Expanding Our Cultural Reference Points
Moving beyond the financialization of web3 towards true cultural value
gm 👋 and welcome to the first edition of the Crypto, Culture & Society Journal. If you’re new here, CCS 🍎 is a learning DAO exploring the impact of crypto on culture and society. As we like to say, we are building the liberal arts for crypto. You can read more about our history, mission, and plans in our Announcement Post.
No Single Moment in Time
This past week we hosted Reggie James, writer, designer and Eternal founder, who spoke about the importance of expanding cultural reference points in web3.
One of the key points Reggie mentioned was the idea that our present moment offers us the ability to draw from more reference points than ever before: fashion, art, music, history, etc. And yet, there is also a fear that too many people are looking to the same sources of inspiration, creating a self-referential cycle rather than true originality.
As Reggie noted:
Unbound by time, the internet allows any period to be presently referential and, once you unlock this, many things open up. We cannot see our own reality clearly without holding an understanding of cultural references, both those of this moment but also the chain that led us here.
Reggie also identified two fears for how crypto might move in the future: financial engineering and the “1%” art market inaccessible to most people based on cost. While the financialization of crypto is valuable, especially in the way it creates ownership for marginalized communities and creators, it also reduces every interaction into a transaction.
These are ideas we’ve been thinking through during the first semester of CCS as well, exploring them through our Discord channel and via guest speakers. Reggie emphasized the power of the collective and “light-based” optimistic narratives, noting:
I think we’re in a collectivist movement right now…The reality is, at a macro-scale, much will only be solved by the collective; that’s what the political left is all about, it’s what young people care about. Crypto’s the first thing to give us an effective mechanism to bring people together; like DAO’s, people need to feel this is the group chat they tried to start.
If you’d like to read our full recap of Reggie’s talk, feel free to pop over to our Mirror page. The article can be collected as an NFT (and the graphics are 🔥 if we do say so ourselves).
From the Community
We recently brought on 40 (!!) new scholars who will be joining CCS for Semester 1, participating in discussions and contributing to working groups. Welcome scholars! If you didn’t get in this semester, we’ll be opening up more spots in the DAO (and scholarships) for Semester 2, starting in January 2022.
The CCS Discord has been buzzing with discussions around topics ranging from community management in DAOs, to protocol governance, the value of ConstitutionDAO, the “digital bookshelf” as an online marker of identity, and unpacking the psychology of why consumers collect NFTs.
One of our favorite messages this week was from a community member passionate about creating a “non-captured internet” for his children:
Finally, we’ve been reflecting on the legacy and impact of multi-hyphenate artist, creative and visionary thinker Virgil Abloh this week. His work has touched and deeply inspired many of our community members. We learned that one of Virgil’s last projects was an unreleased plan for a culture-focused DAO & NFT project, something that resonates deeply with what we are building at CCS.
What We’re Reading
⭐ Academic
Mario Laul’s research paper (and the basis for a talk this month) Crypto is Shaping the Digital Revolution
The Melancholy of Subculture Society by Gwern (recommended by CCS member Bhaumik Patel)
CCS member Olli Tianen’s Decentralized Impact Organizations for the Climate, an exploration of crypto applications to address climate change
📚 Articles & Resources
Li Jin’s The Future of the Creator in the Economist
a16z’s DAO canon
CCS member Patricia Mou’s Database of Web3 Resources
🎉 Just for Fun
Liar Game by Shinobu Kaitani (recommended by CCS member Mike Douglas - and the original inspiration for Squid Game!
Crypto, Culture & Society (CCS) is a learning DAO building the Liberal Arts of Crypto. Our work explores the impact of crypto on culture and society. You can also keep up with us on Twitter and Mirror. And if a friend forwarded this to you, feel free to subscribe below.