WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.540 So if you look down at the number four key on 00:00:03.540 --> 00:00:05.139 your computer keyboard right now, you'll see 00:00:05.139 --> 00:00:08.300 this absolute anomaly. Oh, yeah. Right there 00:00:08.300 --> 00:00:10.599 above the four. Exactly. It's hovering right 00:00:10.599 --> 00:00:13.140 there, just above that four. And it's a shape 00:00:13.140 --> 00:00:16.760 that, honestly, it breaks every rule of the simple 00:00:16.760 --> 00:00:19.059 utilitarian grid in front of you. Right, because 00:00:19.059 --> 00:00:20.940 normally it's just a one -to -one relationship. 00:00:21.239 --> 00:00:22.899 Exactly. I mean, you press the A key, you get 00:00:22.899 --> 00:00:24.460 an A, you press the one, you get a one. It's 00:00:24.460 --> 00:00:27.289 a very straightforward binary transaction. But 00:00:27.289 --> 00:00:30.329 that shift key symbol above the four, it isn't 00:00:30.329 --> 00:00:33.210 just a letter or a number. Not even close. No. 00:00:33.710 --> 00:00:36.490 It is a global passport, a computer command, 00:00:36.810 --> 00:00:39.929 and a pop culture icon all rolled into a single 00:00:39.929 --> 00:00:42.429 keystroke. We are talking, of course, about the 00:00:42.429 --> 00:00:45.420 dollar sign. which really makes it the absolute 00:00:45.420 --> 00:00:49.020 definition of a typographical shapeshifter. It's 00:00:49.020 --> 00:00:51.579 just the single mark that entirely changes its 00:00:51.579 --> 00:00:55.939 identity depending on the context of who is pressing 00:00:55.939 --> 00:00:58.159 that key and why they're pressing it. OK, let's 00:00:58.159 --> 00:01:00.060 unpack this, because the mission of our deep 00:01:00.060 --> 00:01:03.479 dive today, it isn't to look at the history of 00:01:03.479 --> 00:01:06.239 money or the Federal Reserve. Thankfully. Right. 00:01:06.560 --> 00:01:09.400 We are actually looking. at a stack of notes 00:01:09.400 --> 00:01:12.640 centered around a very unique, highly specific 00:01:12.640 --> 00:01:16.140 piece of source material. It's a Wikipedia disambiguation 00:01:16.140 --> 00:01:19.379 page for the dollar sign, just the symbol itself. 00:01:19.640 --> 00:01:22.219 Which is such a weird but great way to look at 00:01:22.219 --> 00:01:23.739 it. It really is. Now you might look at this 00:01:23.739 --> 00:01:25.799 symbol every single day, you know, on a coffee 00:01:25.799 --> 00:01:29.019 receipt or your banking app. But I promise, you 00:01:29.019 --> 00:01:30.780 are about to see it in a completely different 00:01:30.780 --> 00:01:34.060 light. Yeah, a disambiguation page is honestly 00:01:34.060 --> 00:01:36.480 a brilliant lens for this kind of exploration 00:01:36.480 --> 00:01:40.599 because it isn't just a dry list of internet 00:01:40.599 --> 00:01:42.420 links. Right, it's more than that. Exactly. If 00:01:42.420 --> 00:01:44.859 you step back, a disambiguation page is essentially 00:01:44.859 --> 00:01:47.560 a map of human association. A map. I like that. 00:01:47.700 --> 00:01:50.599 Yeah. It shows us everywhere a single isolated 00:01:50.599 --> 00:01:52.840 concept has traveled across human consciousness. 00:01:53.439 --> 00:01:57.219 It tracks how a few intersecting lines can mutate. 00:01:57.040 --> 00:01:59.540 to mean vastly different things across economics, 00:01:59.900 --> 00:02:02.340 computer science, and art. The very first stop 00:02:02.340 --> 00:02:04.659 on this map of human association goes right to 00:02:04.659 --> 00:02:07.819 where our minds naturally jump, which is currency. 00:02:08.240 --> 00:02:11.060 But the source material immediately shatters 00:02:11.060 --> 00:02:14.219 that deeply ingrained American assumption that 00:02:14.219 --> 00:02:17.419 this symbol simply equals the US dollar. Right. 