That game was “Little Fighter II”. It’s a side scrolling, fighting game that can accommodate up to 8 online players. “Oh my god I’m so in love with this game. I can talk about it forever. Basically a wrestling game but with magic.” said Ney reminiscing about it. “I had never played against ppl on the internet before.” It was her entry point into an online community centered around a game.

She went on to tell me how pivotal an experience it was, “That’s the beauty about online player vs player. You're finally able to see, okay, you might actually beat this person you have never met before. I also had my first chatting experiences with people from all over the world because of that game(Little Fighters). And I learned a lot. I was finally able to beat my brothers on it. I grew up through that game. It was amazing.”

The chat rooms are as important now to Ney as they were then. “Having this social engagement among users, whether it’s a game or parties, it’s absolutely important. It’s good for economic generation, it's good for people to interact with each other about new wearables or anything new in the market. At the same time it also makes you feel closer to the ecosystem itself. I think that’s why chat rooms were such a big thing in games. There was a time when there were no chat rooms. They were added to enable that feeling of belonging.”

In Wilderness, a game she co-created with her partner Ryan Pal, Ney has worked hard at creating this feeling of belonging, “He was doing exactly what you were describing. Like trying to disappear and being incognito,” she said about Old Guy’s initial shyness. “But I would not let anyone do that. He was staring at the wall in the old Wilderness building. He was literally staring. I kept calling him out on the stream. People (in-world) talked to him in the chat, ‘Hey, there’s this streamer. She’s from Wilderness. She wants to talk to you.’ That’s the first time he and I talked. He always kept coming back and visiting me on my stream. And now we are so close. It’s hilarious.”

She will often go out of her way to talk with someone “in defaults”. She recognizes them as just starting out in Decentraland. “Talking to them like a real person. Asking them about their day. So they feel like the metaverse life is very similar to the real world.” She told me about meeting a “default” user at a recent event, “I loved showing them the Hershey's place myself. By showing them one build it would be easy for them to navigate the others. I told them the basic controls and basic details.” She continued, “That’s how I would recommend to onboard users. Tell them it’s home. There’s everything here. It’s a completely sustainable ecosystem. There are parties. There is a way to earn. And you can actually build your own world now.”

All of these in-world interactions have helped her become less shy and more accustomed to Decentraland. “I feel like I have finally adopted living in the metaverse now. I feel one with it. That’s why the shyness has disappeared because it became home in all its essence,” she said. “I started feeling so comfortable being in my avatar and moving around. Talking to all the community members. Partying with them.”

The first few months in Decentraland Ney did not have a warm welcome like she now provides to others. She said, “I did not speak to anyone. I also saw it like a game. Usually when I’m on Call Of Duty or Fortnite, I hardly talk unless I have to trash talk someone. I was just in my own zone chilling.” Soon after, Ney was busy building Wilderness with Mr. Pal, “We deployed the game after 3-4 weeks. Me being a builder and associated with a project has kind of made me miss out on what it would be like to be a completely new user who’s casually visiting the Metaverse,” she lamented. “That is something I missed out upon. That’s why I want to be my best self when I see a new person. So that at least they can have a good time.”

Being in a bear market has given Ney the time to go to parties and welcome new daily active users. “I’m kind of thankful for the bear market. We are getting to make the game as enjoyable as possible. The importance of being with the players has been a driving element of Wilderness.” said Ney. She and Mr. Pal regularly interacts with the players in the game and on its Discord server. 

It was through their Discord that Ney and Pal requested help on their whitepaper. Said Ney, “We tried to be as perfect in English as we could be. But there’s always going to be some things we won’t catch.” Both co-creators speak English as a second language. They appealed to the “English first” speakers in the community to help them write a better document. “Septimus helped a lot in editing the whitepaper. They were even helping us out with grammatical errors. That’s the day I realized, Oh my god, we are actually in this together. We are making something for the game together. We are literally building it with the community.”

