It has actually been 6 months since I wrote this article, but never released it. It was looking at the state of the web3 and NFT community as we headed into 2023. I’m not too sure at this point how well we have done, with attention spans becoming smaller and moving between very similar hype oh so quickly. There definitely does feel like there is a higher level of self-education and the want for individuals to understand what they are using a little more.
How toxic is the GM?
GM all! It’s getting to the start of a new year, we have had a bumpy one in the web3 space but fighting through as a community! But I want to look back on the past year and pick apart something that has started to get to me. This might be a bit controversial, and will undoubtedly have its fair share of nay-sayers.
‘GM’ is more than a meme, more than a greeting. It’s an identifier. Arguably the easiest way to see if someone is involved in this magical space, maybe after a ‘.ens’ handle. It has brought communities together, created a culture of inclusiveness and helped people seamlessly integrate with every growing sub-group.
But… does the GM culture bring a level of toxic positivity? What do I mean? Well, there is a level of positivity and hype that is counterproductive as it overlooks real and important negative factors but also encourages people to keep to the ‘hype’ and not necessarily delve deep into subjects to educate themselves and understand.
I have really been seeing this the past few months on Twitter. There are accounts that have 10’s to 100’s of thousands of followers and high engagement, but all they say is GM or a form of. If you have 1000 tweets and 900 of them are ‘GM’ have you really brought anything positive and constructive to the space you love so much?
But why is this bad? Well, it creates a culture of engagement with farming influencers, that in reality don’t have and aren’t willing to get a deep understanding and personal opinion on the ecosystem. When the dopamine hit of a quick uptake in followers comes, it's easy to stay in that lane, keeping to the easy, follower-increasing, GM farming. - If that's what you want to do then great. But it comes with a determination to your followers and the users in the space.
These accounts then become the centre for news, info and advice - ‘alpha’ callers. But it becomes an echo chamber of hype. To stay connected and engaged you need to follow the herd and talk and boost the same projects and ideas. But without deep knowledge and a personal understanding, it only has a negative effect on the followers.
Now I’m not saying GM is dead or shouldn’t be used any more. It’s more an urge for GMers to go past the GM, engage on a deeper level, and talk about issues, problems and ideas in the space not just echo what everyone else is saying. I think GM is important, it helps build communities and is a simple and welcoming introduction.
But positivity can be toxic, it's not good to only look at the positives and overlook real and present issues. It pushes the hype culture, which in turn can be so easily manipulated and moulded to fit a malicious intention or circumstance. This culture then in turn, but not on purpose, punishes other users that have real, though maybe contradicting, ideas for the ecosystem. Creating a space where everyone that says GM grows without any positive input but the people that are trying to evolve, collaborate and discuss important opinions and possibilities for the industry get ignored or pushed away.
I am 10000% pro-web3 and the community in the space. I say GM because sometimes it really is a good morning. I don’t want new users to the space to get hooked into the GM culture, following, like a religion, a couple of select accounts and being blinkered into the same hype narrative.
My hope for 2023 is that everyone will step back a little, take a deep look at the state of the ecosystem and have challenging and constructive convocations about how we, yes we, are all involved with the building and expanding of the ecosystem, can help make this incredible technology and community mainstream and adopted across the world.