00:02:17.539 --> 00:02:20.740 It's way bigger than that. It is actually a massive, 00:02:21.300 --> 00:02:25.020 sprawling global franchise. We are talking about 00:02:25.069 --> 00:02:27.250 the Australian dollar, the Canadian dollar, the 00:02:27.250 --> 00:02:28.889 Hong Kong dollar. And those are just the big 00:02:28.889 --> 00:02:31.650 ones. Exactly. It goes so much further into places 00:02:31.650 --> 00:02:34.849 you might not expect. The Bahamian, Balbadian, 00:02:35.150 --> 00:02:37.990 Belize, Bermudian and Brunei dollars. It's basically 00:02:37.990 --> 00:02:41.229 everywhere. It really is. It's the official typographical 00:02:41.229 --> 00:02:45.069 mark in Kiribati, Namibia, Singapore, the Solomon 00:02:45.069 --> 00:02:47.990 Islands, Tuvalu and Trinidad and Tobago. The 00:02:47.990 --> 00:02:50.310 geographic footprint is just staggering when 00:02:50.310 --> 00:02:52.110 you lay it all out like that. Yeah. Think of 00:02:52.110 --> 00:02:55.300 it like a a ubiquitous fast food franchise, right? 00:02:55.319 --> 00:02:57.240 You can travel to almost any continent and you 00:02:57.240 --> 00:02:59.419 will see the exact same universally recognized 00:02:59.419 --> 00:03:02.060 signage hanging above the door. But the local 00:03:02.060 --> 00:03:04.460 menu, the actual purchasing power and the economic 00:03:04.460 --> 00:03:08.039 reality behind that sign is fiercely local. The 00:03:08.039 --> 00:03:10.759 signage is universal, but the value is sovereign. 00:03:10.919 --> 00:03:12.759 But wait, hold on. Here's where I have to push 00:03:12.759 --> 00:03:15.120 back a little on the logic of it all. Okay, go 00:03:15.120 --> 00:03:17.500 for it. Because the source points out that this 00:03:17.500 --> 00:03:20.120 same symbol is heavily used for a completely 00:03:20.120 --> 00:03:23.750 different word. The peso. Ah, yes, the peso. 00:03:23.889 --> 00:03:26.689 We see it used for the Argentine peso, the Chilean, 00:03:26.689 --> 00:03:29.229 Colombian, Cuban, Dominican, Mexican, and Uruguayan 00:03:29.229 --> 00:03:32.770 peso. And look, I get that they share a geographic 00:03:32.770 --> 00:03:34.990 hemisphere and a broad economic history. Right. 00:03:35.169 --> 00:03:38.069 But structurally, that makes zero sense. I mean, 00:03:38.189 --> 00:03:40.610 peso starts with a P, dollar starts with a D. 00:03:40.729 --> 00:03:43.310 Yeah, phonetically, it's a mismatch. A total 00:03:43.310 --> 00:03:45.750 mismatch. Why wouldn't the peso just use a P? 00:03:46.530 --> 00:03:49.530 Isn't it wild that a symbol isn't tied to the 00:03:49.530 --> 00:03:52.430 phonetic word it represents at all. What's fascinating 00:03:52.430 --> 00:03:55.030 here is how typographical symbols are often born 00:03:55.030 --> 00:03:57.569 out of sheer human laziness or, you know, to 00:03:57.569 --> 00:03:59.789 put it more plainly, efficiency. Efficiency, 00:03:59.949 --> 00:04:02.090 right. Let's call it efficiency. Right. You are 00:04:02.090 --> 00:04:04.270 absolutely right to question the logic because 00:04:04.270 --> 00:04:06.949 phonetically, dollar and peso share absolutely 00:04:06.949 --> 00:04:09.789 no common ground. None. But historically, they 00:04:09.789 --> 00:04:12.389 share the exact same root. The symbol actually 00:04:12.389 --> 00:04:14.789 originates from the Spanish peso de ocho. Piece 00:04:14.789 --> 00:04:16.750 of eight. Exactly. The piece of eight, which 00:04:16.750 --> 00:04:19.149 was basically the global currency of its time. 00:04:19.709 --> 00:04:22.350 And merchants in the 1700s, they had to write 00:04:22.350 --> 00:04:25.250 the abbreviation for pesos in their ledgers over 00:04:25.250 --> 00:04:28.370 and over again. Which was what? Just a P? Close. 00:04:28.490 --> 00:04:31.149 It was a P with a superscript S. Oh, a P and 00:04:31.149 --> 00:04:34.449 an S. Okay, let me guess. Writing a P and an 00:04:34.449 --> 00:04:38.110 S thousands of times a day gets pretty exhausting. 00:04:38.529 --> 00:04:41.259 Precisely. It was slow. So they started writing 00:04:41.259 --> 00:04:44.160 them faster, eventually overlapping the S on 00:04:44.160 --> 00:04:46.639 top of the P. Wait, really? Just right on top 00:04:46.639 --> 00:04:49.350 of each other? Yeah. Over time, the loop of the 00:04:49.350 --> 00:04:51.589 P just disappeared into the curves of the S, 00:04:51.730 --> 00:04:54.029 leaving just the vertical stem of the P running 00:04:54.029 --> 00:04:56.189 straight down through the center of the S. That 00:04:56.189 --> 00:04:58.509 is incredible. So the dollar sign is literally 00:04:58.509 --> 00:05:00.930 just the