LilPing
@pingfeng
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Over the past few years, I've noticed that the English-speaking Web3 space talks about "culture" constantly, launching organizations, hosting events, all under the banner of "culture." As a newcomer, I often felt overwhelmed, like a country bumpkin walking into a fancy mansion.
My journey went like this: first I was excited and fascinated, even got swept up in the hype and became one of those people shouting cultural slogans. But gradually, I started feeling something was off. I realized that even though everyone was using the same word, the "culture" in each person's head wasn't the same thing.
I once asked in my podcast group: what exactly IS culture?
If it's just a broad definition that everyone interprets differently, that might be okay. But gradually, I started to taste what wylin was getting at. I believe many people have these doubts, but speaking up is like being the kid pointing out the emperor has no clothes - in that environment, people tend to keep the truth to themselves. Until the surface harmony and self-deceptive bubble bursts, the "kids" start dropping hints, and more people begin to wake up.
Trying to connect bubble-bursting with culture feels like trying to patch up bubbles. Honestly, I've been torn between patching bubbles and trusting the kid's observations for over a year now. I'm terrified of killing beautiful things and their potential, because I know how hard it is to build anything.
I've always deeply respected builders. But diving into "building something," "public goods," and "cultural engineering" these past few years, I've realized that "building" exists on a spectrum - there's trend-chasing building, solid building, and building that's just a scam disguised as building. I can't make value judgments yet, just like that book "Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned" shows - lots of accidental successes happen. But the obviously fake stuff? I'm starting to filter that out first. Both "building" and "culture" have this noise problem. 0 reply
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This analogy is brilliant - it adds a new category to my "people radar." Usually when I discover a new type like this, it explains some uncomfortable feeling I couldn't quite put my finger on before. But once I know what it is, that discomfort goes away.
Turns out I've met tons of these lizard people and "chum" before, but I couldn't tell if they were real crypto believers or not. So I treated them all with the same friendliness and goodwill. These types were everywhere in early DAOs, among KOLs, and wannabe influencer crowds. Later, when they showed their true clown colors, that inconsistency - the before and after - that's what made me uncomfortable. My brain couldn't process that kind of conflicting behavior.
What's fascinating is that chum gets devoured, right? So why would anyone want to be the chum that gets eaten? Maybe it's because early on, being "chum" actually paid well. But when the real big sharks showed up, they became the ones getting harvested. Everyone thinks they're using others, but re... 1 reply
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