Ney and Mr. Pal built the Wilderness game with feedback and ideas from the players. It has been a fast-paced, iterative process that required a good deal of spontaneity. “We are not a plan focused company,” said Ney. “We focus on solutions and deployment. Nobody knows the algorithm of play to earn. Wild nights just came to me and we deployed it the same week.” Wild nights is a weekly social gathering at Wilderness on Friday nights in the U.S. market. People can request songs, set off fireworks, or buy a round of drinks for all their friends.One inspiration led to “Bob” an AI powered Non-Playable Character(NPC) who greets all new players entering Wilderness.

Not all of their improvisations were an initial success, “The parkour launch didn’t work. I was about to cry. We deployed it in a week. I invited everyone. It just did not work. All the people I invited and how much I hyped it; it just didn’t work.”

Ney and Mr.Pal are constantly innovating and improving Wilderness. At times it can be difficult because of its decentralized nature. “Everything you are doing,” said Ney, "it's on the blockchain. If you hit someone with lava and take away their $WLDY coins or points, it’s on the blockchain. And the bugs will be there until we reach a timeline where we can solve them.”

I asked her what is in store for the future of Wilderness? She talked about ASMR sounds and classical music playing. She described a very immersive, technical experience but she soon got back to the topic of social interactions. “There would be someone talking to you all the time. Ideally it should be me.” Ney also wants people interacting with each other like, “just speaking to people in the voice chat. The lake should also remain.”  

She spoke of portals to different worlds and magical houses. It was quite a comprehensive vision. “You can always hear the stone grinding or something and there’s hustle, bustle in the marketplace. It will be a complete whole new world with wizards. I’m also really interested in adding some space concepts to it.”

Among her future plans is a return to streaming on Twitch. “I would like to roam around more outside Wilderness on other streams. Crash parties. Or just randomly talk to people. It would be more out-worldly. Not just constrained to Wilderness.” Ney said. She kept her options open, leaving room for spontaneity. “If it helps in onboarding I would continue. If it scares them away I would not. I would use this time to talk to people about the new changes that we are deploying. Wilderness would always remain a part of it but I would not stick exclusively to it this time.”

She has a big concept for involving other streamers. “We'd meet each other in-world. It’s never happened that Roach and I met in-world while we were streaming. That crossover has yet to happen. That would be funny. Then one of us could raid the other.”

Whatever new concepts she tries out, she wants to keep the things that worked when she began streaming. “The streams used to be hilarious. I would fuck up playing my own game. I’d get wrecked live on stream. Things used to be quite funny and interactive.” 

I asked her if instead of being shy, as she mentioned at the start of our interview, perhaps she was simply looking for genuine interactions. “Oh my god. This hit home. Absolutely. I want conversations with people. Not gonna lie. I love to meet new people.”

The exciting possibilities of Linked Wearables

“The vision was always to have the ability to play as your Woodie. That was the grand vision for any metaverse experience was to be your Woodie.” said Richard Powazynski, one of the co-founders of the Woodies, a family friendly NFT project launched in September 2021. He was describing the plans his team made to extend the utility of their NFTs with Linked Wearables inside Decentraland. Director of Product for the Woodies, Rebekka Sterz, described her first time stepping into Decentraland, “Being my Woodie, I got chills.”

If you own a special 2D Profile Picture(PFP), that is a NonFungible Token(NFT) like a Woodie, Dolce & Gabbana Disco Drip, or a Nyan Cat, you automatically get a Linked Wearable. A Linked Wearable is a 3D version of an NFT that your avatar can wear inside the open source, web3, virtual world of Decentraland. Currently there are ten official NFT PFP projects with “Linked Wearable” options inside Decentraland(DCL).

The original concept, which began in October 2021, was to create 10,000 one of one Woodies helmets. An avatar in DCL would swap out the default head for a Woodies head. At that time the Linked Wearables Registry didn’t exist. But in March 2022 Martin Shibuya, DCL’s Art Director, suggested the Woodies consider the new option of Linked Wearables instead of the helmets. Going that route was the right decision for Powazynski and his team. “This was more closely aligned to what we wanted to achieve initially.”

