gift-economics

Introducing Studio Slowcore: a new Farcaster-native creative production studio focused on wordsmith arts and slow culture. 

Our motto: "Move slow and preserve things." 

Studio contributors:*
- Danica Swanson (founder, co-steward, channel owner, word-slinger-in-chief)
- @trigs.eth (co-steward, channel mod, wordsmith, community call host)
- @y0b (co-steward, channel mod, wordsmith, gift economics consultant)

In keeping with our slow culture roots, we practice:

I. stewardship
II. slowcraft
III. sustained attention

This week marks the first in our planned series of three Farcaster-exclusive mini-launches building toward a hybrid gift economy + business endeavor. 

I. Stewardship (channel hosting + gift economy lab)

Our team is excited to kick off phase one of our launch with the revival of the /slowcore-hq channel and the introduction of a new channel: /gift-economics (kindly gifted to us by @ted). 

Look for more news in both channels later today.

II. Slowcraft (editorial business)

We think there's an untapped market in Farcaster's social economy for wordsmiths (and other service providers) who work the slowcore way: focused attention to detail, commitment to craft, and health over hustle. That's how we leave room for "slow-motion bullseyes."

In phase two we'll launch our editorial services, including copy editing, grant writing assistance, and building custom editorial style guides. 

If there's significant interest and bandwidth is available, we may also consider reviving our editorial wiki project.

Further details forthcoming in late August (subject to change).

III. Sustained Attention (spaces for long reads)

We're building digital gardens and browsing rooms that cater to the long-reads crowd. In phase three we plan to publish this work in Obsidian with both public and members-only options, including:

- All writings for the FC-native journal project Deep Worth: Notes on Creativity, Labor, and Value, which spawned a thriving group chat.

- Special collections of essays and highlights from Danica's former blogs and Substack newsletters (including Of Hearth and Shadow, Endarkenment, and The Anticareerist).

- "Public domain art of the day" collections and moodboards.

- Dark ambient + drone music playlists from Danica's Chthonic Cathedral Project.

- Quote collections, AMAs, and nerd-snipe material (e.g., lecture notes).

We may also consider collecting and editing highlights from community conversations in our channels.

Further details forthcoming in late September (subject to change).

"Slowcore" is our superpower, and we think Farcaster's nascent social Farconomy is the best place to launch a collaborative endeavor that unfolds over time based on the way we work best: 

- Build slowly and with appreciation for craft.
- Weave our work into the network.
- Observe what emerges.
- Course-correct as needed until we find our groove: i.e., what Henrik Karlsson calls "form-context fit" (citing Notes on the Synthesis of Form by Christopher Alexander).

We know this unfolding will require patience, and we're here for it. 

NOTE: We will NOT be launching a coin. 
Not for our studio. 
Not for ourselves as individuals.
Not for our channels.

** graphic design by bias

The Studio Slowcore team is excited to introduce the new Gift Economics channel: a Farcaster-native small-scale gift economics lab and roundtable.

Stewarded and moderated by Danica Swanson, @trigs.eth, and @y0b, the channel was kindly gifted to us by @ted. 

We plan to host thoughtful deep-dive conversations that cater to long-form readers and systems thinkers. In particular, the channel will encourage open and earnest discussions about structural factors that influence how writers, artists, and other creative professionals are (and aren't) paid. There's a lot of secrecy about compensation in the arts, for all kinds of reasons. Our stewards help facilitate more clarity about where things stand.

Gift Economics Channel FAQ 

Q: What is a gift economy?

In its simplest form, a gift economy is an "arrangement for the transfer of goods or services without an agreed method of quid pro quo."* 

Q: Who's behind Studio Slowcore?

- Danica Swanson (founder, co-steward, channel owner, word-slinger-in-chief)
- @trigs.eth (co-steward, channel mod, wordsmith, community call host)
- @y0b (co-steward, channel mod, wordsmith, gift economics consultant)

All of us also have other professional commitments. Our intention for phase one of our launch is to experiment with hybrid gift + market economic models to sustain our two channels (/gift-economics and /slowcore-hq) long-term — without tokenizing our community and turning it into the product. If we succeed, we will shift more of our time and attention to Studio Slowcore matters.

