Long known for its memorable memes (e.g., kiwi and wowow), the Farcaster (FC) community has also collectively hatched some fascinating terminology.
Ever since esteemed channel lead and GM Farcaster co-host Adrienne Shulman released her award-winning essay "The Power of Scenius: Farcaster and the Collective Genius of Communities" back in June, several word-nerd casters have taken up the task of tracking emergent Farcaster-specific lore and patterns of word use. Recently Adrienne and I teamed up for a project to chronicle the canonical Farcaster Scenius Lexicon memes and bring them onchain, and we're excited to share our early results as Zora Mints.
Our starter list as of December 2023:
- Conversational Liquidity Providers (CLPs)
- Before Farcaster/After Farcaster (BFC/AFC)
- Benevolent Dictator
Conversational Liquidity Providers (CLPs)
You don't need to be building an app to help Farcaster succeed. You just need to engage earnestly and wear your CLP badge proudly.
Background/origin:
"I still want Farcaster to succeed but I've decided running a hub isn't the best way.
I'm running with conversational liquidity provider instead." ~ @adrienne
"Conversational Liquidity Providers." ~ @ccarella (commenting on the top 30 active users as shown on Outcasters)
Search on Warpcast for conversational liquidity provider
What casters are saying:
"The conversational liquidity provider badge reminds us it's not just the developers adding value here.
"Someone has to keep this place engaging... the CLPs are the unsung heroes of Farcaster." ~ @adrienne
"CLPs contribute real value to the FC ecosystem." ~ @danicaswanson
"Incredible piece of terminology" ~ @maurelian
"conversational liquidity is a great meme, really makes you understand social networks as markets of creators and consumers" ~ @six
"When I grow up, my job description will be 'Conversation Liquidity Provider.'" ~ @vrypan
Before Farcaster/After Farcaster (BFC/AFC)
Farcaster changes you. If you plug into the Farcaster scenius and community in earnest, you may find your world shapeshifting into something more vibrant, connected, and creative.
Background/origin:
"@monkeydlinks.eth coined the terms BFC/AFC during gmfarcaster [...] Scenius at work." ~ @adrienne
Search on Warpcast for BFC + AFC
What casters are saying:
Before Farcaster: launch products = cold start problem
After Farcaster: launch products = bootstrap from FC audience ~ @ghostlinkz.eth
Before Farcaster: no high value interaction on any social platform
After Farcaster: quality discourse on a variety of topics in person & shared articles. ~ @sal1y.eth
Before Farcaster: Offchain art
After Farcaster: Onchain art. Found Zora ~ @j-valeska
Before Farcaster: was a degenerate
After Farcaster: still a degenerate ~ @cassie
Benevolent Dictator
Wielding mighty warps, boosts, and algorithms, Farcaster's benevolent dictator faithfully acts in service to the permissionless, interoperable future.
Background/origin:
If you were BDFOWF, what would you have us work on?
BDFOWF = benevolent dictator for one warpcast feature ~ @dwr
Note: benevolent dictator is, of course, not a Farcaster-specific term; it's widely used elsewhere. In FC contexts benevolent dictator typically refers to Dan Romero (@dwr), co-founder of Merkle Manufactory, but it's also used in more general ways, often as a web3 governance archetype.
Search on Warpcast for benevolent dictator
What casters are saying:
"@dwr.eth is Benevolent Dictator For Now of what shows up in Warpcast." ~ @horsefacts.eth
"He is a great benevolent dictator. At some point we'll have to help him to decentralize governance and culture :)" ~ @dhadrien.eth
"WHAT IS A BOOST" ~ @ted
"it's when dan flexes the benevolent dictator role" ~ @ivy
"...smaller accounts have lots of trouble getting engagement. If you were the benevolent dictator, how would you fix this?" ~ @nor
"Should we do an @unlonely stream called benevolent dictators?" ~ @markfishman
"The BDF!L (benevolent dictator but not for life) pattern is the single best idea in sociology of distributed systems but is really hard to pull off. When people are wary of BDFLing, they end up all waiting around for someone else to start. You must bind !L to a fixed epoch." ~ @vgr
Contribute to the Farcaster Scenius Lexicon
What other FC-specific words or phrases should be considered for the FC Scenius Lexicon? (Thank you to @six for calling attention to "Romerogorithm," coined by @nonlinear).
Comment or tag us on Farcaster (@adrienne or @danicaswanson) to let us know!
Thanks for reading! New here and want more context? Start with @cameron's canonical and much-appreciated article "Fast Rope Into Farcaster."
Correction: Originally we stated that "romerogorithm" was coined while we were working on this article. Thanks to @ghostlinkz.eth for finding via Searchcaster that it was actually coined in Sep. 2022.
