The internet is entering a new era of community. The web3 has unlocked the possibility for communities to easily come together across platforms, which gives communities a sense of ‘realness’ that doesn’t feel the same as being on a web2 platform. Web3 gives people collective ownership of their community by holding tokens in their web3 wallets like MetaMask or Rainbow. This means it’s not the tech giants owning your data and the actual community; it’s the community that owns itself.
Digital products are trying to service these communities by letting them sign in with their own wallets, utilizing and keeping their own data. That’s a big departure from the walled garden approach of app stores and contemporary social media giants. This gives many of these communities, also called DAOs or decentralized autonomous organisations, a feeling of actual agency. Besides the fact that the space is ‘early’ and loads of rails still have to be built out, I think it’s this unspoken sentiment of agency which is energizing the people moving into community-based social media rather than social feed-based social media.
So how do you participate?
Level 1 – observe & support
Almost everyone starts here. When joining communities, just take some time to get a feel of what’s going on, what’s being shared, what are the values, who are the key people involved, etc. You might learn about adjacent communities and may have a look at them too. If a community is not your cup of tea; move on.
If you find a community that you do resonate with, the easiest thing you can do is support. Show love, be part of celebrating, amplify what members are doing (e.g. by spreading the word). Anyone can do this and it hardly requires any onboarding or understanding of the intricacies of the DAO.
Level 2 – advisory, component-building & storytelling
Once you’re actually part of a community, it will be easier to start chiming in when it comes to topics you have specific expertise about. For many reading, that’s music or the music business. In a creative community, ‘chiming in’ doesn’t just mean speaking up occasionally; it also includes making things.
What shape that takes really depends on the way the community is set up. One example is a recent contest Songcamp ran in which musicians could submit intros for Seed Club’s new podcast.
Things can also be more organic. Once you’re part of the community and see something that can be improved, do it or organise to do it. It’s a similar mentality as what you see in the free party scene where visitors are expected to contribute to the party, which sometimes means dozens of soundsystems from all over the continent gathering to throw an event open to participants for free.
This is the stage where ideas and proposals start to take shape:
- We should have a landing page, so people can get an idea of what we’re about;
- We should have local chapters;
- We should create better ways to onboard new people to the community;
- What if we had generative PFPs for all members?
Etc.
Even with a few hours per week or per month of writing, organising, developing, or making, you can achieve a lot together with a community.
Level 3 – governance
If you’re interested in a larger commitment, you can get involved in governance, which is something you’ll find natural paths towards through active contribution in most DAOs. This usually requires a pretty decent understanding of most web3 dynamics, such as tokenomics and tooling, or at least the willingness to learn. (DAOs tend to figure things out along the way and good new tools enter the sphere on a weekly basis)
However, governance is not about technology. The technology enables us to deal with existing problems in better ways than we have before. Just to name two examples of non-technical topics for DAOS:
- Moderation and community guidelines.
- Onboarding members.
In my opinion, more DAOs should think about how they onboard new people, so that these communities can be more inclusive of people currently underrepresented in the space.
How to find DAOs
The easiest way is to install Discord and join every server of communities, tools and marketplaces that seem interesting to you. Check in on a few channels regularly and ignore or mute the rest. If you’re enjoying a community, start unmuting channels. If you hear about a community, consider checking it out.
Here are some great Discords to start with:
See you in the metaverse.