No media this week, just a lengthy opinion article.
So you can pass on this article if you came for pictures and cats and stuff.
Before I start, please go check out what we’re doing at Iterative. First airdrop went out, and our website is up. I’m really proud of what we’ve done so far, and everything that’s coming up next. Click the link, RT the tweet, and go check out the thing we’ve created. I promise you it’s worth your time.
For most artists (ie. not pure degens), the last few weeks have been really fucking confusing over in the world of digital art, NFTs and crypto. I think the culture around it all has officially hit another milestone, specifically as being based around the usability of the technology.
For once, the tools are actually really accessible; anybody can deploy a smart contract with minimal effort, the same way anybody could suddenly spin up a website with services like SquareSpace, Wix, etc, back in the late aughts. We thought Drupal, Wordpress, and other CMSs were going to be the way on web2. Yeah no, most mainstream consumers need something that doesn’t involve having to spend money on a back and forth with developers, or -gasp- designers and artists.
And so, with crypto and NFTs, the introduction of services like Manifold has been absolutely pivotal for artists wanting to mint on their own contracts, instead of on the not-so-decentralized contracts that services like OpenSea continue to offer. Now, this has gone a few steps further, and people can just easily deploy shit-ass shitcoin contracts, and make bank preying on those that are desperate to get rich quick, by pushing extreme hype and fomo.
I’m not going to get into pepecoins or ben.eth scams though. I’m not even going to get into what the fuck happened with the spike in scams during this shitcoin season we just went through. There’s plenty of other podcasts, newsletter, and twitter threads that address this, by people way smarter than me, and way more qualified to talk about it than I am.
What I feel that I am qualified to express some perspectives on, is what it means for us as humans to experience this culture as a group. One of the most fascinating things to me about online communities over the last 30 years, is their tendency to stand the test of time based on a few specific things:
Shared moral codes
Common interests
Authenticity & honesty
Commonalities
Communities that have a solid, intimate core group tend to retain their quality of engagement internally, but lose connection with external communities a bunch. While this is mostly because they turn into echo chambers, it’s also partially because people need spaces they feel safe in which to express themselves. If everybody shares a relatively aligned moral code of right and wrong, it makes it possible to to be understood by others in the group for those that are feeling alone, or neglected.
And when it comes to the why of being in these groups, well it helps to learn how to fabricate things better from those with more experience. Or learn better painting techniques. Or pick up some tricks from more experienced digital artists. Whether it’s a welder, a paintbrush, or software, there will always be folks that have more experience than you with some aspect of them, and there is always more to learn from others.
Now with crypto-adjacent communities, every single person here understands that we’re here for some profit; there is no bullshit lying to one’s self like most do outside of this world. We are authentic to the degree that we are not bullshitting each other about why we’re using this technology. Let start be explaining the level of honesty we are all experiencing over here (except for some outliers that are probably lying themselves) more specifically.
You wake up and spend money every single fucking day of your life whether you want to admit it or not. You pay for coffee beans, you pay to flush your shit with water, and you pay to make sure you’re not sleeping in a cardboard box in sub zero temperatures; rent/mortgage is one of the biggest lifelong expenses the vast majority of adults on this planet will have to deal with. And yet, when you speak with your neighbors and friends you don’t do much beyond griping around the cost of living. Money is an invisible baseline we regularly disacknowledge to avoid discomfort.
Working with a financial technology like crypto, there is no confusion about this topic. Most folks that are into it that are not just crypto bros or finance douches, but have some enrichment in their lives like art, sports, culture, etc stand out from the rest of society because of this. Nobody is saying “we don’t care about money.” No, we’ve just acknowledged that everything runs on money in this world, and we need it to continue being able to do what we want to do with our lives.
Money buys time
Sure, we would all love to be rich. But unlike your typical money hungry degen that just wants to get rich and have cool things, anybody that engages with this ecosystem to create or build something meaningful in their lives understands that money will afford you the time to achieve great things. We all have dreams and goals. Personally, I want to buy property and build a fucking ewok tree village for adults where you can come make/watch/engage with art in a forest laced with solar-punk technology throughout. You’re all invited. Well, maybe not the crypto bros, you guys mostly suck assholes.
So to tie this back to the topic of this article, this recent series of events has really drawn some lines in the sand for many folks. We already saw a massive exodus of folks that could not survive in a market with too many artists and not enough collectors. We saw what happened when a bear market hit, and collectors decreased their frequency of purchasing. Hint: more people left. And as we went through these cycles of frustration, influencers and big personalities imploded and showed their true colors.
The toxic shitheel Beanies and 888s of the space filtered out, and everybody applauded that we are back on track! But no, there are always more grifters and selfish jerks “pumping their own bags.” When the fuck did any of us start thinking this was going to be some utopian ideal where everybody is acting equitably and from a good place in their hearts? The only thing that really makes the blockchain stand out as better a better building block for marketplaces, is that unlike the traditional world, you can track provenance and transaction histories openly. So it was clear for all to see that these scammers were scamming their days away - hindsight is 20/20, and the blockchain is forever. You can delete a tweet, but you can’t erase your wash trades you fucking dinguses.
Get good mentally
Anyway. All of this has taken a massive toll on the mental health of anybody that’s here to build, create, and improve their quality of life. It’s like sharing a room with a bunch of folks you just realized are cannibals, and they’re staring at you. It has even wrecked the well being of many degens, because they’re people too. So as always, I am going to remind folks of what matters: do things that make you happy. Go touch grass and re-center yourself. Get off Discord and Twitter and go make a sandwich, paint a painting, or write some code that does something cool.
The blockchain isn’t going anywhere, and everything happens in cycles. Who knows if we will ever see a bull-run like 2021 again. If we don’t, it doesn’t mean we can’t keep using this amazing technology. Like AI, it is simply becoming an inevitable aspect of our lives, and we have to find our own balance with it all. I strongly urge you to re-assess the communities you are a part of, and see if they are serving you. Let people do what they’re going to do (long as they’re not harming anybody), but remember to go do what you want to do, with people that challenge and support you to be a better version of yourself.
It’s okay to leave, and it’s okay to come back. If folks don’t want to welcome you back later, well, then that place wasn’t for you anyway. Hold on to your meaningful, authentic, and morally aligned connections, especially in web3. For me this has become a few communities that all intersect a bit. The core communities in the groups below keep me engaged on an almost daily basis, and give me the drive to do better. In many ways, some of the folks I have met through them have been better for my mental health than most folks I have known IRL for a long time.
Sideways | Move It Cafe | Iterative | Pillheads | Mad Rabbits Riot Club | Feisty Doge
I might be down bad IRL lately, but I’m feeling supported and heard, and feel like the work and art I am doing currently is meaningful. Most of this is because I am ignoring a lot of what is going on, but a lot of this is also because I am paying attention to what is going on with the folks I care about.
You might be making significant amounts of money, but what happens if you’re all alone if you one day get rich off of it? Lambos and bought social circles will only lead to misery. But hey what do I know, I’m just another poor artist living in one of the most expensive cities in the world. 🤣
We’re all just trying to survive out here. Don’t try to do it alone. Here’s another photo of my cat.