabet. 00:14:39.490 --> 00:14:42.110 It really does. He has taken a non -finetic symbol 00:14:42.110 --> 00:14:44.590 and forced it to operate as a phonetic participant 00:14:44.590 --> 00:14:47.289 in his name. It proves that the symbol is not 00:14:47.289 --> 00:14:49.870 just a passive marker that sits on a bank ledger. 00:14:50.350 --> 00:14:53.129 It is a highly active, malleable piece of our 00:14:53.129 --> 00:14:56.110 modern language. It has a voice, and that voice 00:14:56.110 --> 00:14:58.210 changes depending on who is holding the microphone. 00:14:58.629 --> 00:15:01.289 Look at the sheer distance we just covered from 00:15:01.289 --> 00:15:04.029 one tiny shape on the number four key. It's quite 00:15:04.029 --> 00:15:07.009 a journey. We started on the island shores of 00:15:07.009 --> 00:15:09.149 Tuvalu and Belize with their national dollars. 00:15:09.710 --> 00:15:11.909 We traveled through Chile and Colombia with their 00:15:11.909 --> 00:15:15.129 pesos. We did? We uncovered the ghost currencies 00:15:15.129 --> 00:15:18.190 of the South Vietnamese Dong and the Portuguese 00:15:18.190 --> 00:15:21.330 Escudo. We explored the two distinct vertical 00:15:21.330 --> 00:15:24.039 lines of the Cape Verdean Saffron. We questioned 00:15:24.039 --> 00:15:26.700 the organic visual convergence of the Armenian 00:15:26.700 --> 00:15:29.700 phonetic letter A, and we watched a symbol of 00:15:29.700 --> 00:15:32.399 physical wealth transform into a magical sigil, 00:15:32.820 --> 00:15:34.980 acting as a trigger for JavaScript libraries 00:15:34.980 --> 00:15:37.440 and computer programming. And finally, we watched 00:15:37.440 --> 00:15:40.539 it get claimed by a 1971 Hollywood heist movie 00:15:40.539 --> 00:15:43.519 and modern musical artists like Ty Dolla Sign, 00:15:43.799 --> 00:15:46.860 Gunna, and XX Tentation. It really is a chameleon. 00:15:47.019 --> 00:15:49.879 It is. A universal financial adapter, a digital 00:15:49.879 --> 00:15:52.919 escape hatch, and a cultural logogram all rolled 00:15:52.919 --> 00:15:55.159 into one keystroke. And what's fascinating here 00:15:55.159 --> 00:15:58.200 is what this implies about permanence. This raises 00:15:58.200 --> 00:16:00.379 an important question to leave you with, drawing 00:16:00.379 --> 00:16:02.980 directly on the historical casualties we've discussed 00:16:02.980 --> 00:16:05.789 today. We noted that the South Vietnamese Dong 00:16:05.789 --> 00:16:09.509 ceased to circulate entirely in 1978. We saw 00:16:09.509 --> 00:16:12.549 the Portuguese escudo rendered completely obsolete 00:16:12.549 --> 00:16:15.789 by the euro. Physical paper currencies die out. 00:16:15.960 --> 00:16:18.259 They change, they inflate, they are replaced, 00:16:18.360 --> 00:16:20.600 they become ghosts in the historical record. 00:16:20.759 --> 00:16:23.600 Yeah, they do. But given that this specific shape 00:16:23.600 --> 00:16:26.000 is now deeply hard -coded into the foundational 00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:28.740 computer programming sigils that run our digital 00:16:28.740 --> 00:16:31.539 infrastructure. The JavaScript libraries. Exactly. 00:16:32.080 --> 00:16:35.019 And given that it is deeply immortalized in pop 00:16:35.019 --> 00:16:38.220 culture aliases and artistic titles, is it possible 00:16:38.220 --> 00:16:40.399 that long after physical dollars and pesos are 00:16:40.399 --> 00:16:43.039 gone, long after paper money is a relic of a 00:16:43.039 --> 00:16:46.039 distant past, this exact symbol will survive? 00:16:46.340 --> 00:16:49.019 Will it live on purely as a digital command and 00:16:49.019 --> 00:16:51.899 a piece of artistic iconography completely detached 00:16:51.899 --> 00:16:54.500 from the physical coins and paper it originally 00:16:54.500 --> 00:16:57.179 represented? That is wild to think about. So 00:16:57.179 --> 00:16:59.039 the next time you hold down shift and press that 00:16:59.039 --> 00:17:02.080 number four key, just remember you aren't just 00:17:02.080 --> 00:17:04.519 typing a price tag. Not at all. You are executing 00:17:04.519 --> 00:17:07.119 a piece of global history, triggering a line 00:17:07.119 --> 00:17:09.599 of digital architecture, tracing an Armenian 00:17:09.599 --> 00:17:11.980 letter, and projecting a piece of pop culture 00:17:11.980 --> 00:17:13.720 all at the exact same time.