After a lengthy (by internet standards) inquisition into the idea represented by the term meme, I attempted a canonization of the soft science most likely deemed memetics.
Within the context of emergent crypto culture we studied the Opepen art project by Jack Butcher & Jalil, Nouns DAO by the Nounders, and the Ethereum+ network company Zora. In hindsight we see that our understandings were resonant, and yet elementary in the amplified scope.
Enter Based Management. A small scale onchain org cofounded by Leighton Cusack and myself. Leveraging Nouns Builder tooling, BM has begun wading through the crypto waters. This essay is focused on blueprinting the early memetics of the project.
Steal Like an Artist
The attempted innovation-quest we are on for Based Management finds its uniqueness in the combination of established understandings, designs, language, etc. More specifically, from Opepen, Nouns, and Zora.
We’ve covered the 0 to 1 memetic interpretations of these three hypercultures. So we’ll skip rehashing them and move on to the second-order memetics pertinent to BM.
Opepen
What we’ve stolen from Opepen is their ‘opt-in’ meme.
Jack and Jalil already had a token set. Whether that’s Checks or Opepen, the established contingency already possessed their cultural signifiers. This allowed for emphasis to rest on the people instead of the distribution.
opt in to modify your checks
opt in to solidify your opepens
Additionally, anyone who resonates with the Opepen project can opt in conceptually (via art). This is where we found our first nugget to steal.
BM’s intern project is our twist on opt-in. Anyone can mint BM related memes, art, design, content, audio, video, etc. If they earn 1000 mints from willing collectors onchain, they are brought into Based Management One’s DAO.
With more BM treasuries on the horizon, we hope to see opt-in verticals for media of all formats emerge. Similar to Opepen, we allow any resonant party to have influence on who gets added to the project.
Nouns
With Nouns we’ve taken their auction and licensing models.
The daily auction proved potent in attracting onchain attention. It made the close a daily quest for interested parties and provided a simple restart for the newly initiated.
Our twists at BM are a curatorial approach. Instead of immediately available daily auctions, the founders amassed a chunk of tokens for considerate contribution partnerships. We made the auction cadence weekly as well so that Intern and Contributor paths have ample space to operate.
Read more here:
https://lght.mirror.xyz/m-J7q20YX843S9HRFL649Zw5nZiYoyMjDsuIaRsfxdk
Beyond the auction we made all branding, art, etc cc0. The power of cc0 has often been viewed as an internal party handing off rights to an external party. We are handing off rights to both external and internal parties.
Based Management’s treasury is called Based Management One. We have chosen this name due to our desire to spin up more Based Management treasuries ourself.
If someone already in-house wishes to create a new Based Management vertical they are encouraged to do so. If someone has just stumbled upon the project, they are equally encouraged to build on the network.
A 15 minute added-context video here:
https://x.com/0xlght/status/1713012466958114922?s=20
Zora
The theoretics behind their memetic icon (the zorb). A ball, a sphere, a vertex, a planet; I called the zorb an abstract memetic icon in my hypercultures series. A more fluid and open-to-interpretation hieroglyph.
Based Management has chosen a reinterpretation of the old Internet Explorer icon, using a B instead of E. We have also landed on a globe (signifying the World Wide Web).
What we are trying to accomplish is an abstract, yet highly contextual/relevant arena for memetic divergence. The internet aesthetic as memetic iconography.
Same Same, But Different
The three hypercultures we have taken inspiration from have memetic blueprints local to their fundamental intentions. Based Management is no different.
The puzzles we get to solve next are:
how expansive can memetic iconography be for a localized project?
can internet aesthetic be a memetic icon?
if so, can corporate satire mesh for added divergence?
how localized do additional BM networks need to be if at all?
what are the memetics local to BM1 solely if any at all?
