South Park, an animated television series that frequently covers current events with a comic spin, depicted Bitcoin as a common payment method in the not-too-distant future.
“It’s the future — we’ve all decided centralized banking is rigged so we trust more in fly-by-night Ponzi schemes,” said the motel clerk accepting Bitcoin as payment.
South Park featured one of the show’s characters, Stan Marsh, paying for a stay in a cheap motel using Bitcoin around 40 years from now, when the epidemic is humorously about to stop for good, in the “Post COVID” episode of its 24th season, which aired Thursday.
The fictitious Super 12 Motel Plus exclusively accepts “Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies,” with Marsh paying using a plastic card with the BTC emblem and a QR code in a future when practically all brand names include “plus” and “maxx.”
“It’s the future,” the motel clerk said, “we’ve all agreed centralized banking is rigged, therefore we rely more on fly-by-night Ponzi schemes.”
Many in the crypto community are familiar with South Park’s criticism of the US government’s and banks’ responses to the 2008 financial crisis, which was popularized by the phrase “aaaand… it’s gone,” which refers to Marsh losing money soon after putting it at a bank. Autonomous automobiles, holographic digital assistants, and stand-up comedy becoming a ghost of itself amid “woke” culture are among the other future predictions in the most recent episode.
Though mainstream media today frequently mentions cryptocurrencies and blockchain, this was not always the case. The Good Wife was the first TV show to employ BTC in January 2012, but since then, several shows have used the growing technology and financial instrument for both humour and drama.
This year, James Spader’s character on The Blacklist claimed to know Satoshi‘s actual name, while The Simpsons used an animated stock ticker feed to portray the BTC price rising to infinity.
Bitcoin‘s inclusion in the popular cartoon series comes as the crypto asset’s price has remained mostly unchanged for more than a week, hovering around $60,000
