Buy the Dip
Details
About This Piece
In Buy the Dip, Dimitria Barrows combines contemporary ceramic practice with internet and crypto culture. The vessel draws on the long art historical tradition of narrative pottery—where everyday objects carry social commentary. On one side, a male and female Pepe stand beside a bowl of guacamole labeled "BUY THE DIP," merging crypto slang with a literal food joke. The phrase, common in Bitcoin culture, refers to purchasing during market downturns, transforming financial volatility into humor. On the reverse, a group of Pepe figures dance and play music in front of a church, suggesting belief, ritual, and collective celebration—paralleling the communal spirit often found in online spaces and cryptocurrency movements. Humor plays a central role in this context. In crypto, volatility itself becomes material for comedy. When prices rise and fall with unsettling speed, humor becomes a collective coping mechanism—a way to soften risk through irony and shared laughter. Unlike traditional finance, whose language and logic often exclude, digital markets are radically accessible. Anyone with internet access can "join the game," disrupting conventional hierarchies and inviting a more populist, irreverent form of participation. Born in internet-native communities like Reddit and Twitter, this humor is inseparable from meme culture. Saying "buy the dip" or posting a Pepe is both jest and ritual—a symbolic act of shared belief amid uncertainty. In this way, crypto memes function as the folk art of decentralized finance: visual emblems that turn instability into identity, speculation into story, and loss into laughter. Blending craft tradition with meme aesthetics, Barrows positions ceramic art within this digital vernacular, exploring how humor, volatility, and collective belief shape the emotional landscape of contemporary capitalism.