A public group discussion sharing experiences of being, working and collaborating in web3.
Kes:
I firstly just wanted to say thanks so much to anybody who came last time. It was so nice it felt really amazing. And thank you so much to all of you for being here today. We really love this space that we're creating to have all of these conversations. We've been obsessing a bit over Tina’s reference to the space we've made as a feminist consciousness raising circle. I love that comparison and like to think these conversations are like a digital version of those and that we’re carrying on this important tradition.
So for anybody who didn't join last time I think it would be good for us to recap on the event and the purpose of this series, what we're doing and why we're here. So, Protein is working in partnership with Princesa who is a Protein Founding member and myself. My name is Kes, one of our community managers at Protein focusing on our events and our DEI work.
Princesa and I have been working together on the Anecdotal Archives research project, which is part of our DEI work in the protein membership team, and so Princesa, maybe you can go into detail a little bit more about your idea behind the project?
Princesa:
Thank you Kes for introducing setting this stage. I appreciate you and everything that you've done 'cause you’ve been a really great help throughout this entire process, but basically what we're trying to do is learn together and understand how inclusive or not web3 has been throughout all parts of this growth process and for different kinds of people. Our intention is intersectionality and we're prioritising the voices of trans women, nonbinary people and BIPOC women. But everybody here is welcome to listen. We'd just like to understand peoples’ needs and how we can work together to fulfil those needs. We wanted to create a space to have this conversation together. So thank you for joining us, welcome!
I also just want to set the room ... so we'll talk to a few people at a time but if anybody does happen to take up too much time, I hope you don't mind if we try to respectfully cut you off so that we can make space for other people. We’ll have one person speaking at a time and treat each other with respect here. We're just going to keep the conversation on topic and speak with love.
Kes:
Thanks so much Princesa! That was a really beautiful setting to the room and yeah, last time went really well so I'm sure this one will go the same. So for anybody who wasn't here last time, we focused on discussing our experiences together of what entering web3 has been like. Specifically focusing on trans people, nonbinary people and BIPOC women, and this time we thought it would make sense as a next step to focus on our experiences of being working and collaborating in web3. Focusing a bit more on what happened after we've entered web3. What are those interactions like? What are those experiences like and how do they make us feel about being in the space?
So let’s start by doing quick intros, including your name, your pronouns, your occupation or what you're doing in Web3 and whatever else you feel happy and comfortable to say! Princesa, maybe you want to go first?
Princesa:
Hi, I'm Princesa. I'm a multidisciplinary artist and I work in the DAO space. My pronouns are they/them and I'm grateful to be here. Grateful for all of y'all.
Kes:
I know I already introduced myself a little bit, but I'll just go next. My name is Kes, I'm one of Protein’s community managers and I’m also studying an MA in Internet Equalities, which is why I'm so interested in these kinds of conversations and passionate about this mission! Mel, would you like to go next?
Mel:
My name is Mel, my pronouns are she/her ,I am a writer, community builder and crypto / web3 enthusiast generally. I have a background in psychology and wellness. That’s me!
Natalie:
Hello to everybody that's joining us, online or in real life, whatever that means these days! I’m a cultural producer so I've produced a bunch of festivals and projects to amplify, fund and resource creators of all types that you can imagine. I've lived in web3 before it was called web3, I’ve been here since 2016. I’m involved in a number of DAOS and projects including NVMS, the Metaverse Music Festival, which is one of the largest metaverse festivals and probably one of the first community driven ones. I drive a lot of different projects in the space and advise on a number of projects.
Kes:
Cool, thanks so much for introducing yourselves! So thinking back to the topic of being, working and collaborating in Web3, we thought it would be nice to start with a general question of how are we all feeling in the web3 space? What are the things or people that are making us feel good or what are things or people that are making us feel bad, cynical or frustrated? How has this week or the last month in web3 been for you?
Mel:
Today in particular, I'm feeling quite grateful. The other day I asked in the Protein Discord for help because I'm a part of the African NFT Community and we are in the midst of a DAO transition and asked for help. I'm receiving a lot of information and a lot of help from a lot of great people, so right now I'm feeling gratitude immensely. On the other side, I'm also feeling quite overwhelmed with pacing and the idea that things need to be done quick, fast and in a hurry. I'm a very intentional person, so I'm just trying to be mindful of that as I'm working with other people and trying to sync timings and paces. Also remembering to be respectful of my own internal pacing and continue to work and feel good about the things that I'm doing.
Kes:
Yeah, definitely. I think that's quite a common feeling, to feel very grateful, blessed, excited and love but then feeling overwhelmed and stressed, not knowing where to put your energy. Natalie, what about you, how are you feeling?
