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HR to payroll, ADP helps

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businesses take on the next

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people. Just

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a quick warning, this episode talks

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about sex and sex work. It's

0:22

an economic show after all. This

0:26

is Planet Money from NPR.

0:31

On the morning of October 30th, 2024,

0:33

Mark Longo was doing what he

0:35

does most mornings. He was at his

0:37

animal sanctuary on a farm in

0:39

upstate New York, feeding these several hundred

0:41

horses and goats and pygmy donkeys

0:43

he's rescued, many of which he and

0:45

his wife have saved from the

0:47

slaughterhouse. So where were you when the

0:49

raid began? I was at the

0:52

end of the driveway in the beginning.

0:54

That is when Mark saw something

0:56

strange and menacing approaching the property, a

0:58

convoy of SUVs with New York

1:00

state government decals on the door. They're

1:02

from an agency called the DEC.

1:04

What does DEC stand for? Department of

1:06

Environmental Conservation. One of these Department

1:08

of Environmental Conservation officers gets out of

1:10

the car and tells Mark they'd

1:12

come to his farm in order to

1:14

take somebody into custody. And then

1:16

he produced a search warrant. But the

1:18

warrant wasn't for Mark or his

1:20

wife or any of the people on

1:22

the farm. The warrant was for

1:24

a squirrel named Peanut. And I remember

1:27

I got a call off to

1:29

my wife to say they're here, hide

1:31

the animals. And I tried to

1:33

buy myself some time to maybe figure

1:35

out what's going on here. What

1:37

was going on here was that Mark's

1:39

pet squirrel, Peanut, had become one

1:41

of the most famous squirrels in the

1:43

world. Thanks to social media, Peanut

1:45

had reached the status of animal influencer.

1:47

He had over a million followers

1:49

on Instagram and TikTok. But as the

1:51

DEC officers reminded Mark, it is

1:53

illegal in the state of New York

1:55

to keep wildlife as a pet

1:57

without a special permit, a permit that

2:00

Mark did not have. The DEC said they'd received

2:02

several complaints, and based on

2:04

dozens of extremely popular and

2:06

frankly quite adorable videos on

2:08

Peanut's social media page, the

2:10

officers had determined that both

2:12

Peanut and a relatively newly

2:14

acquired raccoon named Fred were

2:17

somewhere on the premises. Over the

2:19

next several hours, DEC officers made Mark

2:21

and his wife stand by as

2:23

they scoured the property in search

2:25

of Mark's celebrity squirrel. Until finally...

2:27

I was midway on the staircase, I

2:30

had three cops to my right, I

2:32

had three to my left, and one

2:34

of them yelled, I found peanut, I

2:36

found the squirrel. And I said, listen

2:38

guys, like, I'll take peanut, I apologize,

2:40

I'll put him in the car and

2:42

I'll drive him to Connecticut, you'll never

2:44

see him again. And the guy, I'll

2:47

put him in the car and I'll

2:49

drive him to Connecticut, you'll never

2:51

see him again. And the guy, to

2:53

my right. The DC officers did not

2:55

take a Fred, going into custody. And

2:57

after a few days of waiting and

3:00

wondering where they'd been taken, a local

3:02

news reporter calls Mark with some unsettling

3:04

news. Day three comes around and I get

3:06

a phone call from our local news station

3:08

from a gentleman who's in tears and he's

3:10

like, Mark, I don't know how to

3:13

tell you but they're gone. We

3:15

reached out to the New York

3:17

Department of Environmental Conservation, but they

3:19

didn't get back to us. According

3:21

to a statement from the department,

3:23

Peanut had bitten someone involved with

3:25

the investigation. Both of them had

3:28

been euthanized. And I remember just

3:30

like feeling nothing, not even anger,

3:32

like nothing, just sitting there as

3:34

a shell of a human being,

3:36

not really believing it because

3:38

what, this is a movie story, right?

3:40

This is just straight out of a,

3:42

you know, a shit film. And I

3:44

found out I remember hanging up the

3:46

phone and there was a couple of

3:49

volunteers there and I, they killed them

3:51

and they started to cry and I

3:53

walked away. Mark takes to social media

3:56

to tell the world what had happened

3:58

and pretty soon the story goes absolutely

4:00

viral. My phone

4:02

started buzzing TMZ is

4:04

calling you know every major news

4:06

outlets wants this story and that's

4:09

when it just went nuts and

4:11

then you you're hearing Elon Musk talk

4:13

about it and you're hearing you

4:15

know JD Vance and now Trump Jr.

4:17

and it turned into like a

4:19

political stunt. Our government will let in

4:21

six hundred thousand criminals across our

4:23

border but if someone has a pet

4:25

squirrel without a permit they go

4:27

in there and kill the squirrel. That's

4:29

the Democrat Party. But it also

4:31

turned into one of the biggest tragedies

4:33

in 2024. You know my squirrel

4:35

sits next to Harambe now and I

4:37

always tell people like they shouldn't

4:39

have been a story. Did you

4:41

ever imagine that peanut might find an

4:43

afterlife on the blockchain? I didn't even

4:45

know what the blockchain was and a

4:47

clue. But you would find out. I

4:50

would I would soon find out. Hello

4:55

and welcome to Planet Money I'm

4:57

Alexi Horowitz -Gazi. You can think of

4:59

the story of peanut the squirrel

5:01

as a kind of modern parable.

