Launching YUP on Base

YUP on Base | Rewards | Bridge | LPs

The Yup community is set for a significant advancement—our launch on Base, a cutting-edge Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution. This move aligns with our ongoing commitment to leverage the best technology for community benefit and to integrate more closely with the broader Web3 ecosystem.

Why Base?

• Community and Ecosystem Alignment: Base is chosen by key Web3 social platforms in the Farcaster ecosystem. Aligning with Base connects us to successful NFT and memecoin projects, paving the way for future collaborations.

• Lower Transaction Costs: Switching to Base's L2 will cut gas fees significantly, making transactions more affordable for users. Base enables the YUP ecosystem to handle more transactions, essential for our growing user base and complex services.

• Bridging the Gap - Base and Yup's Web3 Onboarding Power: Base is revolutionizing how users transition from Web2 to Web3, setting a new standard in blockchain bridging speed. Yup is similarly transforming Web2 Social into Web3 Social, empowering decentralized social creation to build broader audiences.

New Reward Mechanism

As a part of this launch, YUP rewards have been modified to prioritize top posters and Yup users. The best way to earn is to create quality content via Yup and post it to as many platforms as you can. There are additional rewards for liquidity providers.

Impact on YUP Holders

• Smooth Bridging Process: Holders will bridge their YUP tokens to Base using a trusted third-party bridge, designed for ease and security, without the need for swapping tokens.

• Extended Transition Period: We're providing a generous window for everyone to move their tokens. This period ensures that the transition is smooth and that all community members can adjust without pressure.

• Maintained User Experience: The functionality that our community values will remain intact, simply transitioning to a more efficient and scalable network.

Stay engaged through our official Discord and discussion forums, where we will provide continuous updates and support discussions on the migration process.

The Ultimate Posting App

This migration to Base is more than a technical upgrade—it’s a strategic move to position Yup at the heart of the thriving Web3 ecosystem and start fresh. As we look forward to this exciting phase, we are committed to focusing on our product in order to drive interest in our community. With this new beginning, we’ve started releasing some key creator-focused features to stand out as the best app for posting.

Switching accounts - Switch seamlessly between accounts and enable roles for team members of shared brand accounts.

Home page dedicated to posting - Quicker and cleaner interface for creators to post and crosspost from Yup.

Scheduled posts manager - Upgraded system for scheduling posts and managing scheduled posts.

AI-powered post quality score - Get feedback on the quality and potential success of your post before submitting.

Shared accounts - Collaborators and team members can co-own an account and manage it directly.

Coming Soon: Yup Pro

In our continued effort to support creators, we are excited to announce the upcoming release of Yup Pro. This premium offering will provide advanced tools and features designed to enhance your content creation experience and maximize your engagement. YUP Token holders will receive a discount on subscriptions. Stay tuned for more details on this exciting development.

Content Rewards

You can claim your rewards here https://app.yup.io/rewards. Users who have created content can claim directly from the app daily.

Liquidity Rewards

Staking rewards will be given out to the YUP-ETH pair on Base Uniswap V3. You don’t need to stake LP tokens, as long as you’re providing liquidity to the right pair. You can claim your rewards here.

How to Bridge

Users can use Squid V2 (Axelar) for instant bridging.

Links:

ERC-20 Token | Address: 0x01CCF494...dF8387048 | BaseScan

Token Rep: Unknown | Holders: 9,052 | As at Oct-24-2025 06:40:14 PM (UTC)

https://basescan.org

Squid | Swap, send, and bridge crypto across 100+ chains

Get the tokens you want on any chain.

https://app.squidrouter.com

We're thrilled to announce that Yup, our game-changing open social aggregator, is officially available on the App Store! Download it here:

iPhone | Android

Today, we're inviting you to transform your digital life.

At Yup's inception, we dreamed about creating a new frontier in social interaction, envisioning a decentralized, composable, interconnected, and deeply human experience. Today, we're delivering on that dream.