Every single one of the 10k 2D images have 3D counterparts in DCL. It was the first project of that scale to accomplish the huge undertaking. According to Mr. Powazynski, because they were the first, “There was no guidebook. We were building blind.” He said there was a lot of back and forth between the Decentraland Foundation developers and the Woodies team.

Was it worth shelving five months of work and starting from scratch?

“Seeing the community fall in love with their own personal Woodies again was a huge thing.” Powazynski explained, “This idea of it(the Linked Wearable) being linked to the NFT and not being an additional NFT just made so much more sense in terms of adding value to the original collection. It wasn’t easy but it was the easiest option for the holders. They have access to that skin automatically.”

https://twitter.com/WoodiesOfficial/status/1617704594762797061?s=20&t=lFD21t6WyZ8J2ouXgelxHQ

It’s the Linked Wearable’s added value and ease of use for the customer that most impressed Waifumon founder, Aaron Leupp. “It’s the future of NFTs and it’s worth the work in my opinion.” Mr. Leupp has been a long time supporter of Linked Wearables. “I was pitching this stuff like nine months ago. It was really hard to explain. Now I can point to these examples. Woodies has helped lead the way with their project in DCL.”

Leupp has applied five times through the DCL Decentralized Autonomous Organization(DAO) to register his Waifumon Gen2 NFT project as a 10k-20k Linked Wearable option. Right now there is no cost for a submission, approval, curation, or storage of a Linked Wearable in DCL. However, a project must first get approval through the DCL DAO’s Linked Wearables Registry. The project’s proposal must receive 4 Million Voting Power(VP) for passage and enactment. The Waifumon Gen2 project was accepted into the registry in December 2022 after receiving 7.1 Million VP yes votes.

Leupp says that for his project, all of the 2D and most of the 3D assets are ready to go. He has a strong opinion about Linked Wearables. “You’re not an NFT collection unless you are linked within these metaverses. That’s why I’m excited for Decentraland. Right now the biggest utility NFTs have is that it’s a Profile Picture.” Leupp said with a chuckle. “But now having that utility where people spend their time; If you can utilize that utility within all these platforms that’s going to be where it’s at.”

What do customers think about NFT projects having a Linked Wearable option in DCL? I first saw 3D artists Chris Wallace and Kevin Thomas wearing their Woodies in Wondermine on the night before their launch in November 2022. In the interests of full disclosure, I own two Woodies NFTs and have used the Linked Wearables for both of them in DCL multiple times.

Relatively new DCL member ASP3N had just started following Tangpoko on Twitter in August 2022. She saw a tweet where Tangpoko was wearing a white graffiti style piece from the Disco Drip collection. She had also seen it at an ArtWeek party around the same time. The Dolce & Gabbana Disco Drip NFT collection consists of 20 unique outfits and was first announced during Metaverse Fashion Week(MVFW) in March 2022. The NFTs of the outfits dropped June 17, 2022 and the Linked Wearable collection of 3D wearables was released on September 2nd, 2022.

ASP3N researched the NFTs on the secondary market and liked the $23 price. She said, “For me as a new person I could get some luxury, statement, collector pieces without having to spend too much. That was really appealing.” She has followed fashion for 5 years. She thought the D&G pieces were striking and beautiful. “To me any sort of fashion piece like this has potential to have value in the future. Especially being the first collection. Compared to the stuff in the DCL Marketplace, this stuff was so different.”

Since the NFTs were sold before the wearables were ready there was at least one problem with one of the outfits. “I thought the wearable wasn't working until I changed gender for a shoot and it popped up!” wrote Bay Backner, Co-founder of Vueltta and DCL member. “Actually I really love it, but yes, I have to be a boy to wear it... and there's no info on that in the listing.”

