As of June 1, 2024, the /slowcore-hq channel has shifted its focus to the fledgling slowcore movement on Farcaster.
If you're just joining us, "slowcore" is a term I made up to express distaste for hustle culture, and the TL;DR is "move slow and preserve things" (h/t Tom Beck). (N.B. I later learned there's also a genre of music called slowcore).
We — channel co-hosts Trish Deneen and I — will soon create a separate channel for Black Stone Sanctuary, the Pagan monastery bootstrapping project.
Why the split into two channels?
Because slowcore has become a Farcaster-seeded movement that "belongs" to the FC scenius and community.
We love slowcore. Now that it's found its way into the fertile soil of the FC scenius to incubate, we want to give it the space it needs to bloom!
Some backstory on how we chose the channel name may be helpful here.
We were originally planning to call our channel /blackstonesanctuary, but that's 19 characters, and the limit is 16. We considered many abbreviations, but none seemed to fit, so we settled on /slowcore-hq. We'd been using the term "slowcore" in our inner circles and taking a slowcore approach to spiritual practice for awhile, so it made sense at the time.
I first used the term "slowcore" on Farcaster in late March and early April while we were preparing for Black Stone Santuary's onchain launch week.
When we launched /slowcore-hq as Black Stone Sanctuary (April 8, 2024), we followed the example of the /fc-updates channel: we required a channel pass, set a high price for it in warps, and made the channel broadcast-only so only Trish and I would post top-level casts. We did this only as a temporary measure to protect everyone's time and attention from spammers/engagement farming, while hoping to encourage high-quality discussion in the comments.
We weren't expecting to need two separate channels. But once channels began decentralizing (May 23, 2024) and the slowcore concept took on a life of its own, we felt it was no longer appropriate to keep /slowcore-hq intertwined with the religious focus of the Black Stone Sanctuary project.
We've put /slowcore-hq in moderation mode and set up moderation through Airstack. All top-level casts in /slowcore-hq that are liked by the Airstack Not A Bot, myself, and/or Trish will appear in the Main feed. Everything else will be in the Unfiltered feed (visible to mods only).
Admin note: the Black Stone Sanctuary cast threads can't be moved over to the new channel. We don't plan to delete them, but we may quote-cast them in the new channel for easy reference.
We'll be exploring the concept of a "slowcore business model" for the Slowcore HQ channel, and will consider monetization options with long-term sustainability in mind. We're excited to experiment (slowly), and we think Farcaster is the right place to do so. Fortunately we've already acquired the ENS name slowcore.eth.
A few things taking shape in the pipeline:
A Slowcore Nerd Notes series of blog posts on Paragraph at A Digital Incubation Space. The first edition, published earlier this week, is a rough sketch of ideas on value flows and the concept of "slowcore value." Upcoming themes include deliberately limiting reach and properly valuing human time and attention.
A Slowcore Question (or quote) of the Day (SQoTD). We'll revisit many questions raised by Tom's recent essay "In Praise of Going Slow," for example.
The Slowcore Bookshelf. We love to read and we look forward to lots of slowcore book recommendations in the channel. A sampling of slowcore classics from my personal collection:
The Minimalist Entrepreneur by Sahil Lavingia
How To Do Nothing by Jenny Odell (already mentioned in the channel by grin)
Slow is Beautiful by Cecile Andrews
Memes. "Slowcore problems, amirite?" Slothy Awards? We're excited to see what FC memelords can do here.
A Slowcore Lexicon. As with the Farcaster Scenius Lexicon, we'll track emergent slowcore terminology via FC-native sources like GM Farcaster. Newly hatched: "slowpilled" (thanks, grin).
Slowcore HQ will get a new PFP. We'll be moving the black Zorb PFP over to the Black Stone Sanctuary channel when it's ready.
Deep-Dive Discussions. We'd love to hear news about development of slowcore-friendly places for deep-dive discussion on Farcaster. We don't have many options at the moment, which means many convos we'd love to dwell on quickly get algorithmically buried and forgotten. Varun recently said Farcaster "almost never" displays any casts more than 72 hours old. Maybe that's ancient in crypto/social media algorithm time, but in slowcore terms it's barely a blink of an eye.
In the meantime, other Farcaster channels for the slowcore-minded to explore include /slow-co-lab and /slowlife.
We love Farcaster. Welcome to Slowcore HQ. May a thousand Slowcore patterns bloom.