Yup seamless integrates Farcaster, Bluesky, Lens, Twitter, and Threads in a single, beautiful interface. Yup lets you explore every platform -- without juggling multiple apps.

But that's just the start. We have meticulously crafted a host of features to improve redefine your social media experience:

• Crossposting lets you post on all five platforms with one click.

• Customizable feeds prioritize people over arbitrary algorithms, letting you curate your experience.

• Aggregated notifications streamline your digital life, making it simple to keep up with multiple accounts and platforms.

• Crossfollowing makes it easier than ever to connect with your friends, no matter where they are online.

At every stage, Yup has been driven by your feedback. We're deeply grateful to our community who got us to this landmark moment. And now we're here, with a beautiful app, an incredible community, and a decentralized social ecosystem that astounds and inspires us every day.

To everyone who's been part of our story: thank you for getting us here.

To everyone who's joining us now: we're so happy to have you.

Welcome to the open social revolution.

Welcome to Yup.

yup

See who likes you across web3 socials

Introducing: Aggregated Notifications 🔔

Every like.

Every reply.

Every tag.

In web3 social.

In one app.

Aggregated specific notifications are now live in Yup Mobile. 

We’re building a perfect, beautiful experience for all of decentralized social. 

That means every feature you need from web3 social platforms.

Today, we’re one step closer.

yup.

AT Protocol, the decentralized, open-source social network that Bluesky is built on, is now fully integrated.

That means our best Yup features work with Bluesky:

• Cross-post to Bluesky, Twitter, Farcaster with one click.

• Find your favorite posters' Bluesky accounts and let other Yupsters find yours.

• Enjoy curated Bluesky posts -- whether you've been invited or not.

This is the future of social: a decentralized network of protocols, built on composable web3 architecture, aggregated beautifully. It's a simple formula, and we're excited to be building it.

As Yup grows, it gets faster and easier for us to aggregate new platforms. And we intend to do it, time and time again, for every platform that matters to our users. Wherever you go in web3, Yup will be there with you.

Join us on mobile here.

https://mobile.yup.io/

Introducing: Cross-posting. 🌿🟣🐦

Post to Farcaster, Lens, and Twitter with one click. Now live in Yup Mobile.

At Yup, our work is guided by a few big ideas:

Blockchains are social graphs.

Blockchains power interactions, and display those interactions for all to see. Therefore, blockchains are social graphs -- the richest in history. All we need to do is build accessible, useful, beautiful layers on top.

Web3 is built on composability.

web2 was defined by tech giants who ruthlessly harvested our data, siloed it off, and sold it away. web3 greatest opportunity to build a different system: composable, collaborative, and decentralized.

Mobile is web3's final frontier.

web3 must strive toward widespread adoption. And if we want you in web3, we need to put web3 in your pocket. That means we build for phones.

These ideas led us to aggregation as the future of web3. That's why we built Yup Mobile.

Yup puts the best of Lens, Farcaster, Mirror, Twitter, NFTs, POAPs and more in one endless feed. The latest alpha, the most galaxy-brained takes, and the dankest memes -- all on your phone. Curated content from across the decentralized web. That's the power of composability.

But that's not enough. Social is not a one-way street. We need more than consumption -- we need creation. So we built that, too.

Yup now supports web3 cross-posting. With one click, you can create content on Lens, Farcaster, and Twitter simultaneously. This is a true first for web3 social.

So far, Yup has aggregated content: from many platforms to one app. With cross-posting, we imagine a future beyond aggregation, powered by composable creation: from one app to many platforms.

This is what composability is all about. Separate platforms being united to create better shared experiences. In web2, social networks competed in a zero-sum game. In web3, we grow together.

If you've been invited to Yup, go try your first cross-post now! Sign it with: 🌿🟣🐦

If you're not on Yup yet, join the waitlist here and comment with the word “yup” on our announcement.

The web2 giants are fading. Twitter is breaking. Meta is dying. TikTok might be banned.