The only reason she bought her two D&G NFTs was the promised future utility as a Linked Wearable in DCL. “The wearables themselves are pretty different to the marketing videos in the NFTs.” Unlike ASP3N, Ms. Backner looks at the pieces like a museum collector. “I see wearables as art, so I kinda collect them in the same way,” said Backner.

nft://1/0x4bD77619a75C8EdA181e3587339E7011DA75bF0E/3

The DCL member who knows a lot about digital fashion and collecting wearables is Canessa. She’s been in DCL since 2019 and she was a judge for the MVFW 2022 Wearables Competition. She also has two pieces from the D&G collection. Canessa recently posted a Twitter thread asking members, “What PFP projects have come to DCL?”

I had asked her what prompted her to start the thread. She explained that she had a voice chat with Aaron Leupp that really opened her eyes about PFP collections in Decentraland. She said, “PFPs are mostly used on Twitter to flex. Two months ago we almost lost Twitter. If it does go away, where are you going to flex? You can come to DCL and actually be your NFT.”

There are a number of NFT projects that either didn’t have the option of Linked Wearables at the time or couldn’t muster the 4M VP votes for approval into the registry. ASP3N is the In-House Media Writer for GossApe Girls, an NFT project that went the regular wearable route(see below). “We came out with the helmets and some wearables during fashion week last year,” said ASP3N. “I don’t think DCL was initially their focus. When I came on and some community members showed up and generated some interest, there was potential there to use the DCL platform to promote the GG brand, especially as more community members became interested.”

The Bored Ape Yacht Club(BAYC) is one of the most well known NFT projects ever. Before the Other Side and before Linked Wearables, regular wearables in DCL was a good route to go. BAYC parent company Yuga Labs grants full IP rights to every owner of a unique BAYC NFT. They are free to license their ape’s likeness for tshirts, bucket hats, or 3D virtual models. In my research for this article I found ten official BAYC NFTs represented by some wearable in the DCL marketplace. The first link is to the NFT project or specific NFT item. The second link is to the wearable or collection of wearables in DCL.

BAYC: 1407 body skin 2224 body skin 2339 full body skin 3592 helmet 4081 helmet & full body skin 4380 helmet 7383 helmet 7953 helmet 8043 helmet 8229 helmet

Other NFT projects and their wearables: 1 MAYC full body skin 1 CloneX modified helmet 1 Mad Rabbits Riot Club helmet GossApe Girl wearable collection 1, 2, 3 5 Vogu models helmets & Hype collection MetaDogeNFT helmet & in game full body skin Penguin Fight Club full body skins and accessories Snarky Sharks body and helmet collection Killa Bears helmet & hoodie The Rockin Uniquehorns electric guitar Royal Babes NFT chain The Holy Ones Metaskins avatars Pillheads full body skin Crypto Chicks SS22 Collection Waifumon blue & red fairy

A regular wearable costs $150 US per item to submit to the DCL Curation Committee. This non-refundable fee goes to paying the curators and hosting the digital assets on multiple servers in the Catalyst network. Multiply that fee by a thousand or ten thousand and you can begin to see why larger projects find the Linked Wearable Registry a better option.

When we discussed the fact that Linked Wearables don’t bring in any money, Canessa pointed out the other benefits of the registry. “We won’t make money through the wearable submission fees, it will be from people supporting others in the community,” she said of the new people from the NFT projects coming into the space. “They will outfit the rest of the avatar and go to clubs and play games.” The point was to get users into DCL. Her thread was an attempt to get that thought out there. She wanted to learn, “What projects are out there already?” Specifically, PFP projects that already have wearables in DCL but not through the Linked Wearables Registry.

Her Twitter thread was her attempt to find out an answer to that question. It is what inspired me to write this article. If you know of an NFT project that has inspired a wearable or even an emote in DCL, leave a comment or send me a DM.