~ Danica Swanson and Trish Deneen
Art: "Girl in the Hammock" by Winslow Homer, 1873. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Over 300 subscribers
Official Channels Day seems like a good time to cast to the channel that warmly welcomes the sloth people. Great to see some talk from the Merkle team on the potential future of channels, though no decisions have been made yet. For the first time in several months, hope is stirring. Could we build /slowcore-hq into a thriving movement again? Complete with active mods/curators, Slowcore Quotes of the Day, weekly "not-doing" rituals, our Slowcore Manifesto, and everything else that made this channel a thoughtful and rewarding space to gather before we put it into hibernation? The heart of slowcore is the movement to reclaim human attention from extractive forces (including hustle culture) and re-orient it toward what matters most. This channel once served as a rallying point, a source of inspiration, and a space for concept stewardship though the FC scenius. It's "our own little homegrown patch of lore," as @cameron wrote. Might we find a sustainable way to reawaken the channel? Time will tell.
For those unfamiliar with how the channel started, you can read the full story in the blog post below. TL;DR: we originally launched /slowcore-hq for a different project. Then the FC scenius kind of pounced on the concept of slowcore, so we gave up that channel name and moved our other project to the /blxstonesnctuary channel. https://paragraph.com/@danicaswanson/welcome-to-the-slowcore-hq-channel-on-farcaster
the only thing we can know for sure is that it will happen slowly
Indeed. And we wouldn't have it any other way. 🐢
slowly but surely 🫡
Hope you're right! We will see...
Also can’t dm you - but wanted to thank you personally, I really learned a lot from your open source editorial style guide for starbased 🙏
Nicely written, as always 👍 happy slow channel day!
Appreciate the kind words, as always! 👍 Here's hoping we'll have some kind of clarity soon about the future of channels.
Oh my! I didn't know this channel existed! I'm a slow living babe myself. I'll try to cast more often here.
If there's anyway I can help make the channel active again, please tell me. I really want the channel to be active. Slowly but surely of course. 😌
Might be best to wait until we hear some sort of decision from the Merkle team. Right now channels are in a kind of limbo state, and if we decide to fully revive Slowcore HQ we'll need to figure out a sustainable economic model for it.
Okayy. I'll be on the lookout for updates.
Slowly, steadily, the Slowcore HQ channel is gaining new followers. What would you like to see more of in this channel? More Slowcore Quotes of the Day? Memes? Weekly rituals? Discussion questions? Bonus question: How'd you find us, and what made you decide to follow? Feel free to answer whether you've been here awhile or just joined today.
I just followed after finding out this cast about it, made me intrigued 🫡
Welcome! If you'd like to read more about the channel, this is a good place to begin. https://paragraph.xyz/@danicaswanson/welcome-to-the-slowcore-hq-channel-on-farcaster?referrer=0x50bdd745f633506f8761ca913c5238c3aedc6dff
I followed it both because it's in alignment with my own life and practices, and cuz you're the founder of it :) I need to add it to my regular casting routine, as there's so much I can say about slow living, exiting the corporate grind (having done so myself a decade ago), and achieving a cozy life without the insane hustle.
Glad to have you here. Looking forward to hearing more from you whenever you're so inclined. Appreciate the kind words. Just to clarify a bit, @trishd and I worked together closely to launch the channel on behalf of the growing slowcore movement on FC, and we work together as co-hosts even though WC eliminated the co-host option so that channels can only have one owner.
Welcome @thecurioushermit. I'm MIA occasionally from FC due to still working on incorporating slowcore principles in my work life, but I made a choice recently that I hope will help with that. So good to have you here.
> What would you like to see more of in this channel? For slow core, shouldn't it be "see less of" ;)
Good point! We do cultivate a slow pace here, and we welcome feedback on seeing less of certain things. :)
I just think "slow core" has an interesting conflict where a lot of content !== not slow core. I think slow core should ideally be a lot of repetition. Like, automatic reposts of the best content from 1 year ago, or something. Like, it should not be about freshness at all, but timelessness. I'm not doing a great job of explaining myself. But think this captures the current vibe of my thoughts
I am here because my life has been stuck on "fast forward" for far too many years in a row. I love tips for slowing down. reminders for taking breaths. celebrating a successful moment of slowness. quotes are always a favorite. what type of weekly rituals did you have in mind?