Natalie:
I just got back from a nice vacation so I'm not feeling anything and I'm happily embracing that. I'm embracing the break and one thing I reflected on and I've been saying this in some DAOS, beating the drum loudly... we can't sit up here working for 40/50/60 hours a week. It's not sustainable, it's vulture capitalistic and I hope we can continue to embrace play, breaks, naps and siestas, as we call it in Spain. All those things that don't require us to continuously output labor, because that can't be our complete existence here in web3. So for me I was like I don't care I'm saying fuck it I'm taking a break I don't care about any of these things that I have to do this week, I’m out of here! So I left to go on a vacation for 5 days. I took my mom and had a blast. I did not do any DAO shit and it was amazing. So I hope we can begin to embrace play and build out programming that reflects that so that we can have more balance and find healthier ways of living in this space, because working all day is not healthy at all.
Kes:
Preach! It’s so true. I love that you just signed off and even more that you took your mum with you. It's so important to remember your family outside of your web3 family as well. Thank you so much for all your answers, they are really great and made me feel really good and inspired to take more time off! So maybe we could discuss next how we are feeling in web3 versus our web2 lives? Obviously we're sort of still in web2 and web3 at the same time, but how are we feeling in ourselves, our identities, our relationships and our work in web3 rather than web2?
Natalie:
For me, I always wanted to escape web2. I remember when my homies were doing NFTS on the underground and I thought I gotta get out of this other world that I'm in. That was the super early days before most people were finding this space and people were like yo we're doing all the social token stuff and this and that… it was like a different world, you know.
Now I'm seeing some of these behemoth corporations pop up and say they're going to give people 50% of their sales and all this other stuff that I've been talking about for the last year or so in this space. People are like no, no they're gonna amplify us and give us resources and I'm like bro, they’re not. This was harsh to say but it’s real. I feel validated in my futuristic thinking, especially learly last year I was warning people to be careful of what these corporations are coming in with, institutional investors for example.
Again I reflect on play, I don't want to work all damn day. Part of me feels like in web3, we're replicating the traditional mindsets and ways of pushing out labor, which is actually quite extractive and exploitative. Some of the models that we're building here are not reflective of what web3 is actually about. I actually find myself quite frustrated from suffocation around DAOs and where they’re actually going. Not all DAOS are on that tip, but some of the bigger ones are. So hopefully we can push forth innovation to really think about what it means to extract their own selves from these capitalistic labor models which actually produce much of nothing and also drives many of us black and brown, queer, disabled [insert label identity here] into the ground. We are left to deal with the ashes of our labor and so hopefully we can use some radical imagination to dream of better systems and ways of being. So part of me is very frustrated with the DAO space and web3 in general. The other part of me is actually quite optimistic. So we'll see.
Mel:
I love that I couldn't really write what I was feeling and then Natalie starts speaking and I'm like, yes, that's it. That's exactly it. I feel like being semi in web2 and semi in web3 right now I'm looking at all the things that are happening in the web2 space and in the real world and it's continually reminding me why web3 is so important to me and why I'm doing the things that I'm doing in this space, and so that's exciting. At the same time I'm looking forward at web3 and I'm seeing like Natalie was saying, the web2 model is being replicated and I’m seeing people falling into what I would consider to be bad practice. In a way like I was just speaking earlier about pacing, but it also makes me eager to jump in and keep doing more and fix and redo and try and find something else. I very much understand that radical innovation is not born out of that desire to fix things now and more born out of stillness and being able to watch and move intentionally and act when necessary. So, in all honesty, that's just where I'm at, I think that this is just a rest week for me, I'm very much just observing what's going on and seeing how I can realign as necessary.
Princesa:
Thank you all for sharing that I appreciate you and I agree with what y'all are saying. There's definitely positives and negatives, but I'm glad that we can agree on at least some level of optimism. I would also like to welcome Carissa to speak, Carissa Is an amazing artist in this space.