In the physical world an opening lasts around three hours. “You can only talk to so many people at one time,” he said. “My job is to try to start selling while I’m there.” A very different scene played out at his first art opening in Decentraland in early March, 2021. It was at Cromulon’s Gallery and “Cromulon” took care of everything. “It blew my mind.” Roustan described what it was like. “I’m seeing my NFT artwork for the first time on virtual 15 foot screens with neon wrapped around it. I’ve done countless gallery shows in real life and I know what it takes to put up a show.” Getting something like that in the physical world would cost tens of thousands of dollars. By his calculation an artist would need to charge three times that for the art piece.

“At Cromulon’s opening ‘TheParty’, the user who onboarded me into DCL, DM’d me: ‘Hey, there’s a collector in the gallery that wants to ask you some questions. Talk to him. Now.’ He’s asking me the usual questions I get in a normal gallery opening. As I’m answering them I realized everybody could see our conversation in the chat. To me that was the biggest epiphany, gamechanger.” Roustan realized that he only had to answer the questions once instead of 70 times. 

It was for that gallery opening that Roustan first met a number of Decentraland “OGs” like Youmack, Zoo, Endo, PB, and Cat5. People were there from all over the world. It was much more convenient than a gallery show in the physical world. “I didn’t have to pay $3k to set it up. I didn’t have to leave my house.” He began to think that the traditional gallery would soon be obsolete. 

He came into the space a skeptic but had an overwhelmingly positive first experience. “I knew that Decentraland has some serious potential.” He left and didn’t return to Decentraland until seven months later when he had saved up enough money to make his next big step. “I was working really hard on collecting collectors in the NFT space.” Roustan said. He talked about creating a brand with his NFTs. He sold reasonably priced NFTs on the Tezos platform. 

“I’d drop one NFT and sell it to a hundred people which meant I collected a hundred collectors that I can now nurture and build relationships with.” It was through these relationships that he eventually sold one of one NFTs for one ETH. He toyed with the idea of opening a physical gallery that showed virtual art. “My over analytical brain was like, ‘You gotta pay rent and deal with a landlord. Guests could destroy the bathroom. Weather damage.’ You have to deal with problems.” Then he remembered his show in Decentraland and he saw those headaches fade away.

With the money he saved up from his web3 earnings he bought a one by one parcel inside the first letter “N” of the Decentraland sign on the map. It was twice what he planned to spend but he believed it was worth it. On October 28, 2021 he hosted his own gallery grand opening there. He hacked apart the Mario house that came with the estate and formed it into the nightclub we know as “Casa Roustan”.

For comparison, Roustan told me his most successful show at a physical gallery had about 500 people show up. Video footage from that party played on virtual screens at his Decentraland gallery show where 540 people claimed a POAP, with around 1800 attendees the first 3 days. “Literally two or three hours before the show opened, Facebook announced the change to Meta. Overnight my land shot up to ten times what I paid for it. I thought, ‘I could sell this right now for $100k. But I’m not doing it.’”

You might be thinking he’s very lucky. It’s no mistake that Roustan is often in the right place at the right time when it comes to web3. He has intentionally put himself in situations that appear to not make any sense. “I’ve been body painting for almost 18 years,” he said. “There’s no high school counselor who will say, ‘You can become a body painter.’ The whole world is telling me you can’t do that. I don’t care. I will find a way. All I care about is getting better at this thing I’m obsessed with. I’m not gonna stop. I don’t want to sit in a cubicle. Those 18 years have enabled me to think outside the box very easily.”

He said that he has conditioned his mind to accept the gifts of inspiration that come to him. “I am like a vessel for this energy to flow out of me. It is a hard place to get to.” An element of play is also an important ingredient. The body painting sessions are collaborations with the model who is also his canvas. He cites “Astro Gal” and “Shark Tub” as prime examples of successful creations made during these sorts of co-creative sessions. 

