World of VanPoure | A New Kind of Creator Economy
Discord (or Telegram for smaller projects) has become the de-facto central communication method for cryptocurrency projects everywhere, and for good reason. The platform’s indexing capabilities are extremely useful for finding the answers to questions, communicating deadlines, and locating contacts for support questions. However, the heavy reliance on Discord, like any other method of centralization, comes with its inherent drawbacks. We are especially interested in the effect the “hive mind” can have on stifling original thinking and innovation when it comes to a community reaching its full potential of what is possible.
Legitimization without Discord
The traditional model where Discord is utilized to get a feel for what a community supposedly already is implies a certain amount of reliance on the other members of the community to do the defining. We use the term supposedly because what a community becomes is both dependent on and proportional to the efforts that individual members exert in order to influence its ethos. Power is not a static force; therefore, the members’ power to influence will better characterize the community’s “process of becoming” (according to the mental model that is held in mind) rather than a static representation of the community’s circumstance in any given moment.
When it comes to collective behaviors, it’s easier for individuals to just follow along with what everyone else in the channel is saying or doing, instead of investing imaginative effort into shaping and molding the community of our dreams. VanPoure will take an experimental approach in this regard, cutting out the incentives for members to “follow” and instead incentivizing acts of originality, creativity and innovative leadership.
With nothing to discover inside of a Discord channel, a kind of intellectual void is formed that serves as a blank canvas out of which community members can co-create what the community becomes via the physical derivative works inside of real-world spaces.
Incentivizing Initiative
Proposal-based voting on Snapshot gives holders the opportunity to win dividends through treasury funded installations which they orchestrate themselves and then execute. As such, the community is encouraged to use their innate creativity and a spirit of curiosity to drive real life connections with creatives, architects, designers, businesses and interested individuals from all walks of life who otherwise may never set foot in Discord-land.
In other words, the VP community is one of highly self-reliant — but supportively inter-dependent — members. This foundation from which unique artistic initiatives can come about is certainly something worth celebrating, and VP provides batches of signature invitations to holders that have produced derivative works from their Topography NFTs.
The goal is to channel all of the enthusiasm of the community into real world instances of beauty, which are monetarily incentivized by the community treasury and ongoing dividends (please see our Whitepaper Mini). With this pathway of invitation set as a project tradition, the community experience becomes richer through the formation of real life connections all around the globe between members who may otherwise only have known each other digitally.
Therefore, with a focus toward this unique kind of self-organization, VanPoure will be Discord-less so that much of the tendency to try and “find out” what a community is all about is eliminated. However, this does not mean that VP community will remain connection-less… it is far from it, in fact. Purposefully designed channels of community serve to provide visual inspiration and allow for project suggestions on featured projects, in addition to the opportunities to celebrate with community members around the globe.
Future Implications
It’s interesting to wonder what would happen if the social and creative connections formed in VanPoure’s LiquidiTao community only happen on the basis of actually creating art — that is to say, they do not have their foundation in the various intellectualization that goes on within online forums, chat groups, and the like, but rather take root by the inspiration that one conscious creator can give to another. If language — which is by its very nature a mental tool — is removed, then only creativity remains as the basis for forming connections, recognition and camaraderie between members. Does not creativity extend beyond the mental, rational planes? Is not worth attempting to shut off one ‘sense’ or skill set that doesn’t function idyllically in favor of sharpening another, or in the name of establishing new ways of creating and relating?
Since the creation of real world brand equity is the ultimate goal — and because holders are rewarded for creating these new pathways — efforts at centralization and the formation of relationships would be better spent in a physical place in the real world. There is no question that Discord has its benefits regarding centralization. However, the establishment of canonical processes is not the ultimate end for this artistic community, and in fact, has the potential to detract from the pushing of boundaries because of the constant assessment of whether everyone else is already doing something a certain way.
With enthusiasm and love, we look forward to publishing submissions for our very first round of funding. We wish our community a very happy spring season of designing and dreaming!