5:03

A tale about how a chance

5:05

encounter can change your life bring

5:07

you fame and fortune but also

5:10

how that attention can spin wildly

5:12

out of your control. Today on

5:14

the show how an anonymous baby

5:16

rodent rose to become a world

5:18

-famous animal influencer then a political

5:20

martyr and finally a piece of

5:22

cryptocurrency worth billions of dollars joining

5:24

the ranks of Dogecoin, Haktua and

5:26

president Donald Trump. And what all

5:28

of this says about the brave

5:30

new kind of terrifying attention economy

5:32

we are all living in. It's

5:34

one of the busiest tales we've

5:36

ever told. This

5:46

message comes from Capital One

5:48

with the Capital One Saver

5:50

card. Earn unlimited 3 % cashback

5:53

on dining and entertainment. Capital

5:55

One. What's in your wallet?

5:57

Terms apply. Details at CapitalOne.com.

6:00

This message comes from Charles Schwab.

6:02

When is the right time

6:04

to sell a stock? What

6:06

is the best way to

6:08

steer your portfolio through an unsteady

6:10

market? Financial decisions can be

6:12

tricky. Financial Decoder is an

6:14

original podcast from Charles Schwab. Host

6:17

Mark Riepe, head of the

6:19

Schwab Center for Financial Research,

6:21

offers practical solutions to help overcome

6:23

cognitive and emotional biases that

6:25

may affect our investing decisions.

6:27

Listen at Schwab.com/Financial Decoder or

6:29

wherever you get your podcasts. About

6:33

a month ago, freelance reporter Nick Nevis

6:35

and I took a trip to Peanuts

6:37

Freedom Farm in upstate New York. We're

6:39

there to visit Mark Longo and see

6:41

the tiny empire that his celebrity squirrels

6:43

fame helped build, the house that Peanut

6:46

built. And in order to learn how

6:48

Peanuts story began, Mark brought us to

6:50

a special room that he's turned into

6:52

a kind of memorial for his fallen

6:54

friend. Wow.

6:57

the inner

6:59

sanctum. This

7:02

is Peanuts room. The room

7:04

is filled with peanut memorabilia

7:06

sent in by fans around

7:08

the world. The walls and

7:10

ceilings are covered in newspaper

7:12

clippings and drawings. And under

7:14

glass, the piesta resistals, a

7:16

tiny squirrel sized like one

7:18

ounce cowboy hat. The most

7:20

iconic piece is if you're

7:22

and it is your cowboy

7:24

hat. Now, the story of

7:27

how this one squirrel rose from

7:29

an anonymous street rodent to a world

7:31

famous animal influencer begins seven years

7:33

ago on a sunny spring day in

7:35

midtown Manhattan. Mark Longo

7:37

was 27 back then, working as

7:39

a building inspector on construction sites

7:41

around New York when he comes

7:43

across the body of a squirrel that had

7:45

just been flattened by a car. And

7:48

when he looks a little closer, he sees

7:50

there's a tiny infant squirrel next to

7:52

her. And now I'm seeing this baby squirrel

7:54

walk in the middle the street and

7:56

he's looking at me. He's only got one

7:58

eye open. and then he just

8:00

made one hop and was down on my

8:02

pound leg and just started to crawl up

8:04

my leg. So as he got closer, I

8:06

kind of like brought him up into my

8:08

hands and I put him in my hoodie.

8:10

Mark is a lifelong animal lover, doesn't want

8:12

the squirrel to die, so he brings it

8:14

home and starts trying to figure out how

8:16

to nurse it back to health. The little

8:18

guy seems to love peanuts at first, so

8:21

that is what Mark names him. But pretty

8:23

soon, peanut reveals himself to be a pretty

8:25

picky eater. The only way I can get

8:27

him to eat was through, you know, mashing

8:29

up an avocado in the powder and

8:31

he would just stuff his face

8:33

into it. Classic millennial. Yeah, literally

8:35

like avocado toast. It was 100 %

8:37

his menu the whole time. And

8:39

as peanut begins to grow, Mark starts to fold

8:41

him more and more into his daily life. You

8:43

know, I played video games, he's in my pocket.

8:45

You know, I went to go to CVS, he's

8:47

in my hoodie. You know, I remember bringing him

8:49

to PetSmart and put him in one of the

8:51

hamster balls and he's running down the hall and

8:53

the one was like, oh, what do you have

8:55

in there? A gerbil? And I was like, yeah,

8:57

sure, it's a gerbil. You know, there's peanut running

8:59

around this little baby squirrel. You know, and then

9:01

we just started to, you know, take photos and

9:03

videos of him. Mark decides

9:05

to start an Instagram account for peanut.

9:07

He starts posting videos of peanut

9:10

wearing little costumes like that cowboy hat

9:12

or a miniature ranger's jersey. And

9:14

a large of the time it was absolute gold.

