Dabloons

"Dabloons" is a surreal, roleplay-style meme and internet economy based around the fictional currency of "dabloons" (a playful misspelling of "doubloons"). The phenomenon combines whimsical storytelling with communal participation, featuring cats, medieval-style trading scenarios, and text-based adventures that form a loose narrative where users are gifted, taxed, or robbed of dabloons as they scroll through posts.

The meme originated on April 15, 2021, when Instagram account @catz.jpeg posted a photo of a tiny kitten paw with the caption "4 dabloons" (Know Your Meme, 2022). The term referenced the kitten's four extended toes, treating them as if they were coins. A week later, on April 23, 2021, the same Instagram account posted another dabloons cat meme, this time featuring a black cat with an outstretched paw, which became the more recognizable version of the meme (Know Your Meme, 2022).

The "4 Dabloons Cat" memes initially spread across various platforms throughout 2021. They appeared on Tumblr on April 28, 2021, earning roughly 51,000 notes, and a dedicated subreddit r/4dabloons was created on May 1, 2021 (Know Your Meme, 2022). The meme made its way to TikTok by mid-2021, with one of the first known uploads posted by TikToker jack.lcr on June 1, 2021, featuring the cat meme overlaid while he pretended to dig for dabloons on a beach.

However, the true viral explosion and economic simulation began in late October 2022 when TikTok creators started using the platform's photo slideshow feature to create interactive trading scenarios. The first known TikTok of this nature was posted on October 29, 2022, by workbysweezy, who offered a burger in exchange for four dabloons (Know Your Meme, 2022). The trend became increasingly viral in November 2022, particularly after a slideshow by blxxdyblxxd on November 19, 2022, which offered "a bowl of my fresh stew" to the imagined traveler and gained roughly 2.7 million plays (Know Your Meme, 2022).

What distinguished the 2022 revival was its evolution into a complex, collaborative roleplay experience. Users began creating elaborate fantasy scenarios where cats served as merchants offering items like soup, swords, or shelter in exchange for dabloons. The community operated on an honor-based system where participants tracked their fictional currency through spreadsheets, notes apps, and whiteboards, with no official tracking mechanism (The Verge, 2022).

The phenomenon rapidly expanded into a full economic simulation with its own inflation concerns, black markets, taxes, and governance structures. Videos featured "breaking news" reports about dabloon inflation, IRS-style tax collectors, thieves demanding dabloon payments, and even anti-capitalist movements seeking to destabilize the currency (The Verge, 2022). The hashtag #dabloons accumulated over 1.2 billion views on TikTok, with the trend primarily using a sped-up version of "Cold Island" from the game My Singing Monsters as background music.

The meme's appeal lay in its low-stakes escapism and collaborative worldbuilding. As The Verge noted, "TikTok users managed to create a full roleplay community based around a collapsing economy" within just 72 hours, complete with merchant accounts, government regulation attempts, and economic crisis simulations that eerily mirrored real-world financial concerns.

Although the trend's intense popularity declined by early 2023, dabloons remains a notable example of how internet communities can spontaneously create immersive, collaborative experiences using platform algorithms and collective imagination to build temporary but complex virtual worlds.