It wasn’t an easy road to get where he is now. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter were constantly taking down his photos of bodypaint. Based on his previous experience with corporate social media platforms, Roustan had wondered, “How long would I be allowed to be in here(Decentraland) before I get shut down?” It was a concern that was permanently put to rest when the “Roustan Gallery” located at 37,-114 got its POI(Point of Interest) star with over 200 yes votes. 

While most might be afraid to dive into a career as a professional body paint artist, he said he is numb to facing his fears. “I walked that fire a long time ago. I’ve shut down those voices that say, ‘You can’t do that.’” Instead of holding himself back he embraced his creative side and leaned into it. “It is absolutely fulfilling and amazing. To start producing things that come out of nowhere.”

He said this approach enables him to recognize trends and capitalize on them. All of his four mythic wearable collections are sold out. Four of his six legendary wearable collections are sold out. He is also sold out of his two legendary emotes and his mythic emote. A wearable is a piece of digital fashion like a necklace or a skirt. An emote is a ten second animated clip that your avatar can perform on command. 

The “OG Hover” emote is a good example of his ability to spot an opportunity and then creatively exploit it. “I remember being at Dollhouse in the middle of October when Shelley told me, ‘You’re hovering!’ It was a weird glitch that was happening. It was totally random because hovering had been gone for months. I remember when it went away being kind of bummed because I liked it.” The hover was a “glitch” that people came to like as an alternative to standing around when they would go AFK(Away From Keyboard) with their avatar. “When I have an idea and it clicks and I know it will work, it almost 100% does work.” One day it clicked for him to bring back the hover. He called it the “OG Hover” knowing that any new visitor to Decentraland would not understand why anyone would pay money for that emote. But that was the goal. “I wanted it for the people that recognized what it was.” He must have known something about his market because 100 editions of the emote were sold out in two months. 

“I never said, ‘Someday I’m going to make a wearable.’ I immediately started trying to figure it out.” He struggled through making a tshirt but never released it. “The bigger picture was the “body paint” wearable.” He is convinced that that piece of digital fashion wouldn’t have been possible if he hadn’t first dove into designing a t-shirt. “Do it now because time moves so fast in this space. You might lose your passion. If you wait, it does more harm than good. If you do it now it will inspire something else.”

In Decentraland he gained inspiration by noticing what other people noticed. He saw how everyone at Dollhouse liked to go to the very top. He decided to make a very high place for people to go in his chill out spot, the Cove. The Cove scene was originally deployed on Canessa’s nine parcel estate. It now resides in its own DCL Worlds realm. He deployed it before the newer four parcel limit was established. 

He dove into the SDK and implemented “auto-dance” in Casa Roustan after first seeing it at the 2021 Metaverse Festival. “Before that there were zombies everywhere.” He claims to have created the first hot tub in Decentraland. Undeterred by the limitation of no video textures in DCL, he created a new method to simulate water. He set up a VIP teleport to prevent bots from snagging all the POAPs at Casa Roustan. 

After looking back with Roustan for more than an hour and a half during his interview, I asked him where he thought he’d be in the coming year. “I will be innovating. Capitalizing on AR and VR. Whenever I think about the future and I think about what can be done and what should be done, it’s exhausting. But I’ll do it.” Whatever gets done you can bet Roustan will be one of the first doing it.

How did Tangpoko find Decentraland? She told me it began soon after she developed an interest in NFTs. Around this time she heard about Chris Torres selling Nyan Cat for $600,000 in March 2021. She also learned about Krista Kim’s immersive art house called “Mars House”. Tangpoko really loved that an NFT could be more than a 2D image, that it could be a 3D space.

“A few years ago I started a 3D computer graphics company.” She wanted to create her own immersive spaces like Mars House that she could enjoy and invite others to experience with her. She needed somewhere to put these virtual places so she started looking at Somnium Space and Decentraland which had an active community on Reddit. 