9:16

Peanut befriends Mark's cat, which people

9:19

seem to love, and slowly

9:21

but surely, peanut social media following

9:23

starts to grow. When did

9:25

you first get the sense you might have

9:27

a viral social media star on your hands?

9:29

It kind of just happened. Mark

9:31

says there was one video in particular

9:33

that seemed to light up the internet,

9:35

one where peanut jumps from the top

9:37

of the fridge and into Mark's hand

9:40

in slow motion. And this is

9:42

where the story of peanut the squirrel

9:44

meets the modern attention economy and

9:46

the central question it raises. When you

9:48

have the world's attention, how do

9:50

you actually turn that into money? For

9:53

a long time, attention, this scarce

9:55

resource was monopolized by

9:57

newspapers and TV or radio

9:59

companies who used the

10:01

power of celebrity or news or scandal to draw

10:03

in as many eyeballs as possible in order to

10:06

sell ads. But over the last couple

10:08

decades, social media platforms have tweaked

10:10

that model by essentially allowing anyone

10:12

to be a miniature broadcaster. Now

10:15

someone or some creature can go

10:17

from total anonymity to worldwide fame

10:20

in just a couple hours. Which

10:22

is exactly what happened when Peanut's

10:24

first viral video popped off. After

10:27

that, a popular animal video website

10:29

called The Dodo posted a video

10:32

featuring Mark and Peanut. Then the

10:34

messages started rolling in. Mark started

10:36

getting calls from radio stations and TV

10:38

shows from around the world. We went

10:40

on British TV and they deemed him

10:43

the world's most famous squirrel, and that's

10:45

when his TikTok blew up, and then

10:47

that's where, you know, a hundred thousand

10:49

followers became a few million, and we

10:51

just kind of rolled with the wave.

10:53

Mark says Peanut warmed to this newfound

10:55

limelight right away. He was just

10:57

a preter naturally charismatic mini fauna, especially

11:00

when the cameras were rolling. I fist

11:02

pumped that scroll so many damn times

11:04

because he just nailed these interviews like

11:07

it was something that he was

11:09

meant to do. Peanut knew how to

11:11

turn on the charm. Did he ever?

11:13

You know, especially with ladies, like he

11:16

was a ladies man. Mark says his

11:18

male friends would regularly post photos

11:20

with peanut on their online dating profiles

11:22

to great success. And for Mark

11:25

himself... Peanut turned out to be

11:27

the ultimate wingman. I met my wife

11:29

because of peanut. No one! My wife

11:31

DMed me on Peanut's page. And that's

11:33

how we met. She ended up calling

11:35

me wearing a flying scroll costume. Wow.

11:38

And I was like, I think I'm in

11:40

love with you. Now, when it came to

11:42

monetizing all this newfound attention, Mark

11:44

says he never set out to

11:46

make money off his tiny furry

11:49

best friend. But as Peanut's profile

11:51

grew in the attention economy of

11:53

social media, all sorts of strange

11:55

new opportunities started to present themselves.

11:58

Mostly not related. investing

12:00

app called Acorns reached out expressing

12:02

some interest. Mark and Peanut did

12:05

some videos for a peanut butter

12:07

company. Also a website called nuts.com.

12:09

Sorry, what is nuts.com? So nuts.com

12:11

is just a website where you

12:14

can buy a variety of different

12:16

nuts. You know, so definitely it

12:18

worked out perfectly. Now Mark says

12:20

there's just a natural limit to

12:22

the kind of brand opportunities that

12:24

will flow to a squirrel. Peanut

12:27

wasn't exactly Kim Kardashian. But,

12:29

but, but. Mark and Peanut had gotten

12:31

their first taste of the strange ways

12:33

you can turn attention into money on

12:35

the internet. Their first steps down the

12:38

squirrel hole. And then one day, Mark

12:40

says, someone from the website Cameo

12:42

reached out to get Peanut on

12:44

the platform. And this is the

12:47

second big moment where Peanut's story

12:49

intersects with the modern attention economy

12:51

and how it's changed over the

12:54

past decade. For listeners who missed

12:56

Cameo, this is a site that

12:58

blew up during COVID lockdowns that

13:00

allowed internet celebrities to monetize their

13:03

very particular level of fame by

13:05

offering these like customized little shout-out

13:07

videos to paying customers. Like you

13:10

could get your favorite side

13:12

character from Seinfeld to wish your

13:14

aunt Vovey, a happy birthday! It's the

13:16

soup Nazi from Seinfeld, remember me?

13:18

No soup for you! Hey, what's up,

13:20

Peeps? It's Sean Paul. I'm Lindsay Lohan.

