Solana's "America is Back" Ad Mocks Gender Identity, Sparks Outrage

Well, solana was having a moment… for a moment. Talks about including the token in the crypto national stockpile, the slew of spot solana ETFs filings, and its recent fifth birthday had the coin buzzing again.

Solana had a moment… for a moment. The token has been in the news cycle recently with topics ranging an inclusion in the crypto national stockpile and a slew of spot solana ETFs filings to its recent fifth birthday.

Then it dropped what many are calling (at best) a very cringe and “idiotic” ad: “America is Back — Time to Accelerate.” It was met with an enormous backlash and it was quickly deleted. Though it took them a while to pull the plug.

Took them 9 hours to delete it.

Also all the major players in the Solana ecosystem suddenly delete their tweets promoting/supporting the ad and RT’d and liked takes about it being bad.

They approved this, supported it and celebrated it.

They rolled it back because it hurt… pic.twitter.com/kPMERDpTcn

The ad features a man named “America” in a therapy session after being diagnosed with “rational thinking syndrome.” 

However, critics pointed out that the 2-minute, 38-second ad is pro-Trump (notably, President Trump’s eponymous meme coin, $TRUMP, was launched on the solana blockchain), “anti-woke,” and makes fun of gender identity. A lot. The therapist says things like, “Why don’t we take this energy and channel it into doing something more productive, like come up with a new gender.”

“I want to invent technologies, not genders,” the America character says to the therapist. 

“Solana put out a politically divisive ad engaging in social identity issues around pronouns versus a focus on technology,” Two Prime Digital Assets CEO Alexander Blume said. “I think solana was aiming to be bold and align with tech-first values, but waded too deep into issues that distract from the offerings of their product.”

But others said that the ad was “brilliant marketing” as the ad went viral. After all, as the saying goes, “all publicity is good publicity.”

Hot Take: This new @solana ad is actually brilliant marketing.

Everyone crying that “crypto is supposed to be decentralized and apolitical” is missing the point entirely. The ad is designed to be cringy rage bait, and you’re all taking the bait—pushing its reach even further.

Solana is in a bind. Their native token price is garbage, and they need to generate hype in order to survive the bear market.

The ad is poking fun at an over-sensitive generation obsessed with pronouns, and it’s guaranteed to get a reaction. But that’s the point. Solana is a meme coin at heart, and they’re not afraid to have some fun with it.

If you ask me, this is a brilliant piece of guerrilla marketing. It’s going to get people talking about Solana, and that’s what matters most.

Solana is the sixth-largest crypto with $62.2 billion in market cap, but the price is down almost 40% since March 2024.