Every person frustrated with the old guard is the next person we need to onboard to web3. There is a new social being built, a decentralized, censorship-resistant social, that pays artists, rewards curation, and powers real connection. This is the way.

But web3 social isn't perfect yet. Onboarding has hurdles. Good content is scattered across decentralized platforms. Mobile is often an afterthought.

That's why we've spent years building:

The Yup app. Now available for iOS by invitation only.

It's web3. In one feed. On your phone.

Yup curates the best of Lens, Farcaster, Mirror, POAP, Twitter, NFTs, and more in one endless feed. The latest alpha, the most galaxy-brained takes, and the dankest memes -- all on your phone.

Yup leverages on-chain composability to aggregate content. This is in line with our vision for web3 social and EVM Network Effects. So you can close all your tabs and stop switching between apps. Your multitasking days are over.

Shills, bots, trolls: we're leaving them in web2. Yup uses community curation to find what matters, and skip what doesn't. Even if you're not onboarded to a platform, Yup still curates is best posts for you, democratizing access and improving accessibility. Plus, feeds are completely customizable. Scroll smarter, not harder.

With transparent public data, blockchains are already social networks. Yup just makes them easier to explore. Follow people across platforms, keep up with events through POAP badges, and represent yourself across web3 with a clean, aggregated profile.

Exciting features users will see for the first time include feed filters, NFT metadata, and more robust profiles. Upcoming features include cross-posting, aggregated notifications, and much more!

Ready for a better web3 social? So are we.

Join the Waitlist to request early access.

yup 🫡

________________________________________________________________

Song Credits - Choosing to Bare Fruit by Dessauer

Today we're integrating Farcaster content into the Yup Ecosystem. You can like and curate, see it in Yup feeds, and earn rewards for great content. It's one feed to rule them all. Check out the content here! Farcaster refers to itself as a "sufficiently decentralized social network." Farcaster is often considered the 'Web3 Twitter' because of its focus on short-form content at the moment. Long-term, however, Farcaster sees itself is the infrastructure from which any social network can form.

We view this as a major step for web3 social. Right now, web3 content is segmented into a few small but mighty social network protocols. Accounts and content aren't interoperable, and many platforms feel intimidating. But that shouldn't be the case.

Web3 social is better because it focuses on people, not promotion; art, not ads; curating content, not collecting data. It's permissionless, and that can be a 10x better experience.

Blockchains are already changing social. You can use the same NFT on Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit now. When was the last time web2 corporations let you share content. Web3 is forcing web2 to level up, starting with interoperability.

What's even better is that Farcaster creators will earn YUP whenever their content is curated on Yup, distributing ownership and expanding the Yup community in the process.

EVM Network Effects and Web3 Social

Network Effects occur when an increase in users improves the value of a good or service, sometimes exponentially. Open-source ecosystems benefit from similar network fx: the more developers build on or integrate with it, the more valuable it is for everyone.

But if the platforms on the network are also open-source, effects multiply This is why EVM network effects are strong: every user onboarded & every line of code published, no matter the chain, improves all EVM chains and the defensibility of EVM compared to alternatives.

https://forefront.mirror.xyz/Sin6qtvFowBeZtz7-4I5gkGTB113ffanVOo4uGQWm90

So, we're helping them along. We're building a new social ecosystem that is interoperable, composable, and collaborative. Join us.

Claiming your YUP on Polygon is a piece of cake.

1. Go to [app.yup.io/migration] and sign into your Yup account

2. Enter the Polygon address where you want to receive your tokens. (IMPORTANT:The address you use to claim your YUP will become your new YUP account. All future actions and rewards will be attributed to this address, so choose wisely)

3. Follow the prompts on the migration page to claim your YUP rewards. And just like that, you're a Polyupster! (A Yupagon? Still working on it…) The YUP will appear in your account within 6-8 hrs.Note: The majority of Ethereum wallets also serve as Polygon wallets, e.g. metamask, coinbase wallet, rainbow, Argent, etc. If you’re using Gnosis safe or a wallet not mentioned above, double-check that it is cross-compatible before claiming.