13:22

Hi, everybody. Stormy Daniels here. Hey,

13:25

Ida. It's Sean Spicer. Hey, Elissa,

13:27

John Lovett's here. I want to

13:29

congratulate you on graduating college. Cameo

13:31

was an innovation on the attention

13:33

economy model because before, while creators

13:35

had been able to make money

13:38

through brand deals, it was the

13:40

platforms like Instagram and YouTube that

13:42

were making the lion's share of

13:44

the profits from all this attention

13:46

by using user data to sell

13:48

targeted ads. Cameo offered a way

13:50

for niche celebrities to sell themselves

13:52

directly to individual consumers. Cameo would take

13:54

a cut, 25 to 30 percent, and

13:56

in exchange, they would help their clients

13:59

monetize their fame. One big part of

14:01

that puzzle was helping these microcelebrities to

14:03

figure out the right price to

14:05

charge. Early on, Cameo suggested

14:07

people set their prices by calculating how

14:09

much they are usually paid per

14:11

minute based on their salary. Like if

14:13

you are an NBA star making

14:15

$25 million a year, you should be

14:17

making about $200 a minute, which

14:19

could help you set your rate for

14:22

a 30 -second birthday video. Peanut,

14:24

of course, did not have an annual salary

14:26

that Mark could use to set a

14:28

rate. They kind of arbitrarily picked like 30

14:30

bucks a video, but Mark says it

14:32

wasn't about the money. They were just happy

14:34

to be there. The coolest part about

14:36

it was they were classifying peanut as

14:38

the same as like a lot of

14:41

the celebrities that you see in movies.

14:43

Mark would dress peanut up in costume

14:45

and have him hold a little post -it

14:47

note with whatever message had been ordered.

14:49

They did birthdays, valentines, even a proposal.

14:52

With Cameo, they had taken their second

14:54

step down the squirrel hole of

14:56

the attention economy. But Mark says

14:58

peanut only ended up selling a few cameos

15:00

a month. Again, it's just hard for

15:02

a rodent to compete with the real housewives

15:04

of Salt Lake City. The bigger

15:06

acorn jackpot was still to

15:08

come. And it was actually Mark

15:10

who had become the star of this next

15:12

chapter. He says it wasn't too long before

15:15

he started to notice that a lot of

15:17

the attention they were getting was directed toward

15:19

him. Mark is a buff

15:21

guy, works out a lot. And he

15:23

explains he'd often wear these tight fitting gym

15:25

pants and peanuts videos. The

15:28

Internet did what the Internet does

15:30

best and sexualized every ounce of

15:32

that page. You know, and it's

15:34

like, oh, you hike up your

15:36

pants. I like where my pants

15:38

are. Again, it's just you're turning

15:40

this story into something it's not. They're accusing

15:42

you of like thirst trapping? Oh, 100%. And I'm

15:44

like, guys, you can go on any social media

15:46

platform and literally see people naked. If you're going

15:48

to put me in the realm of thirst traps

15:50

with a squirrel, I'm fully clothed, not showing off

15:52

anything. And I'm just jumping around with a squirrel.

15:54

Get your head out of the gutter. Enjoy the

15:56

squirrel. Mark

16:00

told us he soon got a message

16:02

from a kind of surprising source, a

16:04

manager representing performers on only fans. And

16:07

this was Mark and Peanut's third step

16:09

down the squirrel hole of the rapidly

16:11

changing attention economy. Only fans for the

16:13

uninitiated is a video streaming platform where

16:16

content creators make customized content for paying

16:18

subscribers. Mostly it's homemade adult content. It's

16:20

kind of like the Etsy of porn.

16:23

Only fans customers can subscribe to a

16:25

performer's channel for a flat fee and

16:27

then pay for premium perks like private

16:29

video conversations with their favorite performer or

16:32

access to increasingly intimate photos and videos.

16:34

Like Cameo, the idea behind the Only

16:36

Fans model was to allow performers to

16:38

sell their content directly to fans. Instead

16:41

of selling targeted ads, Only Fans takes

16:43

a 20% commission of what their customers

16:45

spend and sends the rest to the

16:48

performers. For some creators, it's made digital

16:50

sex work highly lucrative. And that's why

16:52

the Only Fans Talent Manager first reached

16:54

out to Mark. They were like, listen,

16:57

like, you might not understand your value

16:59

on social media, but we do. And...

17:01

You come off as a very innocent

17:03

man with an animal. Could you imagine

17:06

if we were to kind of shift

17:08

from A to Z and put you

17:10

on only fans what you can make?

17:12

Successful only fans performers can make six

17:15

or even seven figure salaries more than

17:17

Mark was making as a building site

17:19

inspector. The manager told Mark if he

17:22

could convert enough peanut fans from Instagram

17:24

into paying customers on only fans, they

17:26

could make a killing. So Mark went

17:28

to his wife to talk about the

17:31

idea of them starting their own page,

17:33

making adult content together, and she was

17:35

open to it. Then he spoke with

17:37

his parents and with his bosses at

17:40

work to see if they would raise

17:42

any major objections, and none of them

17:44

did. So I kind of just sat

17:47

down and was like, you know what,

17:49

let's give this a shot. If this

17:51

turns out to be something, then here's

17:53

the start of a new chapter of

17:56

our life. If it gets shot down

17:58

or it doesn't work, I'm naked on

18:00

the internet. Everybody's got the same parts,

18:02

like, so what? And if you are

18:05

wondering whether Peanut himself ever appeared on

18:07

Mark's only fan's page, Mark says the

18:09

answer is an emphatic no. Peanut was

18:11

never a part of any adult content.