Q: Why is the studio launching exclusively on Farcaster?

The simplest answer: we decided to build what we wanted to see in the world, and we believe Farcaster is the best place to do that. 

The slightly longer answer: it's Farcaster all the way down for us. The seeds of our studio were sown when the Farcaster community seized on the concept of "slowcore" and turned it into a movement. Since then, everything that led up to our launch has been deeply influenced by Farcaster and its unique social economy. Every studio contributor is an active daily user of the purple app who cares about its future.  

Creative people have gifts, and we believe those gifts come with a responsibility to use them well. Toward that end, we need structures that facilitate the giving of gifts (and routing them to the right places) instead of defaulting to extractive economic patterns. We think Farcaster's social economy is the right place to build such structures, since it's already a type of hybrid gift + market economy of the sort we've never seen anywhere else. 

We also prefer to keep the studio small. We don't need (or even want) to chase maximum reach; it would only add a tax on our valuable time and attention.

We may write an even longer deep-dive answer to this question in phase two of our launch.

Q: Why are you starting with channels?

We think channels are directionally correct as cozy corners (not hashtags), and can work well for our invite-only communities if they're well-stewarded. A new form factor may be needed if channels are to thrive long-term, but in the meantime we'll give it our best as co-stewards. It helps that we use @cura for channel maintenance!

Q: How does the Gift Economics channel work?

Anyone can follow the channel. Membership is invite-only. We don't have an application process; our mods send out invites at their discretion. The best way to increase your chances of an invite is to respond thoughtfully and kindly to casts in the channel, and make it clear (through your behavior) that you've read the rules.

Read more in our channel guidelines.

Q: I'd like to learn more about gift economics. Where should I start?

We're working on a reading list! In the meantime you could start with "Sacred Economics" by Charles Eisenstein, which is available in full online.

Q: Why aren't you launching a token?

The short answer: we're starting with gift economics experiments, so we don't need one.

The longer answer: we want to help build a social economy that can sustain creative people long-term. We think the overwhelming majority of the "creator economy" in crypto as it stands (what @abundance has called the "Tokenized Attention Creator Economy") is failing to meaningfully deliver on the value prop of rewarding creative people appropriately for their work. Tokenizing in exchange value terms risks reducing the gift value of our communities. 

Our thesis is that economic models to sustain long-term creative work and community-building begin (but do not end) with gift culture. 

The standard ways of monetizing creative work extract gift value, convert it into profit, and route the lion's share of it away from creative people. We want to go in the other direction: restore and preserve gift value flows, return more value to those who actually create it, and convert profit into gift. 

It's a challenging systems design problem! But if there's anywhere it can be done, it's on Farcaster.

Q: How can I help with the gift economy experiment?

Consider following and contributing to our roundtable discussions in the comments on our casts in the channel, or just talk about gift economics on Farcaster in general. 

Gifts of crypto sent to the studio's multisig (slowcore.eth) will be gratefully accepted. We will route them toward retro-rewards for the gift labor done to bootstrap our channels. Gifts can also help free up more time for us to steward the channels responsibly in the future. Please do not gift any funds that are needed for your own support. 

We'd also love to see more Farcasters start their own gift circles and micro-gift-economy experiments.

NOTE: We will NOT be launching a coin. 
Not for our studio. 
Not for ourselves as individuals.
Not for our channels.

*(Thanks to ServiceSpace for the gift economy definition).

Slowcore HQ

The Studio Slowcore team is pleased to announce the official revival of the /slowcore-hq channel after a long hibernation. 

In keeping with the announcement in our other channel, /gift-economics, the studio (stewarded by myself, @trigs.eth, and @y0b) will be experimenting to build a hybrid gift economy + business endeavor to sustain both channels.

More details in our studio's launch announcement linked below.

A few initiatives we're considering for /slowcore-hq: 

- Recognize contributors with Slothy Awards
- Continue weekly rituals of "not-doing" and Slowcore Quotes of the Day 
- Expand our Slowcore Manifesto (aka "What Is Slowcore?")
- Host themed discussions based on writings by our fellow slowcasters, e.g. "In Praise of Going Slow" by @tombeck.eth 
- Build a slowcore lexicon and knowledge base for collective concept stewardship (e.g., a slowcore lexicon, slowcore-friendly patterns in place-making, etc.)
- Maintain digital gardens catering to the snailblazers and the slowpilled
- Facilitate slowcore-friendly URL-to-IRL meetups

Other ideas are welcome!

