Over the past few years, we’ve seen the potential of tokens and their various use cases (or lack thereof).
One prevailing theme, regardless of the token’s purpose is around participation. That could mean self-custodial ownership, governance, or access via token-gating.
An area where deeper forms of participation with tokens continue to be explored is entertainment. Some examples:
Creator League: 8 popular gaming creators would compete in various competitions and fans would purchase a pass to vote on benefits, strategic decisions, and potentially directly participate in the competitions. It was unfortunately canceled because one of the participating creators didn’t realize that blockchain was involved and dislikes NFTs. An effort that had potential but was too early for its time
Fan tokens: Fans of pop idol groups could purchase tokens and make decisions on the group’s operations such as selecting members or purchase merch.
Karate Combat: A MMA league powered by the $KARATE token, allowing viewers and fans to wager their tokens on matches. The token is an additional form of incentivization for fighters as well. My friend Pet has a good overview on the ecosystem.
Game shows: In Crypto: The Game, participants minted Player NFTs and participated in challenges. If they were voted out, the Player NFTs still held value as they were used in the final vote to determine the winner. I had the pleasure of participating in Season 2 and hope to join Season 3 when it comes out.
Tomorrow, a token-powered show called The FUD will go live, presented by Unlonely.
I first came across Unlonely a couple years ago on Farcaster. Until its recent pivot, Unlonely was a video streaming platform hosting various shows and video content. One of these shows was Love on Leverage.
Love on Leverage is a reality dating show with a twist: It’s facilitated by the VIBES token. Audience members could buy and sell VIBES, impacting the outcome of the show:
If VIBES pumps to the green zone, the couple goes on an IRL date
If VIBES dumps to the red zone, the contestant gets booted off and a new contestant goes on to shoot their shot
Last month, Brian (Unlonely’s co-founder) shared that the platform would be migrating from Base to Solana, citing that ‘Unlonely is better suited culturally for Solana’.
Despite the drama it caused, the last couple of sentences piqued my interest the most.
Just in time for Halloween, the revamped Unlonely revealed their first live-streamed reality TV event, The FUD.
How does The FUD work?
3 industry influencers will be locked in a church for 24 hours
They will have no food, water, or access to the bathroom 😩
Audience members can buy Care packages, including food, water, cell phone usage, access to the bathroom, etc. toilet paper
Audience members can also buy Scare packages which include getting tased and was tested on Brian himself
In order to participate, the audience needs to purchase Unlonely’s content token, BOO
The Unlonely team also shared a doc with more details about BOO. BOO will also be used for the nomination of future contestants, incentivizing others to create shows, paying contestants, and more.
Unlonely’s token participation model combines some of the elements from the above examples I called out earlier: Show-related governance during the show, show-related governance for future shows, rewards for contestants, and other forms of…*gasp* utility.
Unlonely’s decision to focus on live reality shows with audience involvement is based on well-established themes we see elsewhere.
MrBeast’s content
MrBeast, the most subscribed Youtuber (324M holy cow!), has been focusing on gameshow or competition-related content and you can tell just by the video titles. Even the videos that don’t seem to have these elements do.
For example, in 7 Days Exploring An Underground City, a new popular Youtuber joins the group underground every day to keep things fresh and provide plot twists.
Livestreamed content
This one’s straightforward. Platforms like Twitch, Kick, and Tiktok LIVE are attention vacuums and continue to grow more popular.
Audience participation is a core element of entertainment
Also pretty straightforward. We see this in Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’s phone a friend lifeline, audience members in The Price is Right being called down to become a contestant, NBA fans voting for their favorite player to be an All-Star and more.
Using a currency to elicit specific actions
Remember the NPC trend from last year? Viewers purchase TikTok Coins and sent virtual gifts to creators. Different gifts sent = different actions. The most notable version of this was Pinkydoll and ‘Ice cream so good’
Unlonely is packaging these themes together with The FUD and their future shows. We’ll see how it all goes down tomorrow, and I’m particularly curious about:
How Unlonely attracts and retains viewership for 24 hours
How BOO’s price fluctuates before, during, and after the show
The other ways the BOO will be implemented to power the content ecosystem
Also, it seems like we already have a sneak peek at the second show: “The Wilderness Games”.
Naked and Afraid meets Survivor anyone? 😂
See you Thursday!
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