18:14

Apparently, when you are building a social

18:16

media empire consisting of both wholesome animal

18:18

content and bespoke homemade pornography, Just like

18:21

the Ghostbusters warned, it is essential that

18:23

you never cross the streams. When did

18:25

you get a sense that Only Fans

18:27

might actually be a much more lucrative

18:30

way of harnessing the attention of the

18:32

internet? Within minutes. Literally, we launched it

18:34

at like 10 o'clock in the morning

18:36

and within the first 20 minutes, I

18:39

had a couple thousand subscribers. Because I

18:41

already had kind of that group of

18:43

people that were just waiting for me

18:46

to open that door. And when I

18:48

did, it just, everybody just flowed in.

18:50

We call that pent up demand. Yes,

18:52

and it very much was. And when

18:55

it came to Mark's Only Fan's business

18:57

strategy, my thing was like I kept

18:59

my subscription price low. You could come

19:01

and see kind of highlights, but also

19:04

you could incentivize people to buy the

19:06

more, you know, x-rated stuff kind of

19:08

pick from my so-called menu of what

19:10

you liked. Like. for instance, like put

19:13

a cowboy hat or put my construction

19:15

hat on, you know, do a strip

19:17

teas or whatever you want, you know,

19:20

I'm willing to sell my underwear. So

19:22

literally anything that I was putting out

19:24

turned to gold. How much did the

19:26

underwear go for? I think it was

19:29

like between $50 and $200, but it

19:31

ranged. Like if you wanted me to

19:33

wear them three times at the gym,

19:35

you know, it was a little bit

19:38

more. Pretty soon, Mark says, he and

19:40

his wife are bringing in over $10,000

19:42

a month through their only fans page,

19:45

thanks to this enthusiastic group of Peanut's

19:47

followers. It was enough money that they

19:49

started to think about how they might

19:51

build something bigger and longer lasting out

19:54

of these eclectic streams of attention. They

19:56

knew that Peanut wouldn't be around forever.

19:58

Eastern gray squirrels can live... up to

20:00

20 years in captivity, though their average

20:03

lifespan is usually only around six. And

20:05

they also knew they couldn't make adult

20:07

content on only fans forever. And

20:09

that is when they went in on

20:11

the idea of creating an animal sanctuary.

20:13

Peanut had been a rescue animal. Mark

20:16

was like, what better way could there

20:18

be to turn Peanut's brand into a

20:20

lasting legacy and source of income? They

20:22

thought that if they could run it

20:24

as a non-profit, they'd be able to

20:26

take donations and use Peanut's massive social

20:28

media following to build a community who

20:30

could help sustain it years into the

20:32

future. Peanut has millions of hours. And

20:35

we just went, okay, if we can

20:37

get a dollar, we can get $5, we can

20:39

get $20 from a fraction of those people.

20:41

We already have the following. We have the

20:43

count of the foundation of what we need

20:45

here. By the spring of 2023, Mark

20:47

and his wife finally put together enough

20:49

money to realize their dream. They bought

20:52

a large plot of land in rural

20:54

upstate New York and opened up their

20:56

animal sanctuary, which they named Peanuts Freedom

20:58

Farm. Around the same time, Mark

21:00

quit his job as a building

21:03

site inspector to dedicate himself full-time

21:05

to the farm. He and his

21:07

wife started buying old and injured

21:09

horses who'd been neglected or were

21:12

destined for the slaughterhouse. They got

21:14

goats, donkeys, alpacas, eventually over 300

21:16

animals in total, sometimes costing over

21:18

$30,000 a month. And in order

21:21

to feed this growing menagerie, Mark's

21:23

life became this bizarre encapsulation of

21:25

the modern tension economy. On a typical

21:27

day last year, before everything changed, Mark

21:29

would wake up at 5 a.m. to

21:32

feed the animals. Then he might take

21:34

a shower while making a sexually explicit

21:36

video for a paying stranger on only

21:38

fans. Then he might run peanut through

21:41

some of their classic bits to make

21:43

content for the Instagram account. Followed by

21:45

a video for the animal sanctuary's non-profit

21:47

donors to show them that the rescue

21:49

donkeys were actually getting the care they

21:52

needed. It was this kind of miraculous,

21:54

precarious, precarious, social media Roob Goldberg machine.

21:56

until that is that fateful day

21:58

last fall when convoy of SUVs

22:01

from the New York State Department of

22:03

Environmental Conservation pulled into Mark's driveway. Internet

22:05

sensation Peanut the squirrel has been killed.

