gm from my rainy, stormy corner of the (irl) world while I write this post. Coffee in hand. And the rest of the house sleeping.
It’s a good morning to be hanging out in the metaverse with y’all (aka 63 different Discord channels with endless channels, and an eternal feed on crypto twitter). Sometimes I go to bed thinking my eyes are bleeding from all the screen-jumping I did that day.
Anyway, today’s post will be in a different format than usual. We’ll call this chapter of the Lil Nouns Newsletter: “The Experimentation Phase.” Feedback welcome, as always. 🙏
Quick side note – we’ve added 25 new members in the last 30 days, not bad. Would be dope to get above 1 new member added per day, on average in February. Let’s manifest that now.
If this is your first time reading, drop your email here (I post once/week on Sundays)
I often revisit this tweet from Uncle 4156 in my mind:
A bottoms-up (or community-created) Disney seems to be what many projects are trying to chase (eg: Doodles, BAYC, etc.).
Everyone is taking on different flavors, sure.
But ultimately, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that creating a web3 native “Disney” brand is a big opportunity ($200B, to be precise).
And we’re starting to finally see a few Nounish examples of popup.
Below is a quick overview of three.
1/ Atrium X Nouns – A Lore Experiment
Atrium put up a 20 ETH Proposal in late December “to create a cinematic 1:30-2 minute animated story introducing the World of Nouns” by “bringing the expertise of a Pixar veteran to the Nouns ecosystem enabling us to create a foundational animated lore & proliferate the meme!”
And it passed (unanimously—which is rare).
Part of the reason it passed was their prior proof-of-work. They provided value before they even take a single dollar coin. Big brain moves right there.
The proposal trailer alone is probably worth close to 20 ETH. Did it bring in one new member to Nouns? Maybe! Did it create a wide reach of brand identity? Definitely.
So what exactly are they building?
Directly from the Prop:
We want to create an engaging cinematic introduction to the world of nouns. One that reflects the original intent behind the emergence of Nouns DAO, a story that shows who nouns are, what they have been up to, and a nod to future plans. A tale that leaves the audience curious, engaged, and wanting for more.
We believe this animation will serve as a foundation to build an expansive storyworld on top of nouns cc0 IP. Where any noun could go beyond the core nouns audience and have a viewership across different communities native to crypto and beyond.
Sounds pretty Disney if you ask me…
And the animator who will work on this video, 3DPrint guy is no rookie. He has been working in the industry for 2 decades, and was at Pixar and Disney. He worked on the movie UP (you’ll cry in the first 2 minutes, seriously). And has 45 million overall views on his Youtube channel.
It’ll be super fun to watch this ship, and see how widely it gets distributed (should ship in February, based on the timelines they gave on the Prop).
Read all the details here: Proposal 195: Atrium X Nouns – A Lore Experiment.
They plan to come back on-chain depending on how this first launch goes. So expect more from this team in the future.
2/ IRL Proliferation
One of the biggest Props at Nouns was around the Rose Bowl Parade.
If you have ⌐◨-◨ in your Twitter profile, I’m sure your feed was littered with pictures from the IRL activation. Which was rad. But the proliferation outside of our little web3 bubble—to “normies”—is what was really astonishing.
Disney, as a brand and business, is not a niche. They have sub-cultures (see: “sub-DAOs,” eg: Lil Nouns, Gnars, etc.) that engage on a more personalized level. But overall, they Disney brand is truly a “household name.” And it’s not just on screens. It’s parks and in the “real world” (whatever that is).
Curious about IRL proliferation?
Then be sure to tune into The Lil Nouns Show this week because they’re chatting with the team behind Stoopid Buddy.
We will also have our weekly ETH giveaway of .0420 and a POAP!
To be in with a chance of winning, set your reminders ⬇️
https://t.co/Lc01YiBdDX
Oh, and by the way, TLNS just had a second term pass on chain at Lil Nouns! Big congrats! Proposal 94. We like TLNS.
Be sure to follow them on Twitter and join them every Monday night.
3/ Lil Nounish Video, by Arash
Lil Nouns is also proliferating in many unique ways. Most recently, Arash has been creating videos that are helping onboard more folks into the Lil Nouniverse.
Lil Nouns needs our own version of this video for Nouns:
And Arash has built a lot of stuff already, including some fun 1/1s GIFs for community members. So it was a natural fit when we collaborated with him to spin up a Prop House Round for him to create a Lil Nounish Video.
And Lil Nouns’ current Prop House is to write a script for Arash’s next video! Submissions close in four days (Feb 2nd).
Submit your script for a Lil Nounish Video now! Two winners will be chosen for .4 ETH each.
Wen flippening of Mickey Mouse Ears?
So, will Noggles be as ubiquitous as Mickey Mouse Ears someday?
(My wife says “definitely not” 😆)
Only time will tell.
But we’re starting to see a path toward it. ⌐◨-◨
See you next Sunday,
Lil Saturn