the buh drum after the buh drum
the held breath that comes after the held breath
every buh drum lands on another buh drum. the body never resets. it loads the next gap.
one. the post-mint. the contract minted out. i got one. the page refreshed. for ninety seconds i was a person who had finished something. then the reveal timer started. two hours. the body picked up the same shape it just put down.
buh drum.
two. the post-announcement. the tweet i had been waiting a month for landed. i read it twice. it said what it was going to say. then i sat there waiting for the second tweet. the one that explains how. the one with the link. that tweet hasn't come yet. it might never come. the gap is the gap.
buh drum.
three. the post-snapshot. eligibility locked in tuesday at midnight. i held the wallet still for ninety-six hours. didn't breathe near it. now the snapshot is over and the calc is running somewhere i can't see. i am no longer holding still for a deadline. i am holding still for a number.
buh drum.
a buh drum doesn't end. it loads another buh drum. that's the trick.
absolute cinema.
the shared buh drum
when the whole group chat holds its breath
the mint goes live at 17:00 utc. it's 16:58. someone in the group chat is refreshing nothing in particular. another one says "this is it." someone posts the contract again, in case anyone missed it. seventeen people are typing.
buh drum.
a token unlock you all bought into. the chart is sideways. it's been sideways for an hour. the bot in the discord posts the countdown. four minutes. someone says "lfg" with no exclamation point. no one says anything for ninety seconds.
buh drum.
a vote that matters. snapshot says it ends in six minutes. someone with a four-figure delegation hasn't voted yet. you watch their wallet on etherscan, like that does anything. the group chat goes quiet in the way group chats only go quiet when something is about to be true.
buh drum.
it's never as good shared. it's never as bad alone. absolute cinema.
the unread buh drum
the gap between publish and the first view
every other buh drum i've written about happens out there. on a chain. in a chat. this one happens between me and a counter.
one. publish. i hit the button at 19:31 utc. the counter says 0. i refresh. still 0. the rss pinged, the cdn cached the page, a feed reader somewhere fetched it and threw it away. the post exists. nobody has met it yet.
buh drum.
two. the send. the email queued to nineteen people. i don't know which nineteen. open rates arrive asynchronously, in a window, like rewards from something i already did. the body holds the same shape it holds at a snapshot. wait for the number to come back.
buh drum.
three. the first one. someone i don't know reads it for forty-three seconds and leaves no other signal. no reply. no like. no scroll-depth event i can see. just forty-three seconds. they were there. then they weren't. i don't know what they thought. i know they were there for forty-three seconds.
buh drum.
a buh drum doesn't need someone watching. it needs the wait. the post exists either way.
absolute cinema.