With the advent of the Internet came an extraordinary global connection and moment for collaboration. In this guest post, Marco Gonzalez shares a theory about how NFTs represent an unprecedented opportunity for independent creators.
Social media’s elevation of global human discourse pales in comparison to the robust engagement offered by NFTs. Trust, empowered personal finance, and expression all become commonplace within a higher-level community dynamic.
Along with the connectivity that social media brought the world also came a sense of division. It can be argued that monopolies and echo chambers have moved the Internet away from a place of discovery and toward like-mindedness.
That’s where community entanglement — a compact theory inspired by the idea of entanglement theory, mysterious community engagement, and the power of NFTs — comes in.
Entanglement theory is about unbreakable connections that defy even the strongest of influences. Meaningful community engagement is something that large corporations spend substantial amounts of money chasing, and often without success. Yet, NFTs organically connect two parties in ways that no amount of money can imitate, both in significant ways of self-expression as well as communally towards greater financial independence.
Blockchain gave birth to a new culture of community on the Internet. Since cryptocurrencies were the primary applications, this culture grew around money. Fiat currencies’ overwhelming use, and the masses’ resistance to change, sometimes leads to comparisons of crypto fandom to cults — instead of communities rallying around a shared interest and greater good.
NFTs expand upon the blockchain community, and their highly-personal nature lends to a world of individualism. This would seemingly contradict community entanglement theory, until exploring crypto communities a bit deeper.
Online communities exhibit several aspects of freedom simply impractical — or impossible — for local, physically-dependent communities. Entangled communities are important because they involve more than one group, wherein their connections (e.g. entanglement) are potentially infinite based on the number of members.
And yet, if you were to visit just two crypto-communities, you could easily find suitable candidates for a tertiary community. Transplanted conversations would share aspects of both ‘primary’ communities as well as invariably spawn new characteristics in the third.
This is what NFTs have the ability to bring to the mainstream: a new kind of community built on trust, shared interest, and freedom from gatekeepers.
Community entanglement theory was not possible, or substantially significant, prior to the advent of the Internet and social media. However, it wasn’t until NFTs offered empowerment that entangled communities sought a podium and freedom.
Led primarily by NFT artists, entangled communities offer so much more than that of the influencer dynamic traditionally seen in online spaces. They empower a larger selection of minds that’s generally thought to be practically impossible on the traditional Internet.
NFTs offer artists the ability to create for their audience instead of gatekeepers, and empower creators with a better way to express their visions. For the first time, artists have a direct and intimate connection with the wholeness of their digital audiences. The essence of community entanglement theory isn’t just that people share similar interests. Rather, seemingly separate communities share very intimate, yet often veiled, traits.
These traits shape and grow the communities themselves. With NFTs, now individuals, creators, as well as the entangled communities themselves, have the capacity for real change.
Written by and posted with permission of Marco Gonzalez.
