Power of Communities and Culture
Culture and communities are building our future.
Hey Everyone! Schoolwork put me on 4-week hiatus, but I am damn glad to be back. Today, of course, we are writing more about Web 3, but this time with a focus on the power of communities.
Here’s the plan:
Communities since the beginning
Constitution DAO (📜,📜)
Bored Ape Yacht Club
gm.xyz
Communities since the beginning
Since the dawn of time, communities have been at the forefront of humanity. Literally.
“Groups of individuals are the norm in the universe. See particles, atoms, molecules, cells… humans.” - @DMotta_182, Member of @MMCC.
The earliest humans we know of, hunted together, lived together, and discovered together. They were communities. It made sense back then, I mean try hunting a Mammoth by yourself, have you seen Ice Age?
These tribes were powerful, they worked together toward a collective goal to survive and advance. The goal nowadays may not be survival, but the core concept of communities still holds true. We work toward a goal, or goals by working together.
The most recent case of this occurred last week when 17,000 people banded together to buy one of the last remaining copies of the US Constitution.
Constitution DAO (📜,📜)
A week before a US Constitution was set to be auctioned at a Sotheby's event, a group of people had an idea. “What if we get a bunch of people on the internet to come together and buy the Constitution using Web 3 tools?” While in less than a week a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) was formed and people contributed over $45,000,000 in ETH to buy the Constitution Thursday night.
Unfortunately, the group was outbid by Ken Griffen, CEO of Citadel, but this wasn’t a loss. This movement opened our eyes to the power of the web 3 culture and how tools can be utilized to do some amazing things.
The Web 3 community on Twitter is huge, and on Thursday night my entire feed was talking about the auction. People were questioning which auctioneer represented the DAO, and Brooke, who won the final bid, quickly became a meme.
The proof of culture and community stood tall that Thursday night, and even though we lost. It is a milestone for Web 3 that will be remembered for a while, and a great topic for Thanksgiving dinner.
Bored Ape Yacht Club
If you want a GREAT rundown on BAYC, listen to Eric Golden talk about them on Web 3 Breakdowns.
Among one of the biggest cultural waves in Web 3 is NFT’s, and leading the charge in community in that space is the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC). This community has cemented itself as one of the most aspired groups out there. Celebrities such as Jimmy Fallon, Post Malone, Steph Curry, Mark Cuban, and Steve Aoki have even started to jump in. These apes aren’t cheap either, here is a look at some recent sales. Cheapest one sold at $173,000.
This community is powerful. People look up to people who hold apes and hold some serious FOMO if they sold them early. What started out as a meme and a cultural movement is growing larger by the day. Eric Golden stated in Web 3 Breakdowns how people used to joke, “what if we had an actual yacht club?”, or “what if we made a bar we can all drink at?”
While, what if they could? In October, BAYC rented a 1000+ person yacht to hold a party on and rumors are surfacing of a BAYC bar being created in Miami. What started as a meme and culture is being brought to reality by the community.
gm.xyx
In web 2, the largest community platform is arguably Reddit. This platform has been known for some massive community movements such as the situation that occured in January 2021. As most know, the forum r/wallstreetbets was responsible for pumping stocks such as GameStop and AMC.
In short, gm.xyz is like the Reddit for Web 3, the difference is by using Web 3 tools, they can do much more. By utilizing a wallet connection, such as metamask, you can participate in public communities and private communities, like the ones shown below, where you need a certain token or NFT to enter.
Even better, the gm.xyz team will be providing value back to users by kicking some of the profits back to the community. Just like Reddit’s Karma, you can also earn “Rep” which shows how active you are in the community.
gm.xyz allows communities to come together and interact on Web 3 like never before. The utility of private communities makes this idea even more exciting. It’ll pay to be an early user on this one.
Lastly, a quote from a community member…
I asked some people about what communities mean, this response from @NFTokenito was one of the best;
“Finding a community is about finding your people. For many, when this happens, it unlocks an ambition potentiality they never knew they possessed or could exist. This form of potentiality is born from a sense of belonging”
Cheers, and Happy Thanksgiving!
- - Tom
- - Check out my personal website here
- - Thanks to Andrew Lombardozzi and Grace W for helping edit