22:07

DC officers seized that animal. It was

22:09

found injured on the streets of Manhattan

22:11

seven years ago. He got to wonder

22:13

what is going on in America. Let's

22:16

hear from the aftermath of Peanut's death,

22:18

Mark was devastated and confused. On the

22:20

one hand, he just lost his best

22:22

friend and business partner, and on the

22:24

other, he'd never been so squarely at

22:26

the center of the internet's attention in

22:28

his life. All of a sudden, he

22:31

had politicians and celebrities and strangers from

22:33

all around the world reaching out to

22:35

offer their outrage and condolences. You know,

22:37

I had the owner of the Yankees

22:39

reach out. I have Quentin Tarantino on

22:41

my dams. I have my favorite bands

22:43

reaching out and what can we do

22:46

to help? At the same time. Mark

22:48

was acutely aware that the charismatic squirrel

22:50

whose fame had been helping him make

22:52

money and feed hundreds of mouths was

22:54

now gone. The stream of new squirrel

22:56

content that had drawn in so many

22:58

eyeballs and opportunities over the years had

23:01

been cut off, and the magnitude of

23:03

his expenses was starting to dawn on

23:05

him. How the hell are we going

23:07

to continue this nonprofit without our star

23:09

and our golden squirrel? Those are the

23:11

things that are going through. I'm like,

23:13

wow, you know, Instagram's going to go

23:16

down, TikTok, I'm not going to be

23:18

able to build this stuff. You know,

23:20

where am I going to get the

23:22

funding for these animals? I already have

23:24

the animals. What are going to happen

23:26

to the animals if I can't feed

23:29

them? This place is going to ultimately

23:31

shut down. Mark was in a kind

23:33

of anxiety spiral, thinking about where all

23:35

of where all of this might lead.

23:37

that I'm going to be just reamed

23:39

in the news and in PR, like

23:41

Mark, you know, failed at his non-profit,

23:44

and you know, all of this is

23:46

now transpiring, and I'm like, I got

23:48

to figure this out. Mark and his

23:50

wife started by creating an emergency go-fund

23:52

me page, while Peanut's death was still

23:54

at the top of the news cycle.

23:56

They also began a legal campaign to

23:59

try to press the government for answers

24:01

about what had happened to Peanut. time

24:03

that Mark was made aware of the

24:05

latest and most lucrative new evolution of

24:07

the modern attention economy, something that would

24:09

present the possibility of previously unimaginable wealth,

24:11

but also the peril of losing control

24:14

of his story all together. How did

24:16

you first find out that Peanut had

24:18

been turned into some form of cryptocurrency?

24:20

I'm sitting in the gym working out.

24:22

I get a phone call from my

24:24

lawyer. And she's... Just instantly, Mark, what is

24:26

this peanut coin on crypto? It's at

24:28

$2 billion. Are you involved in this? And

24:31

I was like, I have no idea what

24:33

you're talking about. It took a while

24:35

for Mark to piece this together, but

24:37

it appeared that just hours after the

24:39

news of Peanut's death started going viral.

24:41

Some anonymous person or group online had

24:44

turned Peanut into a meme coin. A kind

24:46

of joke cryptocurrency. The

24:48

meme coin featured an iconic image

24:50

of Mark holding Peanut with a cowboy

24:52

hat, and it had the taker sign

24:55

P-N-U-T. It turned out that there was

24:57

an enormous new meme coin

24:59

market fueled almost literally on

25:01

attention, a kind of new

25:03

casino where anonymous hordes gamble

25:05

on viral memes in hopes

25:07

of making outrageous sums of

25:09

money. Mark knew barely anything about

25:11

crypto at this point. But he understood

25:13

there were now thousands of total strangers

25:15

cumulatively making millions of dollars off of

25:17

Peanut's good name on the internet, and

25:20

none of those profits were flowing to

25:22

Mark or the animal sanctuary. And I'm

25:24

like, you're kidding me? Like it's, you

25:26

know, we're not talking about like you

25:28

made a thousand bucks. Like you made

25:30

a hundred million dollars off of this

25:33

story, and you didn't include me and

25:35

my family? After the break, Mark Longo

25:37

takes his final step into the deepest,

25:39

darkest, darkest recesses of the squirrel

25:41

hole. He dives headfirst into

25:43

the mien coin casino to

25:46

try to find financial justice

25:48

for Peanut. This message

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27:22

so for the first seven years

27:24

of his life with Peanut the

27:26

Squirrel, Mark Longo had managed to

27:28

keep control over the growing streams

27:30

of attention they generated together, like

27:32

on Instagram or TikTok or OnlyFans.

27:34

But in the wake of Peanut's

27:36

death in the world of meme

27:38

coins, Mark discovered yet little or

27:41

no control. Peanut's viral popularity had

27:43

been leveraged by a group of

27:45

anonymous crypto insiders into ludicrous amounts

27:47

of money, tens of millions of

27:49

dollars. Mark couldn't figure out exactly

27:51

who was behind the peanut coin,

27:53

and neither could we. The people

27:55

who launched these meme coins are

27:57

generally very careful not to reveal

28:00

their identities, but from what Mark

28:02

- could see, these people were presenting the coin as if he

28:04

had helped make it. And he felt like the story was being

28:06

taken away from him. Because you go on their

28:08

website, the first photo on there is me

28:10

with peanut. People were representing this coin as

28:12

if it was my. So I can't even

28:14

tell you the amount of thousands of people

28:16

reached out, like, bought your peanut coin, made

28:18

money off your peanut coin, hope you're doing

28:20

well. I hope all this works out for

28:23

the farm. And I'm like, haven't a clue what

28:25

you're talking about. Over the next month,

28:27

Mark would get a lot more than a

28:29

clue. He started to weigh deeper and deeper

28:31

into the world of meme coins in

28:33

hopes of getting a cut of these

28:35

massive profits they were making. And he

28:38

discovered that not only had people made

28:40

meme coins out of peanut, but several

28:42

of his other farm animals. At first

28:44

he says, some of the people who

28:46

seemed to be behind these coins did

28:48

offer to make donations to the animal

28:51

sanctuary. All they asked was that Mark

28:53

basically promote their coins on social media.

