In early January 2024, I became captivated with an NFT collection called Zorbitecture by a new-to-me artist known as @edit, and I began telling stories about his art.

"I imagine this as a Zorbish version of the Audium in San Francisco," I wrote. "A theatre for spatial sound sculpture in complete darkness." (~ from Zorbitecture 30)

The Zorbitecture collection attracted an enthusiastic and growing fanbase on Farcaster, including a cameo as a /gmfarcaster background. So I decided to invite the artist to join us. I rounded up a small group of casters (myself, @sa, @markfishman, @aaronrferguson, @mc, @ispeaknerd, and @nounishprof) who collectively donated warps to cover his signup fees, and then I contacted @edit on Twitter.

He accepted my invite and joined on January 21, 2024. I became his first FC follower, and over time he's become an integral part of Farcaster culture as a respected builder and artist.

I promised to tell the story of his onboarding for the one-year anniversary of his join date, as it's now become part of Farcaster lore, and even elicited some happy tears on multiple occasions. (But beware all the fake @edits).

The prolific artist's presence on FC has been called "the gift that keeps on giving" and "the best use of warps in the history of FC." The timing of his join date was fortunate in many ways, as he arrived just a week before the influx of interest in Farcaster that kicked off with the launch of frames v1 on January 29, 2024. At the time none of us knew that was about to happen, of course. We just knew we were obsessed with his art and wanted to see more of it in our feeds.

It started with this thread. Or did it? Perhaps it started earlier with a mint by @blankspace (Zorbtopia 297), which sparked my curiosity and inspired me to check out @edit's Zora profile. @blankspace and I then chatted about our hopes for more architecture mints.

For many months after @edit's onboarding, I played a curator role and casted about my favorites from his collections, which occasionally started a minting spree by Zorb-pilled casters (to my delight). Every week I minted 1-2 editions from his collections and wrote a narrative in the comments to tell a story about each one through my eyes:

"Each season, as a new batch of aspirants is welcomed into the esteemed ranks of Zorbish monastics, the Orders mark the occasion with a ritual processional through the crystalline Zorb." (~ from Zorbish Fashion 76)

"Deep inside the Mountain of Medicine lies a therapeutic cave-like incubation chamber that's been hailed as 'the joy of the sick and the wounded.' Retreatants can soak in hydrothermal mineral waters, enjoy Zorbish salt therapy, and recline on loungers flanked by glowing aromatic Zorbs. Nothing like basking in warm Zorbish atmospheres to soothe weary spirits." (~ from Zorbitecture 153)

@edit made it clear that despite the fact that we'd done no coordination in advance (i.e., these were permissionless), he nonetheless considered these collaborations, couldn't ask for a better collab, and hoped they'd continue for a long time.

(For the curious, I listed a step-by-step process for these collabs here).

Meanwhile, @edit's work was often described by others on Farcaster as under-appreciated and under-collected, and he continued to attract followers rapidly through his many other projects including /degen-lotto, /co, and /farcastles.

In the words of the artist himself: "it's crazy how things turned out, still surreal."

@edit's onboarding story exemplifies the power of something I write about often: the intersection of creative labor, attention, and value flow in arts communities.

"In a digital media climate inundated with quickly buried 'content,' art labor that's met with sufficient collective attention, care, and real reciprocity can generate positive-sum value. Attention, after all, is itself an act of creation." (~ from Free + Valuable, Sep. 2023)

All three elements — attention, care, and reciprocity — play an important part in generating value in arts networks according to the logic of the gift. To give rise to this type of value, the creative work must first meet with attention and care (i.e., it needs to be seen and situated in an appropriate context, rather than buried in a social media feed and forgotten). Second, it must also meet with real reciprocity, as Hexidethmal observed:

"...the value is flowing two ways. If I give to an artist, it is because I have derived enjoyment from what they have produced."

Permissionless opt-in collabs + curations of the sort I did with @edit in the early days of Zora pre-mints are also fundamentally non-coercive and free of time pressure, which creates even more room for value to flow according to gift logic (rather than hustle culture). Artists could upload their work whenever they wanted, and writer-curators like me could browse and comment at their leisure. Instead of FOMO, there was time to focus my attention deeply on each piece I felt drawn to, and wait patiently for responses to take shape in my preferred artistic medium: the written word.

I later learned that in writing these narrations for each piece I minted, I was fulfilling a dream of the artist. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to him, the artist was also fulfilling a dream of mine in the form of architecture and interior design ideas I'd frequently imagined but never found anywhere else.

This all took place with no pre-meditated effort.

This is how positive-sum gift culture works in arts communities: when we trust our intuitive responses to art and channel them into making art of our own, more value can be created. That value can then feed back into the community, attract more appreciation, and renew interest in the work. This is one way that — as Lewis Hyde writes — the arts can "regularly generate their own currents of wealth."

A thread from March 2024 offers a helpful example of how this works. A fan spontaneously shared a favorite piece of @edit's work and mentioned that the collection is still vastly underrated. Other fans chimed in with agreement. All this happened unsolicited by the artist. Then the community talked about their mutual appreciation for the artist's presence and ongoing impact — to the extent that the onboarding story has now become part of the community lore, and you're now reading it.

This process — if it's allowed to proceed on its own terms, according to gift logic — communicates an important message to the artists, collaborators, curators, and community:

"You matter. Your work matters, too. It's recognized and appreciated."

That's real positive-sum value.

Such is the power of the Farcaster scenius.

We love you, @edit! Here's to many more happy years in the Farcaster ecosystem. 💜