The Days of Digital Solitude
Finding Solace within NFT-powered Communities
Not everyone experiences what it’s like to have a sibling. I was born into the world with more than a few. So, what was it like?
It could be difficult at times, growing up in close quarters with individuals with wit equal to my own and physical strength beyond my own. At other times it was so blissful that much of it is still a faint memory. Still, we pushed (and still push) each other endlessly to learn and grow. A kind of bond born out of competition and love, where it was okay to make fun of one another, but if an outsider did they had hell to pay.
Through the excitement, the boredom, the happiness, the sadness, the competition, one thing I seldom experienced was loneliness.
Since acquiring my first NFT in 2017 (CryptoKitty #11033 “Nervous Cat”), my next experience wasn’t until 2020 with NBA TopShot. As the Covid Pandemic set in, everyone was forced to go digital. Companies were implementing daily stand-ups, School was done via Zoom, and NBA fanatics were «literally shaking» for any kind of content. What was one thing most everyone was experiencing? Extreme loneliness from a loss of human connection.
Morning, afternoon, and evening routines soon perfected, as days melted into weeks, into months, into years – it’s 2023? To many of us here in the US, the pandemic is a distant nightmare, a somewhat embarrassing memory of when we washed the apples with dish soap. Despite the slow but clear recoiling of public fear, we have been left with new policies that favor the nomad, the family man (or woman), but not the shadowy faceless groups of super-coders – the lonely digital masses.
In Lucy Worsley’ book, ‘If Walls Could Talk,’ which describes an intimate history of the home, she highlights a curious fact about closets that I couldn’t stop thinking about…
“Ever ‘closeted’ yourself away to do something private? If so, you were referring to a room whose purpose has faded away, rather like the appendix in the human body: the closet.
The bedchamber was originally a [crowded] place of prayer and study and sleep. Then architecturally ambitious Tudors began to construct an extra little room adjoining it called the closet. Richly decorated and often incorporating cupboards for the storage of treasures these funny little rooms became a dead end in architectural history. For a couple centuries, though, they provided the most intimate and private space in a house…
Towards the end of the Middle Ages, as literacy spread, we come across a novelty: people willingly spending time by themselves. This new trend for solitude, linked to the rise of reading, called for new, small and private rooms.” 1
Prior generations spent countless amounts of time together - sleeping, cleaning, fornicating, living. Privacy was once a foreign concept in many cultures, for example in “… modern Japan, privacy [was] much less important than in the West. Lacking their own word for the concept, the Japanese have adopted an English one, ‘praibashii’”. Just as too much time in the public eye led humans to seek solitude, too much time in digital solitude can push humans to find new ways to seek connection.
Enter: NFTs.
NFTs became popular at a time when we were all at home, and as the media liked to paint, protected from the outside world filled with chaos, disorder, and fear. Suddenly there was nothing more comforting than representing yourself pseudonymously with the NFT Avatar of your choice in a digital environment much cleaner and more organized than the perceived chaos outside.
Suddenly, you regained control and connection.
I have often joked that it has never been easier to buy friends. That remains true, people love it when you buy [their bags]. Still, participation in the right NFT-powered community can help the us battle loneliness during these days of digital solitude. I would be lying if I said I have not found true friendship and support within the NFT community. I am lucky – I know this – but I know a lot of people who have had similar stories.
Remember - NFTs are a cryptographically secure technological standard which can be utilized in creative ways to promote transparency and fairness within a digital environment - they don’t always have to be about social signaling with expensive pixels. If you are truly passionate about a style of art, an artist, a movie, a brand, a writer, a singer, or anything - it is likely there are other humans utilizing NFTs to power a community forming around that passion.
To quote Derek Edws, founder of Collab Currency, and thought-leader in the space
While the digital asset ecosystem is still only a decade old, I believe we’re in the midst of a fundamental, once-in-human-history transition from physical stores of value to digital stores of value. 2
For creators, brands, and digital nomads walking into the unknown I urge you to begin the process of ushering your community into web3 - in the process you will learn about blockchain, potentially develop a new revenue stream, identify your most technically and willing fans, and have direct access to interact with those fans.
I know a lot of us our anonymous, but remember, there’s normally a grown human adult behind that cartoonish profile picture. My next piece will be a pause from NFTs to focus on the need for a fourth turning in the field of medicine focused on love, mental health, and physical health - and why it’s more critical than ever.
Be Kind.
-Ethdapps
Worsley, Lucy, If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home. New York, Walker, 2012.
https://medium.com/collab-currency/storing-value-in-digital-objects-a92f54fa98cc