28:55

Once he did, they sent him donations,

28:57

some in the form of meme coins.

28:59

But Mark says, soon after, some of

29:01

those traders figured out a way to

29:03

take back their donations. And partly in

29:05

retaliation for that, and partly because he

29:07

needed real money to feed his animals,

29:09

Mark sold off a big chunk of

29:11

the coins he'd been given. Doing that

29:13

caused the price of that coin to

29:15

collapse at the expense of everyone's still

29:17

holding it. And Mark's reputation in

29:19

the crypto world took a dramatic

29:21

turn south. People started calling him

29:23

a scammer. And that's when it

29:26

started to flip, like, oh, we

29:28

donated money to Mark and Coins. He

29:30

sold the coins. He ruined the chart.

29:32

Still, Mark was not deterred. Fast sums

29:35

of money seemed tantalizingly close, maybe within

29:37

reach. If he won big on a

29:39

meme coin, he could stop doing only

29:41

fans. You would never have to worry

29:44

about the money to feed his 300

29:46

plus rescue animals. So he says, when

29:48

some acquaintances offered to help him create

29:51

a competing peanut meme coin that they

29:53

could market as the one true peanut-based

29:55

cryptocurrency, he took them up on their offer.

29:57

He wanted to fight meme coin with meme coin.

29:59

To get a sense of what this

30:02

all looked like to the people inside

30:04

the Memcoin casino, we talked to a

30:06

guy named Wilk Itzen. In the real

30:08

world, I am a real estate agent,

30:10

but in the Memcoin world, I identify

30:13

as roomy. You're numb to crypto? Yeah,

30:15

my numb to crypto. Rumi says that

30:17

finding the most profitable meme coins is

30:19

all about keeping track of what's popping

30:22

off in the zeitgeist. He keeps news

30:24

notifications on for all sorts of outlets,

30:26

but he says that sensational stories from

30:28

the right wing of the political

30:31

spectrum often get the most traction.

30:33

Another big thing he watches for are

30:35

animal coins. From the original meme coin,

30:37

doge coin, to a recent one based

30:40

off of moodang the pygmy hippo, animal

30:42

coins have proven to be a highly

30:44

lucrative asset class. So when Rumi heard

30:47

that a famous squirrel had become a

30:49

right-wing political martyr and that he'd been

30:51

turned into a meme coin, it got

30:54

his attention. And at what point

30:56

did you decide to get in on the

30:58

peanut coin? I got in pretty

31:00

much when it was created and

31:02

I threw some dust at it. By

31:05

dust, Rumi is speaking crypto for

31:07

money. He says he bought $100 worth

31:09

of peanut when it had a

31:11

market cap of a few hundred thousand

31:13

dollars. And it was going so fast,

31:15

it took me like three attempts to

31:18

buy into it. But Rumi says he

31:20

got nervous pretty quickly. He decided to

31:22

hop off the peanut rocket after making

31:25

only a few thousand dollars. And then

31:27

he just kind of moved on, watched

31:29

the peanut coin situation from afar. When

31:31

Elon Musk started tweeting about peanut, the

31:34

price of the coin skyrocketed, and eventually

31:36

reached a market cap of over two

31:38

billion dollars. Rimi says the next two

31:40

heard about Peanut was when Mark Longo

31:43

took to social media to start talking

31:45

up his competing meme coin, the one

31:47

he called Justice. And listening to Mark's

31:49

pitch, Rimi says, it was clear that

31:52

Mark was getting something fundamentally wrong about

31:54

how the meme coin world works. Mark

31:56

seemed to be making a sort of

31:59

earnest appeal about how switching peanut meme

32:01

coins would somehow bring justice for

32:03

his untimely death. But, Rumi says,

32:05

Mark was speaking largely to people

32:07

who were just looking to profit.

32:09

Most of these people are just

32:11

getting involved in these projects to

32:13

make money for the dream of

32:15

making generational wealth and walking away

32:17

from your nine to five and

32:19

never looking back, right? It's the

32:21

world's biggest Ponzi scheme. Let's not

32:23

get it twisted. Because whoever buys

32:25

first makes money off or whoever

32:27

buys next, right? And it goes

32:29

up and up and up from

32:31

there. Mrs. He didn't really buy

32:33

Mark's altruistic pitch for his new

32:35

coin. And the other thing Mark

32:37

was getting wrong was his timing.

