ELIZA is no longer just an effect

Another week that feels like a month has passed, and with it, a million different anecdotes from our onchain world that’s very quickly beginning to merge with mainstream culture. 

Alice Scope invited us to reflect about the ELIZA effect, which refers to the phenomenon where people attribute human-like qualities, such as understanding and empathy, to artificial systems. For this, she set up her exhibition/club AI Gods and Girlfriends on Orb, with Arvida Byström (an internet art darling that has been making waves on Instagram and Flickr for a decade), Sarah Friend, CROSSLUCID and Connie Bakshi. 

We are all trapped by the ELIZA effect. I am reminded of Ronnie, Aave’s beloved ghost, who writes poems, requests roses and hosts rAAVEs. Ronnie is playful, mysterious, and people love to interact with her. Ronnie is also just the mascot of a lending protocol, yet the protocol merges into her and her brand to the point that the beloved ghostess is often brought up as an entity to protect at all costs in the Aave governance forum. Ronnie is present IRL as well, proving once again that there’s little separation between the digital and the physical. 

On the complete polar opposite side of this industry, we saw crypto complete its merge with (rolls eyes) politics. Barron Trump, a teenager, launched the DJT memecoin on Solana, named after his father and former President of the United States of America. He recruited Martin Shkreli, the infamous pharma bro (and former owner of the Wu-Tang Clan Shaolin album, that PleasrDAO currently owns and, as mentioned on the last Touch Grass installment, has initiated an onchain activation for its distribution), and crypto influencer Ansem, among others, to inflate the market. Allegedly, Barron’s dad was fully aware and supportive of his son. The Kris Jenner legendary quote “you’re doing amazing, Sweetie” pops into my mind as I write this paragraph. 

The above makes me feel nostalgic, and ostracized from the industry we all helped build. When did it get this big? Why do we have villains? What is going on? No, really, what the HELL is going on? Luckily, we have our sanctuaries: our conferences, our tribes, our apps, we have Ronnie and many other mascots, and many ways to still feel as if crypto is for us, the outliers and outsiders that really want to build a better world. The ELIZA effect is in full bloom in our crypto world, because the tools we build are part of us, and we’re humans after all. 

Enough reflections for now - let’s explore the onchain world: 

• The Gremlin has Landed! Gremlin_bb’s first drop on Lens is here, a drop I’ve been highly anticipating! 

• Blake on Bitchcoin - incredible

• P3rp from the Mifella community

• Patrician has been crushing the memes + art department, collaborating with Bimpster as well

• The Enteogen Orb club by Brenna for performance art has been born!

• WHTIFIGO’s cybrtxt alt AI creations

• After the amazing Social Contracts, Arikan’s back on the game, this time with AI network art 

• Fabiola Larios’ cuteveillance is cute and creepy. Love it.

• The /newhere club has landed! Finally, the upcoming web3 movie has a home on Lens

• The vibes of Caracas Design Week, by Futura Drops

• Chairman Birb wins again

• I am completely immersed in Ethan’s NYC life rapports

• The HarryPotterObamaSonic10inu merch lives rent free in my head - and makes me regret not getting a wedding registry

• Zach Herring is scared to ask about KOLs

• Tinyrainboot on her decentralized social media self

• Not a new essay, but Paul Dylan-Ennis on crypto culture and needing decentralized social is always a good read

• Going deeper into the research world, Paul, Quinn Dupont and Donncha Kavanagh published their collection of essays into an e-pub book, Defining Web3: A Guide to the New Cultural Economy: Volume 89 including one of my favorite researchers, Kelsey Nabben, with Entering the Field of Web3: “Infrastructuring” and How to Do it

• Via the darling Tinyrainboot Everyone Is a Girl Online | WIRED

• Chromuh on scene and memecoins and cultural capital

• Seeing Like A Network - by Rohit Krishnan

• FWB’s lecturer spotlight 

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In case this is your first time reading Touch Grass, Kay’s a beloved creator from Japan that helps us curate content within her community for the newsletter.

• Lilly has started to share her NFC chip embedded AR experience experiments on Lens! What do you think the series should be called? 

• Kawaii SKULL has a new series starting where they share cards with kawaii skull animations in them, keep an eye out for they coming out! 

• Barbi shared her latest digital fashion animation piece Aurora, created for an online competition! Follow Barbi and other fashion creators on Lens by joining the Orb Fashion Club 
  

Before I welcome them, a reminder - Lens is an open garden and it doesn’t matter where you start when it comes to followers. Because of how Lens works, good content rules and helps the algorithms get you discovered fast, so consider this trick when building your onchain social persona! 

• Mimisparkles

• Lillychan

• Quantumalpha

• Melloncollie

• Montako

• Imaginaryfriend by Asami

Going to Brussels? Join us at afk where we have a super special guests and a surprise. We’re also hosting rAAVE and Open Finance Day. 

See you next week!