Note: All pending memberships from many moons ago have now been approved. Our apologies for the ridiculously long wait while the owner dealt with a death in the family and the future of channels was uncertain enough that we put the channel into hibernation for many months.

We were delighted to see that many casters just kept right on casting here to keep the channel alive during the time the mods were unable to tend to it. Your efforts are appreciated. 💜 🐢 

If you appreciate our work and wish to contribute financially, gifts of crypto are accepted at the studio's multisig: slowcore.eth. We will route them toward retro-rewards for the gift labor done to bootstrap our channels. Gifts can also help free up more time for us to steward the channels responsibly in the future. Please do not gift any funds that are needed for your own support. 

https://farcaster.xyz/danicaswanson/0xa76d9edf

(https://zora.co/collect/zora:0x24453ebe8d78de52f6d253cf26fec18ab34b041f/2?referrer=tombeck.eth)

Welcome to /gift-economics! Excited to get our discussions started off on the right foot.

The subtitle of Ted Gioia's excellent essay, Why I Take Gifts Seriously, poses a challenging and important question:

"The digital economy is built on the unpaid labor of the gifted. What can we do to protect them?"

Gioia has an interesting take:

"We have now entered into the crux of the dilemma facing gifted people in our cultural ecosystem, one that has grown into a huge crisis in the digital age. All creative people grasp, if only subconsciously, that their gifts were meant for giving. Even more to the point, the value of their gift increases (for both giver and receiver) through that open-hearted act of exchange." [...]

"But the real foundation of the Internet is businesses that pretend to be gift exchanges." [...]

"These businesses deliberately blur the boundaries between gift exchange and economic transactions. They have... constructed their platforms to lure the gifted into a faux gift exchange communities—built entirely on creative people who get paid as little as possible for their contributions."

"You might even say that the digital economy creates billionaires out of the unpaid labor of the gifted—who freely give their gifts every day." [...]

"No, you’re not forced to participate in the digital age, but good luck trying to find another way to survive as a gifted or creative person."

The essay is worth reading in full (and will likely be quoted in the /gift-economics channel frequently), but these quotes point to a thorny problem that rarely gets enough airtime: businesses that extract gift value and labor from creative people by masquerading as gift communities.

What can be done to protect the gifted from this kind of structural extraction?

https://www.honest-broker.com/p/why-i-take-gifts-seriously

Launch day for Studio Slowcore, our new creative production studio, went quite well yesterday! Better than we expected.

Excited about the level of interest in the new /gift-economics channel. 

"I expect this channel/lab to be one of the coziest of corners on Farcaster" ~ @abundance 

"/gift-economics is a great new cozy corner on farcaster with a well thought out mission :)" ~ @sahil 

Thanks to everyone whose behind-the-scenes work made it possible. 

If you missed the deets, check the following casts or just visit the pinned casts on my profile and in our channels.

Still a bit behind on notifs and DCs but I'm catching up. Slowly. 🐌

Solving public goods value capture. | /impact | book.abundance.id

Launch day for Studio Slowcore, our new creative production studio, went quite well yesterday! Better than we expected.

Excited about the level of interest in the new /gift-economics channel. 

"I expect this channel/lab to be one of the coziest of corners on Farcaster" ~ @abundance 

"/gift-economics is a great new cozy corner on farcaster with a well thought out mission :)" ~ @sahil 

Thanks to everyone whose behind-the-scenes work made it possible. 

If you missed the deets, check the following casts or just visit the pinned casts on my profile and in our channels.

Still a bit behind on notifs and DCs but I'm catching up. Slowly. 🐌 

https://farcaster.xyz/danicaswanson/0xa76d9edf

https://farcaster.xyz/danicaswanson/0x5ea00b6c

https://farcaster.xyz/danicaswanson/0xfc704414

https://farcaster.xyz/danicaswanson/0xec737eb5