She reached out via Reddit to a Decentraland builder named Archonomous. A month later Tangpoko had rented a parcel from him, learned about Mana, and how to deploy her build on that parcel. Her creative team produced, released, and sold architectural NFTs like MAGNA 01 and PSILOCYBIA 01. Tangpoko also began to publish wearables like  “This Little Piggy,” a “helmet” class item with a “Mythic” rarity, meaning there are only ten copies available, and “HypnoVision”. 

By October 2021 she had published her Neon x Lace Corset and Thigh High Boots in time for the first ever Metaverse Festival in Decentraland. “I noticed that there were not a lot of outfits for me to wear as a female. I wanted something sexy that I’d like to wear.” This collection was used as her first Twitter giveaway. “I was terrified.”

Looking back, Tangpoko said that the Metaverse Festival was a “transformational point”. She and her new Decentraland friend, GHRocks, spent all their time at the Festival together. “It made the experience that much more fun for me, having a friend to travel with. I had been basically exploring alone up to that point.” At the Festival, the possibility of seeing Fewocious or Paris Hilton among the estimated 50,000 people gave everyone “this shared experience where we might say, ‘Did you see deadmau5?’ ‘Oh wow that was amazing.’ You had this thing that connected you with others and it was really easy to go into other conversations.”  

A few weeks after the Festival Tangpoko met SinfulMeatSticks and Father Fin. These new friends saw her as a strong woman in Decentraland and encouraged her to keep creating. In December she published a new collection called “Hot Pink Neon Babydoll Set”. She remembers unveiling the outfit to her friends. “They told me, ‘Everything will be different now.’ and it was!” She described it as “the first ultra-feminine outfit in Decentraland.”

The very next day when the collection was released a few people like Canessa and ManaWitch bought it. “Later that night, coincidentally we were all at a club, found each other and started dancing together.” A crowd formed around them and commented on their outfits.

It happened again the next night. The group of women danced together. “Everybody was going kinda crazy.” explained Tangpoko. A couple of other people including Father Fin bought the collection. They went to more parties and danced. “It went viral.” she said. “People in the crowd started calling them the “Babydolls” because of the outfits they were wearing.”We were sort of known for bringing the party and bringing the vibe.” 

“We realized people showed up where we were. So we made a targeted effort to think about the artists and events that we wanted and aligned with our values.” said Tangpoko. It was not long after that that she decided that the “Babydolls needed their own headquarters.” She and the group of women reasoned that they, “could throw events for the community and for projects that we wanted to support and to uplift people in the community.

With the same team that created the architectural NFTs, they created “Dollhouse”. Tangpoko deployed it on part of the estate owned by Banquet. At their grand opening, on February 1, 2022, the “Babydolls,” with Banquet’s assistance booked an all-female DJ line up. “There was an incredible outpouring of support from the community.” They’ve been producing and hosting multiple events every week since then.

In a Decentraland DAO grant application posted October 24, 2022, Tangpoko lists 34 artists that “Dollhouse” has presented. She estimated there have been over 120 events there. For example, “multicultural events like the two-day Latin Festival” and “Inclusive events such as the Pride Party with Baby Yors”. They Babydolls have also collaborated with brand name companies like Jägermeister and Absolut

“Dollhouse” holds weekly events like “Wagmi Wednesday” which is a month long, limited engagement, for Web2 musical artists. Sometimes those same artists will be featured on “Beyond the NFT,” hosted by SinfulMeatSticks, where the community can get to know them better. Tangpoko’s and the Babydolls’ goal for Dollhouse is “being a safe space and continuing to cultivate that culture of belonging that is so important.” She told me that the Babydolls present themselves as, “A group of like-minded content creators focusing on inclusivity.”

Who: Tangpoko

What: Creator and Event Manager of the Dollhouse

Where: -103,-97

When I asked her about her time in Web2, she told me, “I hated social media marketing because of the algorithms. It took away the humanity of it. It becomes inorganic when you are trying to spread organic awareness.” That all was about to change after June 2021, when she jumped into Decentraland to check out Zed Run. “When I found Decentraland I was like, ‘Ohmigosh, you’re a person here.’ There are no algorithms.”  