ghost of the word peso stacked on top 00:05:00.930 --> 00:05:03.110 of itself. It is. That's exactly what it is. 00:05:03.389 --> 00:05:06.189 And because the early United States dollar was 00:05:06.189 --> 00:05:08.790 pegged to the value of the Spanish peso, the 00:05:08.790 --> 00:05:10.750 symbol just naturally carried over. Oh, wow. 00:05:10.889 --> 00:05:13.750 Yeah. It highlights how a symbol can unify distinct 00:05:13.750 --> 00:05:16.490 sovereign nations under a shared typographical 00:05:16.490 --> 00:05:18.759 banner. You don't need to speak the same language, 00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:21.180 and you don't even need to use the same phonetic 00:05:21.180 --> 00:05:25.550 word for your money. The simile itself... completely 00:05:25.550 --> 00:05:29.089 bypassed language to become the universal shorthand 00:05:29.089 --> 00:05:31.870 for commerce. That completely reframes the way 00:05:31.870 --> 00:05:34.389 I look at it. It's like a like a Pan -American 00:05:34.389 --> 00:05:36.509 typographical treaty or something. That's a great 00:05:36.509 --> 00:05:38.310 way to put it. And as we look deeper into the 00:05:38.310 --> 00:05:40.610 source material, we see that treaty extending 00:05:40.610 --> 00:05:43.230 into what I like to call the highly specific 00:05:43.230 --> 00:05:46.829 unique use cases. The outliers. Right. The symbol 00:05:46.829 --> 00:05:50.230 bleeds into currencies that don't share the naming 00:05:50.230 --> 00:05:52.930 conventions of the major global powers at all. 00:05:53.120 --> 00:05:55.699 I mean, we see it used for the Brazilian Rial, 00:05:56.300 --> 00:05:59.439 the Nicaraguan Cordoba, the Samoan Tala, and 00:05:59.439 --> 00:06:01.720 the Tungan Palanga. Which adds another fascinating 00:06:01.720 --> 00:06:03.980 layer to our map, right? Because the symbol is 00:06:03.980 --> 00:06:06.699 so potent that it breaks free from the dollar 00:06:06.699 --> 00:06:09.319 and peso families entirely. It just becomes its 00:06:09.319 --> 00:06:11.959 own thing. Exactly. It just becomes a pure signifier 00:06:11.959 --> 00:06:14.220 of value, regardless of the local dialect. And 00:06:14.220 --> 00:06:16.560 then there is its very distinguished older sibling, 00:06:17.019 --> 00:06:19.319 the Sifron. Ah, the Sifron. According to the 00:06:19.319 --> 00:06:22.259 source, the sephrom is a currency symbol that 00:06:22.259 --> 00:06:24.959 closely resembles our familiar shift four key. 00:06:25.420 --> 00:06:27.379 But instead of one vertical line, it features 00:06:27.379 --> 00:06:29.879 two vertical lines going straight through the 00:06:29.879 --> 00:06:32.560 S. Right. The double line. Yeah. It was used 00:06:32.560 --> 00:06:34.980 for the Cape Verdina Scudo and the Portuguese 00:06:34.980 --> 00:06:39.120 Scudo. I honestly picture the sephrom as the 00:06:39.120 --> 00:06:42.740 standard symbols eccentric European cousin who 00:06:42.740 --> 00:06:46.819 only wears like double breasted pinstripe suits. 00:06:47.149 --> 00:06:49.430 The visual of the pinstripe suit is actually 00:06:49.430 --> 00:06:52.029 a really great functional analogy. You think 00:06:52.029 --> 00:06:54.470 so? I do, because it's structurally identical 00:06:54.470 --> 00:06:57.529 at its core. It does the exact same job, but 00:06:57.529 --> 00:07:00.189 it has a slight formal variation that marks its 00:07:00.189 --> 00:07:02.589 distinct regional heritage. But, you know, the 00:07:02.589 --> 00:07:04.709 detail in the disambiguation page that really 00:07:04.709 --> 00:07:06.870 stopped me in my tracks involves the lifespan 00:07:06.870 --> 00:07:08.810 of these symbols. Oh, the defunct currencies. 