Digital communities: How NFTs are sparking karaoke and movie nights

Written for Daily Hive by Valerie Munro, a corporate paralegal and Simon Fraser University alumni.

There’s no doubt that NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are taking the world by storm.

Many people are learning that you can make money from NFTs; and a lot of it.  But something else invaluable is also being created: a community.

Unexpectedly, but maybe exactly at the right time, NFTs are creating unprecedented community bonds.  While battling pandemic fatigue, it’s been hard for young people to feel connected in their communities, and even to their friends.  NFT projects are subtly fixing this through their own unique online landscapes.

An NFT, by its simplest definition, is a unique digital art piece that only belongs to you.  NFT projects with enticing artwork are starting to gain traction online; but to secure one of these pieces, you should get yourself onto a whitelist.  Whitelisting is securing a spot to buy an NFT before the general public has a chance.  After whitelisting and purchasing your NFT, the next step is minting; the act of uploading your newly purchased artwork into a marketplace platform (for example, OpenSea) and issuing a token to guarantee authenticity and ownership.  After that, you can use any utilities your NFT may have; perks and opportunities that are attached to it.  These can be digital, of course; but sometimes, even physical.

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The pursuit of getting a spot on a whitelist is where unforeseen communities are starting to emerge.  Before an NFT even goes on the market, there’s usually a large following from Twitter threads.  During the pandemic, it’s not surprising that many of us have turned to our computers, phones, and social media accounts to find some solace from the world.  But what happens when you combine a sudden transition to a primarily online life, and a group of young people who already share a common interest in NFTs and cryptocurrency?  The answer is: the creation of real-life bonds at a time when it almost feels impossible to do so.

It soon became clear that to get whitelisted, you need to stand out.  Sure enough, Discord (a multimedia messaging platform) servers, Twitter pages, and internet threads popped up.  As more and more people worked together to a common goal, it seems that a slow realization was collectively reached: there’s a lot more to talk about than only NFTs!

Building community through communication

Discord servers for certain NFT projects are becoming the new online place to be, with events like karaoke, album listening parties, and movie nights all being hosted online while fans network to get a whitelist spot.  Even when no event is scheduled, there’s usually a chat, or even a voice call, running constantly.  What results is real people, chatting all day about real life passions, that everyone shares, but via a digital medium.  And what’s so special about this digital aspect?  Well, it’s all a lot of us have, right now.  With all of this interaction, NFTs are creating friendships that prove it is possible to connect while in isolation.

Funcles is a local project that is doing this tenfold.  Based in Vancouver, Funcles boasts a collection of 3,333 unique “funcle” characters; a man who is always sporting his Movember moustache. The unique Funcles artwork captures the diverse struggles of men’s mental & physical health: a passion of the Funcles team, and the focus of this project. Funcles is community-oriented, putting those who take part into the heart of the project itself.  According to the creators of Funcles, “with the increasing … mental health issues due to the pandemic, we wanted to highlight this topic in a fun and community based way.”

The concept of longing for a community is nothing new to the creators of Funcles.  As they explain, “as an all Asian core team, growing up we’ve all had incidents where it was difficult to express our feelings and thoughts”.  To try to combat this empty space, the project has created its own; through their NFT whitelist process.  “From the very start we’ve hosted weekly mental health twitter spaces … for individuals to come in and hangout, share their experiences, and build connections … all over the world. We’ve noticed more and more people attending and every time we are surprised by the amount of gratitude and support for what we are doing,” they say.

A local 24 year old computer science graduate, known in NFT spaces as user AliveAgain, recently joined the Funcles family.

“It’s filled a void that was left when being able to take part in in-person clubs hasn’t been possible the past couple years … whether that be a chill movie night, or a goofy karaoke night,” he says. “Hanging out and talking to like-minded people has been lots of fun.”

Particularly excited about the future of Funcles, as many of his new friends are, he has an exciting opinion about what’s next for NFTs; “There are projects out there with a vision for the future and a message,” he says.

“Funcles is a great project that showcases that NFTs can be put towards pushing forward positive movements.”  The community that this project has created will, no doubt, carry over into even more experiences and opportunities for so many young people just like him.

As a takeaway, he asks everyone to rethink what we know about NFTs and the space they occupy. “A large misconception with NFTs is that it’s just about some art on sale that can make people rich. It’s much more than that,” he explains.

It’s becoming increasingly obvious that these projects are providing people with so much more than money.  Only time will tell just how large these online communities will become, but I think we can be certain that this is just the beginning.