Carissa:
First of all thank you for making space for this conversation, it’s a great mental space to share thoughts. This is still uncharted territory for me so I love the vibe of just grouping together and trying to figure it all out. As far as me, I definitely feel what Natalie was saying before about the balance of work, play, rest. We gotta get this shit done attitude, being an innovator, thinking forward and just minimizing that and just being here in a way that honors our self holistically, not just the part that's trying to pull up and get some ETH, not just the part that's trying to express ourselves. We’ve also gotta honor our mental health, our emotional and spiritual well being as well. I don't think that it's enough in this space just to be a good artist, or even to be a great artist. I think it's also about who shows up for you and this is also about investment. What is the value that you're giving? I’m also in a space of just assessing what my value is and how I bring that forth. I know that I do have a strong sense of who I am on a broader scale, I've known myself for my entire life, but in web3 you get into spaces where everyone doesn't necessarily know you. I'm just trying to embody all that I know, the fine lines of when you're stepping on somebody’s toes or when you’re not. So I'm really in my head right now about asking what is the long game, but also honoring the right now, the present moment, my holistic needs, desires, well being, joy, peace, harmony and just taking more time to create. I put my first NFT on sale and it sold a couple weeks ago, but that time in between, it was like, what am I doing here? Like OK, I know my music is good, I’m gaining support, but then realistically is there a lot of people in this space down to drop a couple thousand dollars on this song? Then in the space of 2 days I sold 2 NFTS for a good price, but before that moment it was like, really quiet. So now I'm in a space of asking myself how do we keep the momentum going? Getting the shit done but also rest, recuperation, mental health, spiritual well being, peace of mind. All of that.
Princesa:
Absolutely Carissa and again, Congrats on the NFT sales! I feel like that speaks to at least on some level what Mel was talking about with pacing, because when you had first come into the space and you had listed your NFTS, you still had some time to go before somebody would collect them. You had all of the time in the world to plot and plan and get done what you needed to get done in that time period. But then when it happened and you made that first sale, it was quick, and then you made that second sale. So as far as pacing, I'm wondering if Mel wants to add anything?
Mel:
Yeah congrats Carissa on your sales, I think that's amazing and Princesa nailed it down perfectly. That's basically what I was going to talk about, a pet peeve of mine in this space and working with NFT artists is that the collectors are every day on this app telling people what they need to be doing and how they should be creating and how often they need to be minting, and it's just so exhausting. Like Natalie was saying, there are these people who cannot resist the urge to force this capitalistic template onto everybody you know, but it’s like artists came into this space for liberation. We came for freedom. We came to express and we came to get our money, to get our equal share of what we're contributing to society. Artists are creating culture, we are the tastemakers curating and developing it, and we deserve to be compensated for that. So I feel like the collectors come in with this whole narrative and rhetoric of catering to people who are going to purchase your work, and this puts artists and creators right back at the bottom of a totem pole that does not exist here. I'm saying we don't have to be these workhorses who are churning out content for other peoples’ consumption, it's just not that. That’s the thing that actually has been aggravating me the most these last few weeks, so Carissa I want to say to you congratulations and I'm so grateful that you are honoring your own timing and pacing, and however this plays out for you, I just wanted to commend you. It's very, very lovely to see and I wish you so much success in everything that you're doing because this space is for you to be autonomous and sovereign and dictate how you want to create and how often you want to create. People will feel that genuine energy and collect from you as they have.
Ana:
Carissa, I was riveted when you spoke. Thank you so much because you perfectly described what I went through entering the NFT space. My inner child felt very abandoned and out in the cold in this whole web3 process and in the NFT space, particularly out there in the world as a first time crypto user and as a multidisciplinary artist myself, it felt too vertical. To Natalie and Mel’s points, this space was not thinking in a quantum way and thinking in an extremely vertical up-down hustle culture sort of way. That type of thinking is infiltrating these spaces, and in terms of that type of thinking, it becomes no longer about a decentralized community conversation. But for me, it’s all about community conversation. The one thing I'm mostly scared of is veering away from these community nurturing spaces and also spaces that provide resources for creativity. Because artists create and capitalism is the roadblock that blocks these conversations. I had an interview today with Highsnobiety and I found myself again in a position where they're like, oh, we want to pick your brain about web3 and NFTS, and yet they still couldn't get it through their heads what a community actually is. They're thinking in terms of sports and shoes, and they kept looking at me like I was crazy and I was like, you know what? You should probably just pull back, join a community, speak to the artists that you haven't even featured yet and really sit down and listen.
Carissa:
Yeah, that's really ugly. I appreciate your input 'cause yeah I think outside of web3 there's just this energy of like OK I'm the spiritual being, I have needs that have a desire for self actualisation and all that fulfillment stuff. But then you’ve also got bills to pay, there’s a roof over my head and I need to eat, I need to have clothes and look nice and smell good and all of that. This capitalistic structure is very manipulative 'cause they make you do all this work and then by the time you get the bird there’s inflation and this and that. It's kind of fucked up in a lot of ways. So like I said, that whole holistic energy is really important. Thank you everybody for sharing your wisdom.
