ONE WEEK AGO
CAMERON:
Hey, do you want to contribute something to Farcaster Fa—
ADRIENNE:
(Cutting him off, before he can get the words out)
Of course. Count me in.
(Pauses, thinks to herself)
Dammit, Adrienne, you do this all the time. You say yes to something before you know what you're committing yourself to.
(To Cameron)
What do you have in mind?
CAMERON:
Maybe an essay?
ADRIENNE:
Perfect. That’ll be easy.
PRESENT MOMENT
It’s Friday afternoon and I’m sitting high above the clouds on a cross country flight, with five hours of rare tranquility. No work deadlines, laundry, dishes, or carpools, just the quiet of my noise cancelling headphones and the promise of inflight WiFi. I could be opening up Netflix but instead I’m staring at a blank page, my Farcaster Fall deadline looming and the fear of disappointing the Farcaster scenius weighing on me.
For a brief moment I laugh at the absurdity of the situation. I’m a grown ass adult with a homework assignment (creative writing, at that!) that is mildly stressing me out. How did I end up here? But the moment is fleeting, because the truth is I’m nothing but delighted to be in this strange timeline that started about a year ago when I entered the Farcaster world.
I was drawn to Farcaster for the technology. A social media platform where we own our identity, an open protocol for permissionless participation, an invitation for developers to build applications we can’t even imagine today, all built on a blockchain for resiliency and censorship resistance.
While technology is important, what makes Farcaster truly special are the people. Dan recently described the 20,000 early adopters of Farcaster first as builders, second as being interested in Ethereum. The builder identity is generously broad and includes developers and founders, but also writers, poets, visual artists, musicians, chefs, parents. Anyone who generates something that didn’t exist before. Builders inherently embody the positive sum mindset, creating for the sake of creating.
The essay that follows is an act of love, dedicated to all the creatives in the Farcaster scenius. Pull on a sweater, grab your PSL (thank you Boop) and let’s go on a journey together through the wondrous season that brings out the best in Farcaster.
THE JOURNEY BEGINS WITH AUTUMN’S BEAUTY
Autumn. It's the painter's final flourish, the world's firework show. Step out and let it hit you—the riot of reds and oranges mixed with yellows and browns, the rejuvenating nip in the air, a sky so simply, so monochromatically, so perfectly blue to remind us that only the present moment matters. The leaves fall softly, slowly covering the grass that is now greener than it was all summer. A hint of decay layered on the crisp air, its subtle decomposition comforting to our noses, unlike the full-on rot of summer compost. Peak fall foliage is a season like no other.
The visual beauty and energizing air are what first comes to mind when I think of Fall.
We can tap into these extraordinary vibes anytime by looking at a few Farcaster channels known for being visually stunning and refreshing: f/Art, f/Photography, f/Food and f/Travel.
THE HARVEST SEASON
Fall is more than surface beauty. It’s the harvest season, providing nourishment. The fall harvest is the crescendo of not just months, but years of hidden and unglamourous labor – farmers take years to choose and cultivate seeds, prepare and tend the land, all while putting up a constant fight against pests.
Taking a bite into the sweetest Honeycrisp or the juiciest Anjou is just one moment’s reward for years of diligent and continuous effort.
Farcaster is the small scale, organic family farm. The work in and of itself is rewarding to us. We find joy in the simple acts of connecting with each other and creating across whatever medium speaks to us – visual art, photography, poetry, prose, companies, technology. There is no overnight success.
Unlike the monocrop industrial farm, we’re not looking for shortcuts to maximize just one dimension. We’re qDAU over DAU. Like the hobbyist farmer that tends to the gardens as an act of love, Farcasters are creating all year round for the sake of creating. The recent DAU high water mark is not because of an act that was taken recently, but because of continuous creation with good intent over many months and years.
This energy is all over Farcaster, but a good concentration can be found in channels like f/founders, f/creators, f/fitness, and f/launchcaster where the long term, sustainable builder mindset outnumbers the viral growth hackers by many orders of magnitude.
THE BITTERSWEET COMPLEXITY OF THE SEASON
As the leaves dull and continue to fall, we anticipate the cruel narrative twist: winter is coming. One reason we might find Fall to be the most beautiful is precisely because of knowing what’s to come. The sun sets a little earlier every day. The air is a little cooler. We fiercely hold on to today.
The Farcaster scenius knows this feeling all too well. How lucky we are to be part of an early social network! To help form the social norms! To see the primordial ooze turn to something valuable! In the weeks leading up to Farcaster becoming permissionless, we celebrated and held on tightly, oh so tightly. We had captured lighting in a bottle, and we didn’t want to give it up.
Spam, bots, scammers, air drop framers, self-promoters, zero summers, we know they are coming just as sure as we know winter is around the corner. But just as sure as Spring follows Winter, we know we need to get through the growing pains of permissionless to let our Farcaster protocol grow in many orders of magnitude and realize its fullest potential.
Fall is the most complicated of all the seasons. We hold two opposing feelings – the love of the present moment and certainty of impending melancholy. It reminds me of the complicated, nuanced people of Farcaster, infinitely more capable than the rest of the internet to hold opposing thoughts in our heads. Farcaster is the only place I’ve witnessed respectful conversation about world news, politics, culture, and even mundane warpcast features like quote casts.
The channels that most embody this spirit are f/news, f/philosophy, f/history, f/science, places where the mind can wander and wonder in good company.
WHAT DID I MISS?
Thank you for joining me on this celebration of the best season – FALL– and of the best social media platform – FARCASTER. I’ve drawn a few parallels between the season and the protocol, and highlighted a few channels that mirror the autumnal spirit. And now I’d love to hear from you. What did I miss? What did I get wrong? What would you add?
When I was preparing to write the essay, I asked for reasons why Fall was the best season, and the scenius did not disappoint. @links @galazio @kagami and many others captured the beauty and harvest theme, @greg, @dr3a and @linda were all about the comfy vibes, while @tombeck.eth and @sanchitram hit on the complexity of the season.
There were so many good contributions and I'm thankful to everyone who responded. But it was aaina who had my favorite answer:
there are so many reasons, fall is the quintessential whole greater than the sum of its parts
As the essay comes to an end, the Farcaster Fall scenius celebration rages on. It’s the best type of celebration – decentralized, permissionless, co-created, weird, and playful.