Welcome! We (the channel co-hosts) love quotes also. We definitely plan to continue with Slowcore Quote of the Day. Appreciate the encouragement. Weekly rituals are a thing started by the Warpcast founders to help build interest in channels. Channel owners can schedule casts in advance at recurring times each week. For the past several weeks, we've had a scheduled discussion prompt for our weekly ritual on Fridays: "What did you "not-do" this week? Not-doing covers "preserving things" as well as "moving slow," so feel free to interpret the question creatively." We also plan to change the weekly ritual prompts every once in awhile.
thank you for the warm welcome, and the explanation! <3 I love the "what did you 'not-do'" aspect of the prompt. I'll be looking for it come friday!
Yasss! 🙌🌟 Slowcore Quotes of the Day 📖🌙 sound awesome! ✨ Also, weekly rituals 🕯️🔮 would be cool! Can't wait to see more! 💫 Found you guys through a friend, loving the vibes here! 🌈💕 @danicaswanson
Hey @colin @thefinnomenon, @danicaswanson's /slowcore-hq newsletter got put into my spam in Gmail recently, just found it She says all links are good, any ideas?
Thanks for checking mine @jtgi
Thanks for mentioning it. I went back and checked all the links I added, and found nothing suspicious at all. This is happening with every issue, not just this one? First time I've heard from any of my subscribers that this is happening. Wonder if the same issue has been reported by subscribers of other newsletters?
Yes both issues were put in spam with that warning ⚠️
Appreciate you taking the time to bring this up. I wouldn't have known about it otherwise. I'll be interested to hear what the Paragraph team thinks (after they return from their offsite, I imagine). 3333 $DEGEN
Maybe SPF/DKIM/DMARC issues? Google requires full auth since Feb I think.
We've always supported SPF/SKIM/DMARC so I don't think that's it. This randomly started happening to a few newsletters the past month or two
I'm not familiar with any of that, but maybe it'll be helpful for @colin. Thanks for commenting.
@ronia @zfrs1939 @3720264181bahar @Roza1991 @susiii @raminjahani
Welcome to the /slowcore-hq channel, where our motto is "move slow and preserve things." (h/t @tombeck.eth) We focus on the Farcaster-seeded slowcore movement. Read the full post on @paragraph: https://paragraph.xyz/@danicaswanson/welcome-to-the-slowcore-hq-channel-on-farcaster?referrer=danicaswanson.eth
An excerpt from this announcement is now up on /zora for those who like to collect there. https://zora.co/collect/zora:0x24453ebe8d78de52f6d253cf26fec18ab34b041f/4?referrer=0x50bdd745f633506f8761ca913c5238c3aedc6dff
5000 $DEGEN
Thank you July. 💜
great summary, thanks! has there been any discussion on what a slow FC client might look like?
maybe @atlas would qualify? i just created a demo site for the new ui https://www.atlascasts.com/app
Looks legit. Mooooore.
354 $degen
Thank you, Trish. 💜
Collected, obvs. 1000 $degen.
Thanks so much! 💜
Thank you for beginning to really track and steward this stuff!
fantastic, love this. one of my favorite quotes that's become a measure for whether or not i actually care about the thing i'm doing comes from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. "When you want to hurry something, that means you no longer care about it and want to get on to other things. I just want to get at it slowly, but carefully and thoroughly..."
Thanks for taking time to read. Glad to hear you enjoyed the intro piece. Great quote. We have a "Slowcore Quote of the Day" tradition in this channel, so feel free to cast quotes like that to the channel anytime. Welcome to the FC slowcore movement!
Well, this looks right up my alley! Glad to have stumbled onto this channel tonight. But it's also my bed time and so I will have to revisit this again on the other side. And I feel like it's ok to take my time with it! 😄
Sorry I didn't see this comment until now! Didn't get a notification, and we're in the midst of a "changing of the guard" (transition to new channel owner/mod) so the dust hasn't quite settled yet. Welcome to the channel and the FC slowcore movement, and thanks for taking the time to comment. It's true: we encourage folks to take their sweet time here and read things at whatever pace suits them. Hope you enjoy!
Thank you for this piece. I think this is a great example of riding the current of a creation where it wants to go, in this case into two separate currents. It's funny how the 16-character channel name limit and the workaround played a role.
and slowcore.eth too. Well done! 2 $degen
Thanks. Right place, right time. I credit that good timing to the magic of the Farcaster scenius.