Princesa:
Thank all of y'all. I just want to say Ana you don't have to apologise for speaking and taking up space, you've provided great points. You all are making me think about, in reference to our web2 versus our web3 lives, I feel like personally the spaces when I've felt most comfortable have been not bringing in things from web2 specifically, but bringing in meditations and conversations that don't necessarily have anything to do specifically with web3. Figuring out that we can still do that here, it doesn't have to be something that's characteristic of the past, and that in fact when we do bring imagination into the picture, kind of like an interruption of the everyday, it can cause us to feel more peace and to bond in ways that hustle culture doesn't necessarily allow. If that makes sense?
Mel:
Yeah, that makes perfect sense and I want to chime in about these moments of stillness, play and of allowing your mind to think differently. It's like what Anna was saying while she was in her meeting, when you've been hardwired to do something for a very long time, it's hard to switch. Not to get all sciencey but you know your neural pathways, they're doing what they're supposed to do, what they've been designed to do, and what they know to do. So until you change that, until you give yourself room in the space, whether it's through meditation or play or rest to do and think differently, it gets very hard. I’ve only been in this space for a year and a half, I joined last year fully into NFTS and DAO culture in January. I don't mean to keep talking about pacing, but that's just where I'm at right now with myself, so I'm going to continue to discuss time. Seeing how much the space is wanting to accelerate, it's a little bit scary because there's not as much room to move if you’re sticking with the speed. Sticking with the speed analogy, if you're in a car, there's not as much space to turn comfortably, know what I mean? Or to rear out and do something differently. So I think it's wonderful and hopefully more people will continue to do it, bringing in those practices into web3 and having them remain present because this is not just web2 or web3 or web1, it's ancestral. It's deeply a human need to be at peace with ourselves and with nature, and that happens through stillness, through relaxation, play and going outside. As the meme says, touching grass, doing something to think outside of what the prevailing structure is because we see it everywhere, whether it's media, TV, our literacy. So I don't blame anyone in this space for perpetuating these capitalistic ideals unintentionally, but I do think that we're at a risky place where if everyone isn't mindful, then we're going to have to be betting on web4 instead or something.
Kes:
Wow, thank you so much for sharing that Mel and Carissa before. I mirror this point of not blaming people for doing things in a web2 way still as it really takes a lot of active mindfulness, imagination and discussions to do these things in a new way, and that's why I'm so glad that we have this space to think about this together and hopefully more people will want to hold conversations like these. I saw that Lovina has requested and wants to speak. Would you like to come up and introduce yourself Lovina?
Lovina:
Yeah hi. I’m just trying to navigate this Twitter space thing as I’ve never done it before! I’m Lovina, I go by pronouns she/her and I'm currently a full time student doing trend research and concept creation. I'm really happy that we touched on the subject of pacing, time, and that we need to hold space for our brains and our consciousness to relax. This is the area I want to go into with my MA thesis on how can we create opportunities for cognitive relaxation and social and emotional wellbeing in a web 3 space and I thought, well, maybe through the hypothesis that it's possible through different kinds of sense making through creating digital psychedelia. I want to research how can you create new kinds of rituals between us and our technology? Especially if we only work online, that's something I feel is super strange, I never see anyone’s faces in these online communities. I'm pretty new to this space, I started last December, so I'm really excited that we talked about holding this space for reset and relaxation.
Kes:
Wow, thanks so much Lovina. Your thesis sounds amazing and I really want to know more about it and what it could look like.
Lovina:
Yeah, I'm very excited. I have seven months to create something, so we'll see.
Kes:
Amazing, look forward to hearing about it and hope it all goes well! I'm just conscious of time, we've got about 10 minutes or so left, so I wanted to focus on one last question about our experiences of collaborating together with new people and also friends in web3. So, how do we all find collaborating with others in Web3?
Mel:
I guess going back to the whole identity aspect of the space and being a black woman in this space, on the community building side, it's been a bit tricky trying to mitigate dynamics. I think that especially with artists, it's such a free space that you need to have boundaries and continue to reinforce, making it clear like this is what I am here for and this is what I'm not here for. If you don’t like doing the business side of things, you don’t need to be that person. Also, working with men at times gets so challenging because there's this whole masculine assumption, just based on society, that they feel that they have the correct perspective or the correct answer to things, so when you're collaborating with people and with someone already of the mindset that they are correct, it becomes very hard to create a homogeneous project reflective of both peoples’ ideals. That's another instance where boundaries then become very important. It's like this continual reassertion of self. I think collaborations, if anything, have helped me to hone this and practice being myself by professing myself. I'm a kind of loner type person, so I'm very much in tune with myself. I know who I am and I know what I'm not, so with this constant interaction and engagement with others, I love it. I love being in a community with other people, but I find that in the web3 space in particular, I'm having to continue to let people know who I am and what I'm going to stand for and what I'm not going to stand for. This has been my experience.
