NFTs Bridge the Gap Between Community & Loneliness
NFTs are new to the global landscape but they are bridging the gap between loneliness and community via speculation, influence, and ultimately community
Kyla Scanlon's (@kylascan) most recent piece, "Theories of Interconnectivity", she tries to outline several theories on what is going on the world - trying to tie together crypto, markets, and general trends and themes going on in the world. Several of these stuck out to me about NFT communities.
In particular, “Community theory”, “Speculation Theory”, and “Influencer Theory”. Let's evaluate.
How does this relate to NFTs?
A NFT community thrives on community engagement.
I would argue that NFT communities are founded on the these two theories but the community is maintained using the community theory.
If a community is organic and decentralized, it has to start with a few people marketing and building an idea or passion.
This creates speculation of the project which brings in people (including influencers) evaluating how they can benefit from it or engage.
These speculators and influencers are people and seek community.
So have a group coming initially for the speculation and ending with the community or at least hoping to find it there.
The Community Theory (as described by Kyla)
"We have operated as individuals for a very long time, so its hard to imagine a world where the individual isn’t the sole focus of the conversation - crypto is the first to make headway on what communal decentralized governance could look like".
Each individual participating in the NFT collection is saying:
"We Are Lonely"
"We Crave Community"
The project is gasoline that just needs to be lit. The people are the gasoline that crave a project they can engage with.
NFT Foundations
So to me, the foundation of any NFT project is strongest when the early engagers make a lot of money in the project - a cycle of making money to get the community more engaged.
"They come for the speculation and stay for the community".
Kyla Scanlon writes “Crypto turns that narrative on its head and says “Actually, we can own means of production with groups, buy a token to get access to this DAO (solves for monetary incentives).” ....its making inroads into reshaping how we think about interaction + building".
interaction + building = community
Monetary incentives layers in the speculation and foundation.
I would change this quote though to "Actually we can own the memes of production..." (@punk6529).
NFTs Have a Bright Future
NFTs are new to the global landscape but they are bridging the gap between loneliness and community via speculation, influence, and ultimately community.
NFTs are showing the power of an idea and movement among a group of people with a similar ideology or passion. And NFTs are becoming a symbol by which these groups identify themselves in the digital world.
Side Note
If you are not knowledgeable about the NFT space and want to see what the hype is about, I encourage you to join a NFT discord. You will see a community at work. You will see a new form of human organization.
If you think all NFTs are worthless, consider when a market is ascribing a high value to something while the participants are in disbelief and not euphoric means that the fundamentals are way strong than the main stream realizes. Today, that is the top tier NFTs.
Authored by Derman Capital (Twitter)