00:07:09.029 --> 00:07:11.889 Yes. The source lists the Portuguese escudo as 00:07:11.889 --> 00:07:14.189 defunct. because it was the currency of Portugal 00:07:14.189 --> 00:07:16.730 prior to the introduction of the euro. And right 00:07:16.730 --> 00:07:19.410 near it, under the other currencies, using the 00:07:19.410 --> 00:07:22.509 standard single line symbol, it lists the South 00:07:22.509 --> 00:07:25.930 Vietnamese on with a very specific, almost haunting 00:07:25.930 --> 00:07:30.089 parenthetical note. It says, cease to circulate 00:07:30.089 --> 00:07:34.170 in 1978. Yeah, that is a striking detail. Which 00:07:34.170 --> 00:07:37.920 begs the question. How does a symbol just cease 00:07:37.920 --> 00:07:39.480 to circulate? I mean, when the South Vietnamese 00:07:39.480 --> 00:07:42.180 government falls, or when Portugal adopts the 00:07:42.180 --> 00:07:44.560 euro, does the symbol just die along with the 00:07:44.560 --> 00:07:47.839 money? The short answer is no, but the minism 00:07:47.839 --> 00:07:50.579 of how it survives is really profound. Okay, 00:07:50.660 --> 00:07:53.459 how so? Well, we are looking at the life cycle 00:07:53.459 --> 00:07:55.939 of information here. When a currency ceases to 00:07:55.939 --> 00:07:58.220 circulate, the physical paper becomes worthless 00:07:58.220 --> 00:08:01.160 practically overnight, the metal coins lose their 00:08:01.160 --> 00:08:03.339 purchasing power, and they just become museum 00:08:03.339 --> 00:08:05.879 pieces or scrap. Right, they're just metal. But 00:08:05.879 --> 00:08:08.120 the symbol is just a vessel. It doesn't decay. 00:08:08.350 --> 00:08:10.709 But is it really surviving? I mean, if nobody's 00:08:10.709 --> 00:08:13.189 actively using it to buy bread or pay rent, isn't 00:08:13.189 --> 00:08:15.589 it essentially a dead font? At what point does 00:08:15.589 --> 00:08:17.850 a symbol actually get deleted from our collective 00:08:17.850 --> 00:08:19.850 memory? It doesn't get deleted, actually. It 00:08:19.850 --> 00:08:22.089 gets archived. Archived. Think of it like an 00:08:22.089 --> 00:08:24.689 architectural ruin. The Siphron and the symbol 00:08:24.689 --> 00:08:27.589 for the South Vietnamese Dung, they still exist 00:08:27.589 --> 00:08:30.610 in millions of historical ledgers, in out -of 00:08:30.610 --> 00:08:33.350 -print books, in old legal contracts, and yes, 00:08:33.350 --> 00:08:36.509 on Wikipedia disambiguation pages. Oh, I see 00:08:36.509 --> 00:08:38.899 what you mean. They transition. from being active, 00:08:39.080 --> 00:08:41.940 kinetic tools of daily commerce into being passive 00:08:41.940 --> 00:08:44.519 historical artifacts. They become ghosts of economic 00:08:44.519 --> 00:08:46.720 history. They lose their kinetic energy, but 00:08:46.720 --> 00:08:49.840 they keep their shape. A ghost of economic history. 00:08:50.200 --> 00:08:52.840 That is such a vivid way to picture it. And that 00:08:52.840 --> 00:08:55.559 idea of a symbol changing its fundamental energy 00:08:55.559 --> 00:08:58.820 leads us perfectly into the next major revelation 00:08:58.820 --> 00:09:01.519 in our source material. The digital shift. Yes. 00:09:02.019 --> 00:09:04.779 Because we are about to leave the physical world 00:09:04.779 --> 00:09:07.940 of bank ledgers and paper money entirely. We're 00:09:07.940 --> 00:09:10.500 transitioning out of the wallet and into the 00:09:10.500 --> 00:09:12.399 digital ether. This is where the symbol makes 00:09:12.399 --> 00:09:14.919 its most radical evolutionary leap. Right. Here's 00:09:14.919 --> 00:09:17.179 where it gets really interesting. The source 00:09:17.179 --> 00:09:20.120 outlines the symbol's role in computers and typography. 00:09:20.440 --> 00:09:23.539 It defines the dollar sign as a sigil in computer 00:09:23.539 --> 00:09:26.059 programming. A sigil. Yeah. and it specifically 00:09:26.059 --> 00:09:29.100 notes that it is the standard alias for invoking 00:09:29.100 --> 00:09:32.379 jQuery, which is a widely used JavaScript library. 00:09:32.870 --> 00:09:34.970 Now, for the listener who isn't a software engineer, 00:09:35.370 --> 00:09:37.909 this doesn't sound like a completely alien language. 00:09:38.149 --> 00:09:40.389 It is a completely different universe of meaning. 