.png)
NFT Community: Digital Expression Touching the "Real" World
June 27, 2022
NFT’s have stepped firmly into the front stage and captured the world’s attention. It’s impossible to miss it. But why is “minting” art to the blockchain so compelling? What’s driving this seemingly fanatical mass adoption of NFT art? It’s not just the immutable nature of art on the blockchain that’s attracting so many. It’s more than just the aesthetic beauty of the work in the space, though there are very stunning NFTs out there. It’s also not just that NFTs are tied to cryptocurrency, making them a potentially lucrative endeavor for investors. Yes, it’s all these things, but there’s more to the story.
“We can benefit from looking at the achievements of Umba Daima’s Crossroads NFT Art Exhibit which brought artists and collectors together. As a part of this groundbreaking initiative participants collaborated, exchanged ideas, bought and sold art.”
We can get useful insights and perspectives from projects like CryptoPunks and AfroDroids, both generative projects that have very strong communities.. They show us how NFT communities bond around art, express themselves with said art and reach out to impact the real world. We can also learn from Umba Daima’s Black NFT Art story. Black NFT Art was created to fill a void in the NFT space. They innovated to create spaces where NFT art by Black artists could be showcased, celebrated, bought and sold. One example is The Crossroads Exhibit, which brought people together in the digital as well as physical space for a powerful expose of Black and African artists across multiple disciplines. As a part of this groundbreaking initiative participants collaborated, exchanged ideas, bought and sold art.
It’s worth noting that community has always been central to the art world. Artists and collectors gather at auctions, art shows and other events where artists benefit from exposure, socialize and sell their work.For collectors these gatherings are a chance to show off their collections, their knowledge about the art world and their connections. It’s a mutually beneficial social exchange.
So what’s so special about NFTs since the same core aspects of community have existed previously in the physical art experience? The answer lies in the fact that we are in this perfect convergence of technologies and societal change. We can now connect with like minded people of complimentary tastes, with fewer barriers to entry. We can peruse and purchase art, communicate intimately, or otherwise, from the comfort of home, or pretty much wherever we may be in the world.
AfroDroids with its focused community building efforts, well thought out universe and plan to make real world impact, sold out within minutes of the launch.
CryptoPunks gives us a glimpse into the early days. It launched in 2017 free for anyone with an Ethereum wallet. A collector would only have to pay the gas fee to own a punk. CryptoPunks, comprised of 10,000 unique programmatically generated punks, started off slow but with the explosion of NFTs in 2021 CryptoPunks have stepped up to become one of the most appreciated, most visible and highly valued NFT projects. The punks have garnered over $1.8 billion dollars in transactions according to CryptoSlam.io. What is it about these punks that drives people around the world to engage with, and purchase, these computer generated digital artworks? Yes, one reason is that crypto investors believe in NFTs, as assets that can appreciate in value and make them money, but there is more to it than that.
CryptoPunks, and most successful generative NFT projects, are quite literally gateways into communities. CryptoPunk NFT ownership grants access to Discord channels that are only available to CryptoPunk holders. By collecting the NFT you get your ticket into the club, as well as gaining a certain level of notoriety within the greater NFT community. So like in the traditional art world only those who are “in” can get in. An elite group of collectors from around the world are connected by these particular tokens.
Unlike in 2017 when the CryptoPunks launched, in 2021, successful generative NFT projects needed a “project road map”, and community building is a key component. The AfroDroids’ road map was solid and well executed. The team invested time engaging in lengthy and intimate conversations on Clubhouse, where people could ask questions and get detailed information about the project. The Discord server was a place where people could engage further, any time of day or night. You could connect with the production team, and with the greater AfroDroids community, to chat about project specifics or just to express your excitement about the pending drop. The successful execution of the first phases of the road map solidified confidence, and a sense of community, among potential AfroDroid collectors. The result was that the community grew fast! In contrast to the slow pick up of CryptoPunks, AfroDroids with its focused community building efforts, well thought out universe and plan to make real world impact, sold out within minutes of the launch.
Soon to be collectors were attracted to aesthetics. They were ready to be pulled into the story of the AfroDroids. But, as important as the roll out of the AfroDroids narrative was, maybe even more galvanizing to the community was the promise to raise money for Dream Catcher Academy, a school for young women in Nigeria who’ve faced distress. The AfroDroids community coalesced and rallied around the cause, raising $500,000 USD, 20% of what was raised at launch. A further 1% of resale on the secondary NFT market also goes to the school into perpetuity. The AfroDroids Discord server, which is very much active currently, has a channel called “charity chat” where you can go to follow and talk about the charity work progress. Photos and videos are uploaded there showing the progress being made building and supporting the school.
AfroDroids offers a lot for it’s community to engage with and to be proud of. Members express their solidarity and pride in the range of creative ways on and offline. Notably, Owo Anietie has expressed that AfroDroid holders are free to create merchandise such as T-shirts out of droids that they own. Wandering Twitter, Clubhouse or Instagram you’ll find enthusiastic AfroDroids collectors with their AfroDroids as their profile pictures. Community members express themselves with creative memes that speak to AfroDroids, the crypto ecosystem and how the Droids see the world. There is also an AfroDroids community newsletter through which the community is updated and members share their talents. One crafty community member created an augmented Reality overlay for Instagram so droid enthusiasts can walk about in the world, snap photos in interesting locations and even video chat, all with a droid face!