32:39

Mark was hawking his justice coin

32:41

weeks after Peanut's death. The viral

32:43

curve around the story had already

32:45

started to flatten. The energy of

32:47

it was already used up. And

32:50

that's the thing. It's all an

32:52

attention economy. People moved on. And

32:54

it's sad, but that works for

32:56

everything that creates an uproar. It

32:58

lasts for a week, two weeks,

33:00

and people are already in peanut.

33:02

They're not going to go to

33:04

justice, right? Peanut was the thing

33:06

that represented justice for peanut. Nevertheless,

33:08

Mark persisted. The justice meme coin

33:10

fell apart after Mark and his

33:12

partners started accusing each other of

33:14

fraudulent behavior. So Mark actually launched

33:16

another peanut coin. But so far,

33:18

that one too has failed to

33:20

gain traction. It's currently stalled at

33:22

a market cap of just a

33:24

few hundred thousand dollars. In the

33:26

meantime, Mark has decided that if

33:28

he can't join the crypto insiders

33:30

that successfully made money off these

33:32

peanut-based meme coins, he's going to

33:34

try to beat them, legally, to

33:36

go after them for using his

33:38

intellectual property to create and promote

33:40

their coins. You go on the

33:42

website, it literally has a photo

33:44

of me. Literally had my sanctuary.

33:46

literally had my photos and they

33:48

used this to base their whole

33:50

project on my story so I

33:52

I was like, you have two

33:54

options, either include me, or I

33:56

sue you guys to get everything

33:59

taken back. And they were just

34:01

like, fuck you, you have no

34:03

power here, we made Peanut's story,

34:05

we did this. And I'm like,

34:07

your crypto game didn't do shit

34:09

to my story, the story was

34:11

already here and you're using it

34:13

to make money. Because the people

34:15

behind the peanut coin are anonymous,

34:17

Mark isn't able to sue them

34:19

directly. So instead, Mark's lawyers have

34:21

filed cease and desist letters against

34:23

the major crypto exchanges where the

34:25

biggest peanut meme coins are listed.

34:27

He alleges they violated his copyright

34:29

by using his photos and that

34:31

they violate a trademark that he's

34:33

recently applied for. The strategy is

34:35

still something of a long shot.

34:37

But there have been some successful

34:39

court cases arguing for ownership of

34:41

memes. And if he were to

34:43

successfully get some of these coins

34:45

delisted, he could have major implications

34:47

for the whole world of meme

34:49

coins. As we wrapped up our

34:51

interview with Mark surrounded by peanut

34:53

memorabilia inside the squirrels old room,

34:55

it's clear that Mark himself is

34:57

still just trying to emotionally process

34:59

everything that's happened over the last

35:01

year. I never thought it'd be

35:03

somebody who has to... fight trauma.

35:06

Like I'm about, I cried before

35:08

you guys came here, I don't

35:10

have enough time in my day

35:12

to focus on grieving. So, you

35:14

know, I have to focus that

35:16

anger into motivation and positivity because

35:18

if I don't, I'm going to

35:20

just mentally break down myself. So

35:22

the house that Peanut built feels

35:24

a bit like a straw house

35:26

at the moment? Absolutely. You know,

35:28

we're hanging on by a thread.

35:30

Mark says that he's learned anything

35:32

from his journey into the depths

35:34

of the attention economy. It's how

35:36

fickle and impermanent the world's attention

35:38

really is. So he's doing what

35:40

he can to keep Peanut's story

35:42

alive. It's a big part of

35:44

why he invited Planet Money into

35:46

Peanut's inner sanctum. It's why he's

35:48

entertaining proposals to turn his story

35:50

into a documentary for places like

35:52

Hulu and Netflix. Maybe the next

35:54

Tiger King will be about him

35:56

and Peanut. In the meantime, Mark

35:58

says that he... He and his

36:00

family are making ends mean. They're

36:02

covering their costs through a mixture

36:04

of donations and only fans' revenue.

36:06

He's still holding out hope that

36:08

the anonymous traders behind the most

36:10

popular peanut-based cryptocurrencies will eventually cut

36:12

him in on the proceeds. And

36:15

he hopes that one day, he

36:17

won't have to keep making only

36:19

fans' content to keep his rescue

36:21

animals alive. If

36:29

you want to know why

36:31

everyone seems to be releasing

36:34

meme coins these days, from

36:36

literal children to C-list celebrities

36:38

to the President of the

36:40

United States, check out our

36:42

recent episode, The Memcoin Casino.

36:44

It's the story of how

36:46

meme coins went from a

36:48

one-off joke to a massive

36:50

speculative frenzy worth tens of

36:52

billions of dollars. This episode

36:54

was produced by Jane Sneed.

36:56

It was edited by Jess

36:58

Jang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez,

37:00

and engineered by Jimmy Keeley.

37:02

Alex Goldmark is our executive

37:05

producer. Special thanks to Jennifer

37:07

Jenkins, Yecia Yadav, Max Buick,

37:09

and Yulia Guceva. I'm Nick

37:11

Nevis. I'm Alexi Horowitz-Gazzy. This

37:13

is NPR. Thanks for listening.

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