00:09:40.990 --> 00:09:43.429 But to understand the leech here, we have to 00:09:43.429 --> 00:09:45.830 look at the tools early programmers had available 00:09:45.830 --> 00:09:47.629 to them. Which were pretty basic, right? Very 00:09:47.629 --> 00:09:50.970 basic. They were staring down at standard physical 00:09:50.970 --> 00:09:53.809 typewriter keyboards. They had a very limited 00:09:53.809 --> 00:09:56.250 number of plastic keys to work with, but they 00:09:56.250 --> 00:09:59.049 needed to create an entirely new, infinitely 00:09:59.049 --> 00:10:03.019 complex digital language. Right. new key out 00:10:03.019 --> 00:10:05.059 of thin air, they had to repurpose what was already 00:10:05.059 --> 00:10:07.440 there in front of them. Exactly. They needed 00:10:07.440 --> 00:10:09.700 special characters to tell the computer how to 00:10:09.700 --> 00:10:12.740 behave, not what to type, but how to act. Right. 00:10:13.039 --> 00:10:15.539 So they looked at this symbol, this mark, heavily 00:10:15.539 --> 00:10:18.100 burdened with centuries of financial baggage, 00:10:18.340 --> 00:10:20.740 and they completely stripped it of its economic 00:10:20.740 --> 00:10:22.960 meaning. But what does it mean to use it to invoke 00:10:22.960 --> 00:10:25.720 a jQuery library? Can you break that mechanism 00:10:25.720 --> 00:10:29.190 down for us? Sure. Think of a JavaScript library 00:10:29.190 --> 00:10:32.490 exactly like a physical library in the real world. 00:10:32.610 --> 00:10:36.210 It is a massive pre -written collection of complex 00:10:36.210 --> 00:10:38.690 code that a programmer can borrow so they don't 00:10:38.690 --> 00:10:40.490 have to write everything from scratch. Well, 00:10:40.549 --> 00:10:42.450 that makes sense. It saves time. It saves them 00:10:42.450 --> 00:10:45.210 hundreds of hours. But to tell the computer to 00:10:45.210 --> 00:10:47.429 go to that library and fetch that pre -written 00:10:47.429 --> 00:10:50.190 code, you need a command. You need to invoke 00:10:50.190 --> 00:10:54.419 it. So invoking is essentially the shortcut command 00:10:54.419 --> 00:10:56.899 to open the book. Yes. And the dollar sign was 00:10:56.899 --> 00:11:00.059 chosen as that magical shortcut key. Wow. In 00:11:00.059 --> 00:11:02.519 the financial world, the symbol is entirely passive. 00:11:02.799 --> 00:11:06.279 It sits next to a number, say, a five, and silently 00:11:06.279 --> 00:11:09.100 tells you what that five represents. But in JavaScript, 00:11:09.620 --> 00:11:11.879 it is an action. It's a verb. A verb. That's 00:11:11.879 --> 00:11:14.519 a huge shift. It really is. When a computer reads 00:11:14.519 --> 00:11:16.720 that symbol in a line of code, it doesn't see 00:11:16.720 --> 00:11:19.679 money. It sees a direct command to execute a 00:11:19.679 --> 00:11:21.899 structural architecture. If we connect this to 00:11:21.899 --> 00:11:24.480 the bigger picture, the source's use of the word 00:11:24.480 --> 00:11:28.269 sigil is incredibly deliberate then because historically 00:11:28.269 --> 00:11:30.809 like in ancient traditions a sigil wasn't just 00:11:30.809 --> 00:11:33.330 a drawing no it was a painted symbol considered 00:11:33.330 --> 00:11:35.909 to have literal magical power it was a mark that 00:11:35.909 --> 00:11:38.879 actually made things happen exactly Programmers 00:11:38.879 --> 00:11:41.299 essentially co -opted the ancient concept of 00:11:41.299 --> 00:11:44.720 magic. The symbol shifted from being a noun describing 00:11:44.720 --> 00:11:48.419 value to a verb commanding an action. That's 00:11:48.419 --> 00:11:51.379 wild. It is a stunning typographical repurposing. 00:11:51.600 --> 00:11:54.019 You have this one tiny arrangement of pixels 00:11:54.019 --> 00:11:56.399 that is simultaneously holding up the banking 00:11:56.399 --> 00:12:00.220 economy of Australia and acting as the load bearing 00:12:00.220 --> 00:12:02.860 architectural command for millions of modern 00:12:02.860 --> 00:12:05.139 websites. Which is just wild to wrap your head 00:12:05.139 --> 00:12:07.740 around. But the disambiguation page proves it. 00:12:07.559 --> 00:12:09.639 that the human imagination didn't stop at logic 00:12:09.639 --> 00:12:12.340 and code. No, it went much further. We move from 00:12:12.340 --> 00:12:15.139 the rigid, highly mathematical rules of computer 00:12:15.139 --> 00:12:18.620 programming completely into the subjective, emotionally 00:12:18.620 --> 00:12:21.440 expressive world of art and pop culture. We enter 00:12:21.440 --> 00:12:24.299 the soundtrack of the symbol. Yes. The music, 00:12:24.519 --> 00:12:27.179 television, and film section. And the source 00:12:27.179 --> 00:12:28.879 gives us some incredible examples of artists 00:12:28.879 --> 00:12:31.720 just aggressively claiming this symbol as their 00:12:31.720 --> 00:12:33.899 own personal branding. Oh, absolutely. We have 00:12:33.899 --> 00:12:37.559 a 1971 movie simply titled With the Symbol, though 00:12:37.559 --> 00:12:39.960 it's colloquially known as Dollars, complete 00:12:39.960 --> 00:12:42.179 with a soundtrack album also called Dollars. 