First Draft Club

If you’ve ever felt like there’s an “in crowd” on the timeline, you’re not wrong. A lot of people here are friends IRL. They’ve bonded in group chats and at events. They know each other’s faces and voices, not just their PFPs.

That dynamic is totally invisible to the average timeline scroller. You might follow someone because you like their content, but they’re following someone else because they’ve hung out IRL and there is no convenient badge to signify the depth of those relationships.  

It can feel… impenetrable. Everyone’s in on a conversation you didn’t get invited to. 

The good news? You can break in. It’s going to take some time and effort, but it can be done (I joined knowing zero people and got shadow banned my second week on the network).

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The Social Layer You Can’t See

When you’re new to Farcaster, it’s easy to feel like you’re screaming into the void. You cast daily. You engage. You cast something thoughtful. *Crickets*

What you’re seeing on the timeline is the surface layer. Below that is a dense web of chats, calls, IRL meetups, private jokes, shared projects, and legacy trust that isn’t built overnight. Some new accounts are lucky to be IRL friends with people deeply connected to the core of the network and are hand-onboarded or were blessed with an experimental boost, but that’s NOT the average experience here. 

You’re not being ignored because you’re not good enough. You might just be interrupting a conversation between old friends, be invisible due to a spam label or channel restriction, or the original casters may question your motives to reply to their casts (or think you are an automated AI account).

So don’t take it personally. If you want to be seen, you’ll need to show up with purpose. Never throw low-effort replies into a conversation where the casters don’t follow you. Friends who follow each other can cast in all emojis. You can’t. 

If you are honestly putting your best foot forward, use the tools linked below to check if someone isn’t engaging back and move on.

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So How Do You Break In?

You find your people. You build trust. You contribute. You earn your way into the conversation and find your tribe. 

Here’s how:

• Support Creatives. If you’re into art/writing, collect some. Share what you love. Tag the artist/writer. Be a collector, curator, and cheerleader all at once. Most creators love when people share their content (with credit and mint links, not by re-uploading it)!

• Stop spamming mini apps. No one wants to see a wall of automatically written casts. But if you’re genuinely testing something and giving feedback? People will notice, especially developers. If you are known as a serious tester and provide great feedback, you may be invited to coveted group chats for app power users.  If the app has a channel, this is the best place to get noticed by casting great insights. 

• Contribute something of value. Share your opinions. Document your process. Offer help. Ask good questions. Not everyone is a creator, and you don’t have to be, but you do have to share something that is original and unique. 

• Engage with intent. Don’t just say “gm” and drop an emoji. Reply with comments that push the conversation forward. Thoughtful engagement stands out fast. Low-effort replies get ignored. 

• Join well-moderated, highly curated channels. Communities are the diamonds of the network. Search for channels that align with your interests. If the channels’ content looks great, figure out how to join. Some are open to all (test this out by trying to cast) and some are member-gated. There should be a “join here” link or instructions in the channel’s page on who to contact to join. If there isn’t any info, don’t waste your time and move on. There are MANY channels on different topics, but very few communities. 

• Seek out Group/Gated Chats. When someone invites you into a group chat, treat that like gold. Lurk first. Feel it out, and then contribute meaningfully. These backchannels are where the real relationships are built.

• Use your voice. Audio rooms like Farhouse humanize you instantly. When people hear you speak, you’re no longer a PFP, you’re a person. Once someone knows you’re real, they’ll be much more likely to engage with you elsewhere. 

• Cast with purpose. Your last 10 casts are your Farcaster CV. If you want to build an audience, make sure it’s interesting and unique.

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Map the Network

Still feel lost? You can actually see the network structure if you know where to look. The core of the network is hard to see on the timeline, but not invisible if you know the tools to peel back the layers of Farcaster. You can start to see the core of the network with a little research:

• The Official Farcaster Rewards Leaderboard (Rewards Mini App) shows who’s hot this week and who is actively casting (but take it with a grain of salt, it’s imperfect).

• OpenRank* shows who’s well-connected to the core of the network.

• Quotient reveals clusters of influence and is bursting with data about your own engagement. 

• Farcaster spam labels* help you understand what the algorithm thinks is spammy. 

 • Neynar scores* help identify users who are contributing signal vs noise.

• @geoffgolberg Social Forensics gives a literal map of how people are connected and is worth exploring in depth.

None of these algorithms are perfect, but they are watching. Use them as a guide to see what the network values and benchmark yourself over time as you become more connected to other casters. 

Farcaster can feel cliquey, but it’s one of the few places where you can go from outsider to trusted voice in a few months. The network rewards effort and it will reward you; maybe not with generational wealth just for showing up, but with real relationships, real insights into what’s next in crypto, and real reputation on a social graph whose potential we’ve just barely uncovered. 

* The easiest way to see all of these at a glance is using the Recaster client app. You can see your own “stats” on your profile page. 

 Social Forensics  Antisocial Farcasters

Quotient

Thanks so much for reading and sharing!!

200 $TIPN