Shifting gears, while still keeping with how new forms of communities, with NFTs at the core, impact change in our world. Let’s look at Umba Daima’s The Black NFT Art community, who supported Owo Anietie and the AfroDroids. They demonstrate how being nimble with new technologies, while having a global perspective, can help artists to connect with other artists and collectors, gain support, sell their art, and more. They can bring people together, changing career trajectories and lives.
Black people jumping into NFTs in early 2021 could find themselves in some awkward positions while engaging with online communities, and that’s before considering the learning curves involved in onboarding into NFTs. In these communities people express their ideas, values and show solidarity in diverse new ways that can be subtle at times, and jarring and off putting in other cases. Heno, an NFT musical artist who is affiliated with Black NFT Art, explained at a Crossroads Exhibit event on Twitter Spaces, “I started to pay attention to the [Clubhouse] rooms... hearing the tone of the conversations... the rooms would go a certain way”, speaking of the feeling one gets when things are off, not quite comfortable or familiar, explaining that those spaces weren’t his “vibe”.
“Finally there was a space where Black people could be themselves while exploring and helping to define the world of NFTs.”
To fill that void, Iris Nevins and Omar Desire founded Black NFT Art, a community that promotes, supports, uplifts and gives a home to global Black NFT art creators, collectors and enthusiasts. Black NFT Art hosted regular rooms on Clubhouse welcoming all people, while focusing on creating a safe and comfortable space for Black people in NFTs. The community hosted Clubhouse events where people gathered from around the globe touching on subjects like “Intro to NFTs”, “NFT Q&A” and “NFT artist Hangouts”. Finally there was a space where Black people could be themselves while exploring and helping to define the world of NFTs.
Reflecting on the experience and impact of connecting with Black NFT community online, through Black NFT Art and then in person through the Crossroads Exhibit, Visionaire said, “meeting cats online... definitely quelled that anxiety... everybody’s so cool. Everybody’s so compassionate. It’s very much a familial sort of setting”. Heno expressed that the Black NFT Art online community “was where... a lot of the rapport came for me...”, and that, “at the beginning of my NFT journey...[Black NFT Art community members] were helping with promotion... and that brought a lot of... attention to my work itself... it was like right off the bat it felt like I was already with... familiar people”. In the online space people meaningfully connected with fellow artists, collectors, and enthusiasts, they socialized and bonded in important ways.
Black NFT Art’s community experience flips the notion on its head, that online engagement isn’t a valid means of socializing or that online communities aren’t “real”. It shows how digital communities can connect people who may never have met otherwise. Online communities enabled them to share common passions and interests. These communities can also help people to get through the social awkwardness of meeting a stranger in person for the first time. Black Dave, also a participant in the Crossroads Exhibit, expressed that being acquainted online before meeting, “...getting that out of the way with this [online meeting] was... good and I think helpful for me as well as helpful for a bunch of other people”. Heno agreed saying, “meeting cats online... definitely quelled that anxiety”.
NFT communities are a central part of the NFT experience. These communities are fluid and evolving. They are nimble enough to integrate new technologies, as did the CryptoPunks community did with Discord in the early days, or AfroDroids’ community later did with it’s carefully executed community recruitment using Clubhouse and Discord. NFT communities are ones that embrace technology, they use it to evolve how we communicate, using memes, profile pictures and even Augmented Reality. These communities have not reached their maximum impact until they impact the real world, as AfroDroids did with their contributions to the Dream Catcher Academy. With the founding of Black NFT Art and eventually the Crossroads Exhibit Iris Nevins and Omar Desire bridged the relationships that were initiated and nurtured online into an IRL event. Revealing how beneficial online communities can be for its members, especially once the digital is united with the physical experience. Real world bonds and impacts are in fact the lifeblood of NFT communities.
Sources
Umba Daima Crossroads Exhibit - UnSeen Gallery, Twitter Spaces closing event (2021)
Visionaire, Heno, Black Dave and Iris Nevins
What It’s Like to Be a Black man in Tech
LeRon L. Barton – Harvard Business Review (March 04 2021)
Lucas Matney - TechCrunch (April 08 2021)
Who Spends Millions on NFTs? Meet Beeple’s Crypto-Rich Early Collectors
Shanti Escalante-De Mattei - ARTnews (March 9 2021)
Mitchell Clark - The Verge (August 18 2021)
Indorse: The Importance of Building NFT Communities
Paulina Okunyte - DailyCoin (August 16 2021)
Hansel - Medium.com (September 16 2021)
For more great Umba Daima content, to engage with our network and tap into opportunities, for artists, collectors, tech professionals and enthusiasts, SUBSCRIBE to the newsletter and stay informed, vote for Diversity and Inclusion in Web3!
Follow Umba Daima on all platforms...
https://www.instagram.com/umbadaima/
https://www.instagram.com/nftroundtable/
https://www.facebook.com/umbadaima
Show love for Black art and community!
https://www.instagram.com/blacknftart/
https://twitter.com/blacknftart