00:12:42.259 --> 00:12:44.379 Right. You have Mark Sultan's album titled With 00:12:44.379 --> 00:12:46.519 the Symbol. You have the American singer Ty Dolla 00:12:46.519 --> 00:12:50.480 Sign, who actually stylizes his name by replacing 00:12:50.480 --> 00:12:54.039 the S in the word sign with the symbol Tyler. 00:12:54.269 --> 00:12:57.190 It is a very deliberate, almost aggressive form 00:12:57.190 --> 00:12:59.409 of visual branding. And it gets even more distilled 00:12:59.409 --> 00:13:02.509 with the songs. The source lists literally just 00:13:02.509 --> 00:13:06.789 three of the symbols in a row as a track by XXXTentation 00:13:06.789 --> 00:13:09.230 from his album titled With a Question Mark. Right. 00:13:09.830 --> 00:13:12.509 And another song also titled by Gunna from the 00:13:12.509 --> 00:13:15.690 album One of One. To me, the sheer swagger of 00:13:15.690 --> 00:13:17.889 naming your art after a symbol is fascinating. 00:13:18.149 --> 00:13:21.519 It's a huge flex. It is. Because you cannot technically 00:13:21.519 --> 00:13:24.039 pronounce a symbol. When XXXTentation or Gunna 00:13:24.039 --> 00:13:26.159 Title Attract with three of these marks or a 00:13:26.159 --> 00:13:29.080 1971 heist film uses just that image on a movie 00:13:29.080 --> 00:13:31.500 poster, they are forcing the audience to feel 00:13:31.500 --> 00:13:33.259 the title before they can even try to read it. 00:13:33.620 --> 00:13:35.480 This raises an important question about the mechanics 00:13:35.480 --> 00:13:36.980 of visual language, though. How do you mean? 00:13:37.159 --> 00:13:39.960 Well, how does typography manage to convey status 00:13:39.960 --> 00:13:43.899 or greed or success or danger without using a 00:13:43.899 --> 00:13:46.340 single phonetic letter of the alphabet? Oh, I 00:13:46.340 --> 00:13:48.820 see. it bypasses the reading part of your brain 00:13:48.820 --> 00:13:51.299 entirely. Exactly. You see those three symbols 00:13:51.299 --> 00:13:53.120 on a hip hop track list, and you already know 00:13:53.120 --> 00:13:55.700 the exact thematic energy of the song before 00:13:55.700 --> 00:13:58.360 you even press play. Its wealth, its ambition, 00:13:58.519 --> 00:14:01.080 its status. And it's fascinating to look at the 00:14:01.080 --> 00:14:03.340 chronological evolution here too. Yeah, tell 00:14:03.340 --> 00:14:07.370 me about that. You have the grit. of a 1971 movie, 00:14:07.570 --> 00:14:10.250 an era dealing with physical bank heists, you 00:14:10.250 --> 00:14:12.649 know, the tangible heavyweight of paper money 00:14:12.649 --> 00:14:15.889 and gold bars using the symbol to evoke danger 00:14:15.889 --> 00:14:18.730 and greed. Oh, that 70s grit, yeah. Right. Then 00:14:18.730 --> 00:14:21.230 you flash forward to modern hip hop culture with 00:14:21.230 --> 00:14:24.590 artists like Tidalasine and Gunna. In their context, 00:14:24.750 --> 00:14:27.049 the symbol represents modern, often digital wealth. 00:14:27.159 --> 00:14:29.379 personal branding, and high status aesthetic. 00:14:29.460 --> 00:14:32.159 Right. It updates itself. Exactly. The symbol 00:14:32.159 --> 00:14:34.440 adapts perfectly to the specific cultural mood 00:14:34.440 --> 00:14:37.220 of the era. It acts as a mirror, reflecting whatever 00:14:37.220 --> 00:14:39.460 society is currently holding it up. It is the 00:14:39.460 --> 00:14:41.720 ultimate mood board, all wrapped up in one single 00:14:41.720 --> 00:14:45.820 character. But there is one final destination 00:14:45.820 --> 00:14:49.179 on this map of human association, and it might 00:14:49.179 --> 00:14:51.789 be the most mind -bending of them all. The Linguistic 00:14:51.789 --> 00:14:54.549 Lookalike. Yes. Because in this last section, 