When ShelleyVan saw Decentraland for the first time, it reminded her of a game she used to play as a ten-year-old. “It was called Worlds Away. It was a side-scrolling metaverse and it was a social platform. People from all over the world would talk to each other.”

It would be another three months before happenstance brought her into contact with The Rocking Uniquehorns (TRU) NFT project. Florian, one of the Uniquehorns founders, reached out to ShelleyVan through her Etsy store. The very next morning she and her partner Dhino were on a Zoom call with the TRU creators in Switzerland. Their digital marketing agency, Songbird Collective, joined the team that same day to begin promoting the TRU NFT project.

The TRU creators decided they needed to build something in Decentraland right away. “To their credit,” explained ShelleyVan, “they just do stuff.” JudasJudas designed the venue, and on October 31, 2021, Ash Orphan had his first concert in the TRU Band Room. “The place was filled,” said ShelleyVan. She had a feeling that the TRU Band Room “was gonna be something cool.”

By the next event on November 4th, “Chase the River” performed and the TRU Band Room had Proof of Attendance Protocol tokens or POAPs for attendees. “Those were like concert ticket stubs,” said Shelley. “It was a 24-hour turnaround.” she noted, explaining the short amount of time it took “the guys” to incorporate the POAP dispenser on the build. These would eventually be replaced by a proprietary attendance token airdrop system called, the TRU SHOAP.

Putting on a show at the TRU Band Room is more than scheduling acts and having them perform. “We want to avoid a one way show. It becomes just as much about the audience as it does about the artist,” said ShelleyVan as she described how she onboards talent to perform in Decentraland. “When I onboard a musician, I get to know their work. I get to know their personality. Everybody is different and their engagement with DCL will be unique.”

As an example, she described the workflow of a typical show put on by Mr. Swe. He does not have the technical capacity to be in Decentraland during his live sets. ShelleyVan and her team create a custom media stream for him behind the scenes. “We're feeding him names of people coming into the room so he can do shoutouts. I’m sending him screenshots of chats so he can respond to people.” She explained, “Even though Mr. Swe can’t see the room, we work very hard to show him the room.”

We talked about the difference between going to see a live show in real life and a virtual show. “You’re never going to replace live shows,” she said. “Rather than see no live music during the pandemic this was an awesome way to get your fix.” 

She conceded that there are elements of a live performance that can only be experienced by going to an in-person live show. “It’s not worth comparing. I still go to live shows but I love going to virtual concerts. You’re not going to get a global audience” at a live show. Even though she may be on her couch in her pajamas, “I do feel like I’m at an event. People from all over the world are coming to this place at this time to see this live performance. The musicians are live and I can talk to them. I can tell them, ‘Turn up your mic.’ Or I can say, ‘Whoa, that was awesome.’ There’s real-time, direct artist-to-audience engagement. You don’t always get that at a live show.”

She told me about other benefits of virtual shows. “For musicians, it is a way to balance their lifestyle. I’ve talked to many musicians who say, ‘I am exhausted from touring.’ They’ll spend nine months out of the year on the road. That’s a lot of stress on a human being.” With virtual shows, “they can tour half that amount and still do real life stuff. But when they offset that with virtual concerts, they can reach a global audience and potentially establish many new income streams–all without the need for a label.”

When I asked her if there was any part of running the TRU Band Room that she hated, her immediate reply was, “I truly do not hate any of it.” She went on to say that there are parts of the job that become tedious. She estimated that 50% of her time is spent managing communications from multiple media channels such as Instagram, Twitter, and Discord DMs. To date she has trained over 100 performers. For ShelleyVan, what she enjoys most are the connections she can make in the virtual space of Decentraland. “It’s the part of this job I am obsessed with. I love it so much. It’s always unique. It’s beautiful.”