The “Haha Money Printer Go Brr” is a popular internet meme that surfaced in 2020, depicting a younger man yelling at an older man from the Federal Reserve for printing money to combat an economic downturn.

How did the “Money “Printer Go Brrr” meme come about?

In early 2020, a Twitter user posted the meme image generally representing the younger generation pleading to the older generation at the Federal Reserve not to “artificially inflate the economy by creating money to fight an economic crisis”. The older generation typically replied with, “haha, money printer go brrrr”. The image quickly garnered over 16,000 likes and 3,000 + retweets within a very short time.

The image was created in response to the Federal Reserve’s announcement to increase the stock market’s liquidity by injecting $1.5 trillion into the economy in response to the COVID -19 pandemic, a process economically known as Quantitative easing. Since then, endless variations of the meme have surfaced over numerous social platforms, predominantly on Reddit and Twitter.

The original Twitter meme image also shows the younger guy wearing a bow tie in the colours of the anarcho-capitalist flag (ancap). Anarcho-capitalists wish to abolish the government in favour of privatization of all state services in a system that heavily favours the rich and leaves poor people with little to no safeguards.

The meme is also championed in the crypto community because cryptocurrencies fundamentally exist to challenge the existing financial systems.