This post is taking part in the Nouns x Kiwi writing contest

My favorite interpretation of "Nounish" came via the Nounder 4156 in October 2022: 

4156

@punk4156

do good with no expectation of return, create positive externalities, embrace absurdity & difference, teach people about nouns & crypto, have fun

388

6:18 PM • Oct 4, 2022

That’s how I see things here at least. But the operative word in my first sentence is “interpretation.” 

I say that because there is no canonical definition of Nounish. There are no official docs or lines in the Nouns protocol’s smart contract code that outline the concept, for example. 

Instead, it’s been an emergent social notion in the collective with no central organizing force or universal, fixed meaning. It rather loosely describes a tendency in Nouns to support experimentation, difference, novelty, playfulness, and even absurdity at times. 

In other words, and roughly speaking, being Nounish is like being playfully altruistic with a flair for the eclectic. It’s a sort of sympathy and joyful exuberance for the creative, the charitable, and the otherwise overlooked. 

Yet my explanation here is just an approximation: ultimately the Nounish concept is multiplicitous and indeterminate, as again, there is no centralizing force behind it. 

In funding a wide variety of projects, Nouns resists an overarching brand mission and instead positions itself to back divergent, often playful explorations. In this milieu, “being Nounish” defies a single, rooted definition or identity. 

This is all to say that Nounishness is less a rigid state of mind than a flexible, adaptable approach that celebrates and encourages diversity of thought, action, and purpose. 

To be Nounish, then, is to embrace a networked, non-hierarchical mode that allows each community member to interpret and express “Nounishness” as they see fit. 

This openness gives rise to an ethos where Nouners feel connected, not so much by a set of fixed beliefs, but instead by a shared inclination to support experimentation and navigate ambiguity together.

Another way of looking at this? The meaning of Nounish is perpetually deferred, constantly reinterpreted through each new Nounish initiative. It’s constantly becoming—an iterative, playful exploration of different forms of value and social impact.

The unwritten rule here, then, is somewhat paradoxical: “to be Nounish is to embrace non-definition and to find unity in difference.”

It’s no surprise that we have this spirit in Nouns, though. We find it fundamentally reflected in the Nouns’ CC0 art approach. The Nounish aesthetic spreads through symbols—like the Nouns glasses—that don’t point back to a single, authoritative meaning.

The Nouns glasses are put on, remade, redrawn. The meaning floats. But the core signal says: see it and say it and shape it.

The collective throws seeds out, and doesn’t worship harvests but rather the love of sprouting into the unknown. And in this frontier, what is “Nounish” isn’t set in stone but is continuously cultivated through the decentralized creative efforts always ongoing around Nouns. 

I, for one, think this openness is part of why Nouns is so special, and why its possibilities stretch to the horizon. The group revolves around “play” at multiple levels, and one of those levels is philosophically. 

In other words, there is no fixed center for what is Nounish—variation and reinterpretation reign supreme. This bold, experimental approach is a major contrast to what we see around traditional brands and springs from that foundational Nouns vision: embrace many narratives.