🧬 From Dawkins to Dopamine: The Meme That Feels Richard Dawkins coined the word meme in 1976, describing it as a unit of cultural transmission — an idea that evolves the way a gene does. It changes through variation, spreads through replication, and survives through selection. What Dawkins didn’t account for is that memes don’t spread because they’re clever. They spread because they make us feel. A meme is emotional DNA. It endures only when it touches something deep within us — laughter, anger, recognition, belonging. That spark of emotion is what fuels its survival. We don’t share information; we share the feeling behind it. We imitate what moves us, not necessarily what we fully understand. Long before the internet, memes traveled through stories, songs, and rituals. Each one carried emotion across generations — a proverb about survival, a melody about love, a mark on a wall whispering I was here. Culture has always been emotional code, passed forward through empathy. The internet made that invisible process visible. For the first time, we could watch emotion evolve in real time as a single meme jumped from one person to millions in a day. Feeling became software. Recognition became scalable. Now Web3 gives memes a new dimension: permanence. We can write emotion into history. We can own a moment of recognition and hold it in public view. When someone mints a meme coin, they’re not just speculating — they’re recording a shared feeling, an emotional timestamp written on-chain. Dawkins said memes replicate like genes, and he was right. But they carry something deeper than ideas. They carry a connection. Every meme, every token, every cast still says what our ancestors once carved into stone: I was here. I felt this. Remember me. https://paragraph.com/@jonathancolton.eth/the-need-to-be-seen

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🧠 New Essay: The Thermodynamics of Attention Follow-up to The Physics of Distribution — inspired by a question from @kmacb.eth and sharpened with @tamastorok.eth. If distribution is motion, what’s the energy behind it? And why does so much of it decay before anything meaningful happens? This essay breaks down: ⚡ Where attention-energy comes from (pain, belief, identity) 🛑 Where it leaks (friction, silence, fatigue) 💾 How Drawcast stores attention instead of losing it 🌌 How motion → memory → magnetism → culture Attention is motion. Stored attention is culture. https://paragraph.com/@jonathancolton.eth/the-thermodynamics-of-attention?referrer=0xe19753f803790D5A524D1fD710D8a6D821a8Bb55

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DREAM

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Congrats to @toadyhawk.eth @netnose — @betrmint, which is one of the cleanest examples of attention becoming motion on Farcaster. These experiments are teaching us the new physics of distribution: Attention → Motion → Reward → Distribution. Full essay: The Physics of Distribution ⚙️ https://paragraph.com/@jonathancolton.eth/attention-becomes-motion-experiments-in-web3-distribution?referrer=0xe19753f803790D5A524D1fD710D8a6D821a8Bb55

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Hey everyone 👋 Just joined the /distribution channel trying to understand how things work around here. What’s the main focus? Are we talking growth strategies, project exposure, community reach or all of the above? Would love to hear how you all approach distribution in your projects

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🔥 Killer segment on distribution starts ~18min into the convo with Adam Soccolich and Jason Calacanis. Jason breaks it down fast. Most founders struggle with distribution—not because it’s too hard, but because they don’t do the work: ❓ Who are you building for? (Get specific—define your persona) 😖 What pain are they trying to solve? 🧭 Where do they hang out? 🕵️ Be a detective. Go find their tribe—IRL or online: Telegram group? Discord? Subreddit? Twitter/X space? Show up. Ask questions. Listen. 💥 Founders who own this process build better products and better companies. You don’t outsource this early—you earn it. 🔁 Highly recommend giving it a listen if you care about distribution. https://x.com/i/spaces/1mnxeNeZLpQKX

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Token distribution without education and purpose is like throwing money to the wind.

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Welcome back to the D.R.E.A.M. team @dwr.

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I love it when founders focus on /distribution. Web3 is still young, and while tokenization gives us a powerful new coordination mechanism, it doesn’t solve the age-old problem: getting people to care. Builders often nail the product, then hit a wall—because distribution isn’t built into the DNA early enough. Tokens can amplify distribution if the right jobs are understood and the right people are reached. Excited to see @lior digging into this. Looking forward to the full series.

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This is what epic iteration looks like when you're in the business of /distribution! Iterate>Pivot Love what you do @jacob. Keep iterating.

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Really enjoyed this Forbes piece featuring @kazi , founder of Thred AI and the benevolent dictator of /founders . He breaks down how to turn a weekend hack into something real. 1️⃣ Validate the problem, not just the tech. 2️⃣ Find the one painkiller use case. 3️⃣ Keep the momentum alive post-launch. Felt familiar in the best way. Well deserved, Kazi.

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Distribution is 👑. Saying this louder for the people in the back! Thank you @geoffgolberg

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🧠 “Distribution got optimized. Devotion got ignored.” — @darkstar 🚧 Distribution Alone Won’t Save You Most founders chase reach. But reach doesn’t guarantee resonance. Devotion is earned—not bought—and it’s built when users see themselves in your product, your message, and your mission. Darkstar makes the case: The next iconic companies won't just go to market—they'll go to meaning. They'll build subcultures, not just audiences. That means: Designing rituals that feel personal Building language users adopt as identity Inviting co-ownership, not just engagement In Distribution is Hard, I call this finding your first wedge—the group that feels deeply seen. That’s not just a strategy. It’s the seed of devotion. 🌀 Subculture is the strategy. Build for allegiance, not just engagement. https://darkstarcrashes.xyz/devotion-over-distribution?referrer=0xe19753f803790D5A524D1fD710D8a6D821a8Bb55

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❄️ The Snowball Theory (via @jake) One of the most insightful posts I’ve read on momentum in early-stage building. Jake flips the usual thinking: Push hardest when things are going well, not when they’re flat. Why? Because compounding momentum pays off more than incremental effort during stagnation. And when the fire’s hot, feed it. My favorite analogy: Early traction is like rolling a snowball. While it’s moving, every push adds mass. When it stops, you’ll need a new (and bigger) lever to move it again. This maps exactly to how I think about early distribution: – Innovators show up? Sprint. – Feedback is compounding? Push harder. – Flatline? Step back and rethink your tools. Read Jake’s post here: [link] Are you in a snowball season or stuck pushing a rock?

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Just shared a crucial insight from ‘Distribution is Hard’ in /founders. Discover how identifying your Ideal Customer Profile can unlock your distribution strategy. Check it out and learn more!

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