Noun o'clock is the time each day at which a new Noun NFT is curated/settled by the community. For the past 250 some days I have been working on creating culture around this event, sharing interesting facts, fictions, games and prizes with those who gather in the /noc public square on Farcaster (a new decentralized social media protocol enabling new types of social networks).

The idea is that we celebrate and proliferate the Nouns meme during this daily event/ritual, educate others about what is happening, what is Nouns, how people can get involved, why they should get involved, and we all have fun doing it. The DAO has attempted to establish this time as an internet-wide cultural event and, to date, has invested well over $1M in the name of "Noun o'clock" (I have personally received $1k of that, which I've paid forward), so what do we have to show for it?

One could argue that many were onboarded via the daily Twitter space, that, in its heyday, attracted hundreds of listeners, hosted daily art competitions, and fostered culture around this new, wonderfully weird, ever-shifting-through-time, daily soirée. The reality is, that the idea failed to gain traction, NFT market dropped off a cliff, and after 1000 days, and nearly the same amount of ETH, the initiative is shutting down on episode #1000. With it, a legacy, stories, friends, foes, and so on is left behind. I will attempt to travel back in time and surface some of the best contributions and contributors throughout this era, celebrate them, attempt to re-engage those who left, and perhaps publish their works (provided cc0). But besides that, where does this leave us today? "The Community" is the answer.

We can uplift the outcasts, artisans, weirdos and vagabonds via this transcendent event. But it will take commitment, dedication, thankless labour and hours poured into a potential abyss. I am happy to travel into that abyss, as I have been doing my whole life, searching for something/anything different to the mundane memes presented to us daily. The establishment does not excite me, money does not entice me, long gone are the days where I would ponder, in university lectures, about working for Apple, Mars Bar, or the next soulless corporation that slowly strips the true human essence from your bones. The new world is here, a world of decentralised design, autonomous systems and sovereign individuals, brought together by common cause, and this is what I plan to amplify via Noun o'clock.

Over the past year I have been documenting the nuances of Nounish societies, creating an aesthetic and authentic relationships with community members who are creating magic at Noun o'clock. I have attempted to gift Nouns in competitions, gift Nouns directly to artists, feed starving artists ETH, reimburse debts, sunset projects, dream and the list goes on at Lil Nouns with a huge number of proposals focused on establishing meme value, whatever that means (I have some ideas). Some would say that many of these attempts have failed, but every proposal is a win in my book, and I am proud to be able to put others before myself and positively impact their lives whilst we grow this society together. Every onchain action represents a cultural landmark, persisted for eternity.

I now want to attempt to bring this meme into physical reality, manifesting the ideals and thoughts that adorn the pages of this interactive design book I have written, "MEME VALUE". The creation of this book has been funded by Lil Nouns and serves as a cc0 prototype for anyone to pick up and use how they wish. I am working on a unique distribution plan that hopefully will last a lifetime, and am creating more resources to educate the wider public about the implication of good memes, beyond their perception as funny pictures on the internet.

Our entire existence is a multifaceted, real-time consumption/rejection of memes. Cultural transmissions, persisted when they are good, and forgotten when they are weak. Take the term "royal" for example, a well established and accepted meme where, in the UK, a family is above the law, living on the most expensive real-estate in the country, within a palace. This meme is deeply ingrained and originates from violence and corruption, a foundation, that in my opinion, is not strong - yet has been persisted by force. People become so accustomed to memes, that after a while they stop imagining an alternate reality, which, in my opinion, is where Nouns is a shining beacon of hope. Born from absurdity, super high fecundity, morally driven, crypto-native, decentralised, new culture, new ideas, new art, new paradigm.

I hope I can garner the support of these Nounish societies that I have come to love and exist within, and carry the Noun o'clock torch forward, lighting the way for the next generation of creative minds and dreamers from this planet and the next. "MEME VALUE Limited Edition run" coming soon, reach out to me to preorder one.

I am writing this as my monthly update for Flows, a new micro-grants platform funded by Nouns DAO, designed to fund/empower individuals and projects that positively impact their communities. We have reached 1.1k followers at noc and continue to onboard new creatives to the Flows platform via our Noun o'clock daily celebrations, most recently the legendary mferones 41 minutes ago.

Thanks for reading,

pipedream.eth

醓 (@pip) on Farcaster

meme value pipedream.eth probe.wtf/nouns/dreams

Farcaster