Princesa:
Just going to have to echo what you said Mel about working with men, RTRT!
Natalie:
Oh my God. That brought up so much smoke for me. All that. RTRTRT! For me in certain kinds of communities, collaboration has been hyper key to us actually thriving and building out the trenches of the space. Pure collaboration, we didn't have a choice and we had people from certain companies, who I won't name, trying to steamroll us and do weird shit left and right, I had to call a few people out. So for me, collaboration and holding each other together is going to be key for us all. We have a lot of folks that are entering the space that don't have the intentions we think they do and they’re twinkling their toes and tiptoeing into the space with very interesting ways of co-opting and engaging in that. So collaboration and holding each other together and making sure we stay glued to the underlying essence of this space is going to be super important and I hope people realise that before it's too late. Hopefully it's never too late, but I see the writing on the wall.
Collaborating has allowed many of the projects that I've worked on to be pushed forth. However, it’s also the way in which I've collaborated on other projects that have been detrimental to my mental health and the way people have come and collaborated in ways that hasn’t necessarily been intuitive or aligned with what the space actually requires. So I'm like, what are y’all really collaborating on? It's been a hot ass mess trying to work with some folks because I'm pretty much hardcore decentralized or core around what this community came from and I can't help it 'cause I was raised in this space by some pretty wild people, so that bumps heads with people. The way that people are collaborating, sometimes I’m against what the hell we're trying to do here, so I hope we can really foster and push for some real design thinking, embracing indigenous practices without co-opting them and embracing our kind of folk ways in which we collaborate and build across manufactured borders, identities and labels and all this other stuff so that we can collaborate more effectively in a way that's true. I stay true to the chain, because right now all this shit feels very vulture capitalistic to me and I'm always wondering... I'm going to just be very frank, I'm really just observing people that don't understand what connectivity actually means. So hopefully we can embrace other types of frameworks and push those things forth. Right now I'm hella sceptical and I have way too much clarity after my damn vacation.
Ana:
Amen, Natalie, I’ve listened to you speak before and I'm always hanging onto my seat whenever you speak. As an otherworldly being, you definitely drop a lot of pearls, a lot of gems, and I'm constantly thankful. I know that we're coming to a close, but thank you, Kes and Princesa, for having these talks because I'm learning so much and to your point, Natalie, I don't think you're going crazy. I actually think it's just a simulation, if you think about it, because the way that I'm being called into web2 corporate fashion spaces as they transition into web3 and how they're doing it, it’s not the way. It's just not right, and I never know what to say and I feel lost. So when I come into these rooms to sit down and listen to everyone speak, I'm like maybe I can bridge a gap, maybe I'll find something to say, maybe I can center myself and also just listen. It's not about gatekeeping or anything, it's about learning and growing and connectivity. As you said Natalie, being a collective and a community.
Kes:
Oh thanks so much for that answer it was really lovely and I feel the same about these spaces as well. It's a space to learn so much and it's just nice to listen and share with each other and actually hear our experiences rather than rushing ahead and not actually reflecting on how we feel. So this spaces feel amazing for that and thank you to everyone for being involved. This collaboration has been a really beautiful process in web3 and I wish that every collaboration in web3 was like this! We have a couple minutes left, does anybody else have any last thoughts that they want to add?
Princesa:
I've enjoyed this collaboration as well, a lot. The idea for this project came out of something very negative that happened in this space and was basically an attempt to figure out how I could put more energy into figuring out what we can do together as a community, because I do personally tend to complain and I didn't want to be that presence in this space anymore, 'cause I felt like I had been here for long enough. So I'm just super grateful to Protein for hearing my ideas and not only hearing them and saying like that's a great idea we hope you do great things with it, but actually doing those things with me in a very big way so I'm super appreciative. I love Protein and I love what we're doing here and I love that y'all have come and shared your ideas and your experiences in the name of research and also in the name of community bonding. I appreciate that.
Kes:
Yeah, it's been amazing to work with you Princesa and I'm really glad that we've brought this to life and made this space for all of us. This is not the end! We'll give ourselves some time to reflect and digest everything that's been said and think about how it's best to present it to everyone in a way that is both easy to read but also useful. Of course, we'll be letting you all know and keeping you updated, in true web3 style, obviously. So thank you so much for being here again and for the time and energy of sharing your experiences, feeling the love big time!
Princesa:
It’s been beautiful, thank you so much.
Mel:
Thank you so much.
Natalie:
Thank you.
Ana:
Yeah, thank you guys for holding space.
Lovina:
Really appreciate it.