00:14:55.090 --> 00:14:56.970 we have to strip away all the meaning we just 00:14:56.970 --> 00:14:59.470 spent the last 10 minutes talking about. We strip 00:14:59.470 --> 00:15:02.309 away the Spanish pesos, the digital JavaScript 00:15:02.309 --> 00:15:05.450 commands, the hip hop swagger, and the 1970s 00:15:05.450 --> 00:15:08.450 heist movies. We strip it all away, and we are 00:15:08.450 --> 00:15:11.509 left with nothing but the pure raw geometric 00:15:11.509 --> 00:15:14.830 shape. of the symbol itself. The see also section 00:15:14.830 --> 00:15:17.590 of the disambiguation page. Yes. Tuck away at 00:15:17.590 --> 00:15:19.570 the bottom under see also. The source lists the 00:15:19.570 --> 00:15:22.529 following. It says a letter in the Armenian alphabet 00:15:22.529 --> 00:15:25.169 that resembles the symbol. And it really does. 00:15:25.250 --> 00:15:27.450 It really does. It's a vertical line intersected 00:15:27.450 --> 00:15:30.110 by a distinct loop. It structurally mirrors the 00:15:30.110 --> 00:15:31.649 exact symbol we've been discussing this whole 00:15:31.649 --> 00:15:34.169 time. Yeah. Imagine growing up reading the Armenian 00:15:34.169 --> 00:15:36.250 alphabet. Right. You're reading ancient literature 00:15:36.250 --> 00:15:39.190 or a modern poem, you see this letter R, and 00:15:39.190 --> 00:15:41.009 you know inherently that it has absolutely nothing 00:15:41.009 --> 00:15:44.529 to do with banks or jQuery libraries or Tidala 00:15:44.529 --> 00:15:47.070 sign. Right. It's just a sound. It is just a 00:15:47.070 --> 00:15:49.590 phonetic tool in your language that just so happens 00:15:49.590 --> 00:15:53.190 to look exactly like the most famous financial 00:15:53.190 --> 00:15:56.220 icon on planet Earth. It is a brilliant perfect 00:15:56.220 --> 00:15:58.879 example of parallel evolution in typography. 00:15:59.240 --> 00:16:03.039 Parallel evolution, like how bats and birds both 00:16:03.039 --> 00:16:05.559 developed wings independently. Exactly like that. 00:16:05.600 --> 00:16:08.519 In evolutionary biology, you have completely 00:16:08.519 --> 00:16:10.980 different species developing similar physical 00:16:10.980 --> 00:16:13.080 traits entirely independently of one another 00:16:13.080 --> 00:16:15.179 because they're solving the same environmental 00:16:15.179 --> 00:16:17.539 problems. Right. They both need to fly, so they 00:16:17.539 --> 00:16:20.340 both develop wings. Right. In typography, human 00:16:20.340 --> 00:16:23.000 beings are solving a visual problem, and we only 00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:25.299 have so many simple geometric shapes to work 00:16:25.299 --> 00:16:27.710 with. The visual vocabulary is limited. Highly 00:16:27.710 --> 00:16:29.809 limited. I mean, you have straight lines, curves, 00:16:30.110 --> 00:16:31.490 loops, and intersections. That's essentially 00:16:31.490 --> 00:16:34.250 it. Yeah. When you are constructing an alphabet 00:16:34.250 --> 00:16:38.029 or a system of symbols, cross -cultural visual 00:16:38.029 --> 00:16:40.470 coincidences are absolutely bound to happen. 00:16:40.610 --> 00:16:42.970 The shapes are finite. So the Armenian Ur and 00:16:42.970 --> 00:16:47.009 the dollar sign are just a massive cosmic typographical 00:16:47.009 --> 00:16:50.850 coincidence. They are. But that coincidence serves 00:16:50.850 --> 00:16:53.679 as the ultimate proof for everything we've discussed 00:16:53.679 --> 00:16:56.240 today. How so? The shape itself, that vertical 00:16:56.240 --> 00:16:59.240 line cutting through that curving loop has zero 00:16:59.240 --> 00:17:01.799 inherent meaning. Oh, I see. The universe didn't 00:17:01.799 --> 00:17:04.599 assign a monetary value to that specific arrangement 00:17:04.599 --> 00:17:07.740 of ink. Meaning is entirely constructed, assigned, 00:17:07.920 --> 00:17:10.279 and agreed upon by the human mind. Right. The 00:17:10.279 --> 00:17:12.880 Armenian letter proves that the shape can exist 00:17:12.880 --> 00:17:15.720 purely as a phonetic sound, completely innocent 00:17:15.720 --> 00:17:18.579 and totally unburdened by all the massive financial 00:17:18.579 --> 00:17:20.720 and cultural weight that the