Does anybody else hate what shitcoins are doing to crypto's reputation?

I love the tech behind crypto and seeing what innovations come out of the space. But every time we go through a "meme coin phase" like we are right now where the front page of the subreddit is full of "pepe" and "baby pepe" and "elon pepe" and "shiba inu doge kermit pepe" it really changes the way I feel. And don't get me started on ridiculous NFT collections.

I get that we're still early and maybe it's just part of the "growing pains" that happen on the way to mass adoption, but I hate the way it makes us look. I hated how during the last bull run, whenever crypto made the news they always made sure to point out Doge to make crypto look like a joke. I hate how right now as we're in the middle of a big regulation battle in the US and abroad, there's an absolute avalanche of shitcoin rug pulls that do nothing but give regulators more ammunition for arguing that crypto should be heavily regulated.

I get it, it's funny to see a coin called GENSLR go up 15x while Gary Gensler is being grilled in a hearing, but at what point to we grow up and realize that maybe this shit needs to stop if we want this to go anywhere. And I know that it's two different "worlds" within crypto, the serious projects and the shit, but outsiders don't see it that way. To them, SHIB and BTC might as well be the same coin because they don't understand the intricacies of this space.

I know the majority of us are not buying into this shit (I hope) and we're just watching from the sidelines, but still, it doesn't help when we give it airtime. I hope one day these shitcoins die and we can put all our efforts towards innovating and improving to attract the masses rather than giving them reasons to stay away.

Anyway, rant over. Thanks for reading if you made it this far.

Edit: the irony of this post giving shitcoins more “airtime” is not lost on me.