DOGE Creator Drops Approving Comment on New Netflix Crypto TV Series 'Beef'
Billy Markus, who created the popular meme cryptocurrency DOGE in tandem with Jackson Palmer back in 2013 and has left the project since then, is now an active Twitter user and an influencer known as Shibetoshi Nakamoto with 2.2 million followers.
In a recent tweet, he shared a screenshot from the new Netflix TV series called "Beef."
paul from “beef” is a proper degen pic.twitter.com/HCYU9oSaAE
— Shibetoshi Nakamoto (@BillyM2k) April 29, 2023
DOGE founder likes new series about "crypto gambling"
This is an American dark comedy mini-series filmed by Korean director Lee Sung Jin with American actors of Korean origin.
One of the characters in the series, named Paul Cho and played by Young Mazino, makes money by gaming and investing in crypto — these are referred to as "crypto gambling" in the film's Wiki description.
Billy Markus shared a screenshot of this character as he is eating noodles and watching a crypto chart on his smartphone. Markus called him "a proper degen" (short for "degenerate"). In crypto, it refers to a person who begins taking high-risk operations with crypto, whether it is trading or investing.
In one of the scenes in the first episode, Cho gets upset when he sees the price of the crypto he had invested heavily in plunge and nearly vomits from seeing it going deeply red.
— lxx (📜, ⚡️) (@luoxiaxia) April 29, 2023
However, when asked, Markus says that he really liked the episodes he has watched so far.
i really liked it
— Shibetoshi Nakamoto (@BillyM2k) April 29, 2023
Crypto community's reaction to "Beef" on Reddit
A crypto fan on Reddit believes that crypto volatility is very much exaggerated in the first episode of the film, when Bitcoin falls 90% within hours from the $20,000 level.
The Redditor says he understands this was made for dramatic effect but he believes that this may give crypto a bad name in the eyes of TV audience and "sway a lot of public opinion on crypto." He wrote:
"If they truly wanted to show crypto 'gambling' they could have shown him lose all that money on any s*tcoin… but they chose BTC the 'blue chip' crypto that doesn't see price action like that over a few hours."
He believes that Netflix is fudding crypto in the very first episode of the "Beef" film series.
In the comments, some Redditors agreed with him, saying that the film should have featured Netflix shares in this scene or asking if the film was produced by Gary Gensler (the SEC chairman).
Others argued that showing events in this way is typical for movies, like "stealing a car by rubbing two wires together."