rest of the world 00:17:20.720 --> 00:17:23.619 has projected onto it. That is just incredible 00:17:23.619 --> 00:17:26.279 to think about. We've taken a single keystroke, 00:17:26.819 --> 00:17:29.539 a tiny arrangement of pixels on a screen, and 00:17:29.539 --> 00:17:31.740 we've traced its journey across the entire scope 00:17:31.740 --> 00:17:33.579 of human experience. It's been quite a trip. 00:17:33.640 --> 00:17:36.019 It really has. We went from the physical wallets 00:17:36.019 --> 00:17:39.119 and local menus of Kiribati and Tuvalu to the 00:17:39.119 --> 00:17:42.160 overlapping P &S of 18th century Spanish merchants. 00:17:42.440 --> 00:17:45.019 We uncovered the hidden load -bearing architectural 00:17:45.019 --> 00:17:47.779 code invoking actions on the internet. The magic 00:17:47.779 --> 00:17:50.650 sigil. Right, the sigil. We look at its ghost 00:17:50.650 --> 00:17:52.750 lingering after the fall of the South Vietnamese 00:17:52.750 --> 00:17:56.609 Dung in 1978, and we watched it get co -opted 00:17:56.609 --> 00:18:00.230 for the swagger of a modern hip -hop alias. We 00:18:00.230 --> 00:18:03.150 even saw its linguistic doppelganger hiding in 00:18:03.150 --> 00:18:05.470 plain sight in the Armenian alphabet. It is a 00:18:05.470 --> 00:18:08.130 remarkably heavy journey for a few simple lines 00:18:08.130 --> 00:18:10.930 of geometry. It really is. And I want to remind 00:18:10.930 --> 00:18:13.109 you, the listener, of our mission when we started 00:18:13.109 --> 00:18:16.069 this deep dive. The next time you glance at a 00:18:16.069 --> 00:18:18.269 price tag at the grocery store, or you look down 00:18:18.269 --> 00:18:20.440 at the number four key on your computer keyboard, 00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:22.960 I want you to remember that you aren't just looking 00:18:22.960 --> 00:18:25.640 at a price or a simple shift key function. Not 00:18:25.640 --> 00:18:28.119 at all. You are looking at a magical digital 00:18:28.119 --> 00:18:31.039 sigil, a piece of defunct Portuguese history, 00:18:31.500 --> 00:18:34.140 a cinematic mood board, and a global treaty of 00:18:34.140 --> 00:18:36.420 commerce. So what does this all mean? It means 00:18:36.420 --> 00:18:38.480 the world is deeply intricately connected to 00:18:38.480 --> 00:18:40.880 the smallest, most easily overlooked keystrokes. 00:18:41.000 --> 00:18:43.019 And if I can offer one final thought to maul 00:18:43.019 --> 00:18:45.099 over, building directly on the evidence from 00:18:45.099 --> 00:18:47.759 our source today. Yeah, please do. We saw that 00:18:47.759 --> 00:18:50.359 physical currencies, like the Portuguese escudo 00:18:50.359 --> 00:18:53.380 and the South Vietnamese don, can and do die 00:18:53.380 --> 00:18:55.640 out, leaving their typographical marks behind 00:18:55.640 --> 00:18:58.299 as archived ghosts. Right. The architectural 00:18:58.299 --> 00:19:01.839 ruins. Exactly. Right now, as a global society, 00:19:01.900 --> 00:19:04.680 we are moving rapidly toward a world of frictionless 00:19:04.680 --> 00:19:07.720 digital payments, where physical cash and paper 00:19:07.720 --> 00:19:10.599 ledgers are becoming increasingly obsolete. Everything 00:19:10.599 --> 00:19:13.420 is on our phones now. Right. So if the tangible 00:19:13.420 --> 00:19:17.190 physical concept of a dollar or a peso so, ever 00:19:17.190 --> 00:19:20.329 fades entirely from daily human life, what happens 00:19:20.329 --> 00:19:23.029 to this symbol? Oh, wow. Will it eventually lose 00:19:23.029 --> 00:19:25.430 its connection to money altogether, surviving 00:19:25.430 --> 00:19:28.569 only as a piece of legacy computer code and a 00:19:28.569 --> 00:19:31.049 retro -artistic aesthetic from a bygone era? 00:19:31.210 --> 00:19:33.390 When the money itself becomes completely invisible, 00:19:33.809 --> 00:19:35.750 maybe that little shape on the keyboard is the 00:19:35.750 --> 00:19:37.490 only thing we'll have left to remember it by. 00:19:38.029 --> 00:19:40.150 It really does make you wonder if that map of 00:19:40.150 --> 00:19:41.710 human association is going to look completely 00:19:41.710 --> 00:19:42.990 different for the next generation.