Welcome to the first edition of From Aa to Zzz Presents. It’s not a blog, it’s not a newsletter, but a secret third thing. Our latest journey is going from video only to written accompanied format. Our discussions are about the meaning of large ideas by exploring them from their origins in etymology, philosophy, and history and how that has created the modern context of connotations and ideologies we associate with these large ideas. It has been a crazy journey that started from an on-chain gaming podcast to a series of philosophical discussions on the implications of emerging tech on artists and society.
When FATZ first started it was 0xZFi, Zaunzi, and Zombie Shepherd collaborating to create a mostly Aavegotchi and Polygon related podcast. That was how Zombie came up with the name From Aa to Zzz, From Aavegotchi to ZFi, Zaunzi, and Zombie. There were some hilariously terrible names proposed before that, luckily they dug for gold. Zaunzi wasn’t able to commit to the show as he was very busy as Polygon community manager at the time so ZFi and Zombie went on with his support. ZFi and Zombie did nearly a year of mostly Aavegotchi based podcasts. They provided updates to the project but had a much broader focus on the community art and projects being built. There were many episodes spent musing on the implications of votes, community sentiment and response to outcomes, and overall in depth view into a growing DAO community that not many podcasts are able to offer. It was an interesting perspective into human coordination around tech even if you weren’t familiar with the NFTs or on-chain gaming at all.
The hours spent musing, and Zombie’s love for creators, turned into offshoot Twitter Spaces, podcasts, and livestreams called Touch Grass. In this experimental series ZFi and Zombie would discuss the creator economy around crypto as it pertains to musicians, and artists. These discussions ranged from traditional business issues creators have, artificial intelligence and emerging tech, to the future of artist empowerment. It was more of a side project and a way to experiment with other formats for FATZ while simultaneously increasing the quality of the Aavegotchi podcast.
Ultimately, ZFi and Zombie decided that a crypto game was likely the most niche and inaccessible discussions they could be trying to market to a wider audience and sponsors. The experiments in Touch Grass took over the main podcast as From Aa to Zzz A Creator Economy Podcast, where they created a more digestible flow of how, and why, a creator should utilize the emerging tech to better control their rights and protect themselves from predatory middle men that currently control the entertainment and artistic industries. The series covered the entirety of the transition of digital and internet creator tools and the effects they have had on creators publishing and monetization rights and rates. They also discussed Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, cryptocurrency, NFTs, Decentralized Finance, and ways to use these tools with the outcomes and implications for artists.
Throughout this whole process ZFi had been growing exponentially as a creator. In the beginning he mostly brought form and reason to an otherwise chaotic format. As time passed he began working with the design of title cards and other visual assets using logos provided by Stellar Hobbes. By the time they started on the creator economy series ZFi was mostly in control of branding and visual assets and they worked together to create scripts for the first time in their collaboration. This is also when they decided to start doing series instead of an open ended weekly show. It took more work for prep, and editing, but made for more directed discussions.
Moloch Traps is when FATZ really starts to embrace philosophical discussion as the focus. ZFi and Zombie took on the first part of Scott Alexander’s Meditations on Moloch discussing each of the traps he presented, one episode at a time. This series discussed game theory, and human coordination failure amidst our growing civil unrest, and the search for different outcomes. This journey was fun and highly informative to both Zombie and ZFi as it required extensive research. It was in a new format of open discussion with a bookend script. The scripting opened up the possibility of a written component to accompany the episodes and those are currently in the works for future release. The Moloch Traps series, and the increased writing it required, opened up a desire in Zombie Shepherd to create more deep and engaging discussions of this kind while focusing on artists as the catalyst for change.
From Aa to Zzz presents Variations on a Theme is joining all of these discussions together. Tech is emerging and evolving whether we like it or not. There is no turning back the clock, but we can ensure these technologies are not used to further subjugate the human spirit. By discussing the meanings and origins of ideas within our current society, we can empower visual artists, writers, musicians, orators, DAO contributors, developers, and every type of artist to deliver the highest quality endeavors towards a new conscious awareness of the world we’re creating together.
From Aa to Zzz: A Creator Economy podcast - YouTube