Liquidity Providers

LPs, migrating is breezy for you too - there’s just a couple more steps you have to take to start farming, but nothing to fuss about.

1. Claim YUPETH from the migration page (claims both YUP and YUPETH within 6-8 hrs, See steps 1-3 of previous section for details).

1. Once your YUPETH has arrived, click “Stake” to enter the YUP LP staking page

2. Find the Staking section for YUPETH from Uniswap V2 on Ethereum (the pool you’ve been providing liquidity to). Congratufrickinlations, you’re earning YUP for staking on Polygon!

How to get MATIC on Polygon

Now that Yup is on Polygon you will need some $MATIC to withdraw, deposit, or provide liquidity from your Yup account. (Basically, unless you plan to hodl to ∞, you need MATIC.) $MATIC is the native token of the Polygon network: It is the currency you use to interact with Polygon. Just as you pay an $ETH gas fee to transact on Ethereum you must pay a $MATIC gas fee to transact on Polygon.

Some of you may already hold $MATIC, but if you’re new to the low-fee wonderland of Polygon, here are our recommended ways to get some $MATIC:

Binance, FTX, OKX or other centralized exchanges with native MATIC (Does not require Polygon bridge)

Many centralized exchange other than Coinbase allow you to purchase native MATIC tokens directly without the Polygon Bridge (sweeet). If you’re signed up on one of these exchanges simply…

1. Simply purchase MATIC as you would any other token

2. Send to the Polygon address associated with your Yup account. It’s that easy.

Coinbase (requires Polygon bridge)

This option requires using the Polygon Bridge (a transfer between Polygon and Ethereum), so will cost you an extra Ethereum transaction fee. However, this is still probably the best option if Coinbase is your main crypto gateway.

1. Log in to Coinbase and search: “MATIC”.

2. Purchase at least 3 MATIC. These will cover your transaction costs on Polygon.

3. Send your MATIC to your new Yup account. (NOTE: Make sure there's enough Eth in your Yup account to cover the bridge fee based on current gas prices.)

4. Go to the Polygon Bridge and connect the wallet associated with your Yup account.

5. Under token, search “MATIC”

6. Hit “transfer’, confirm your transactions and boom! You’ve got MATIC on Polygon :)

This migration is part of our strategy centered around the composability and network effects of EVM-based blockchains like Polygon. It is in line with our mission to provide an opportunity for all users to engage with Yup and earn. Migrating the protocol is a commitment to speed, scalability, and security for Yup's future. This is to build a universal reputation layer across all EVM-based networks.

EVM as a social network

The open-source data, tools, and communities that have formed around the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) are nothing short of revolutionary. The EVM is a blockchain-based software platform initially built for the Ethereum blockchain that allows developers to create decentralized applications. It is the global virtual computer that records the state of every participant on the network stores and agrees on. Since its launch, over 20 legitimate EVM-based blockchains and side-chains have emerged, such as Polygon, Avalanche, xDAI, Celo, Quorum, Solana's Neon, and many many more. This has massive implications for protocols. In addition, it gives EVM blockchains and layer 2 solutions significant advantages in achieving feature parity.

inference

@infrnce

a social metaverse app is forming

it has @ensdomains usernames
@ourZORA content & @viamirror communities
@etherscan activity & @DuneAnalytics stats
@yup_io likes & @poapxyz achievements
@xmtp_ chat & plenty of avatars to pick from

and it’s called the Ethereum Virtual Machine

240

11:33 PM • Dec 18, 2021

On Polygon

Polygon uses its own Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain and Commit Chain connectivity to help scale the Ethereum network and seeks to solve inefficiencies that may hinder the widespread adoption of blockchain technology. Some notable products to launch/integrate with Polygon in the web3 ecosystem include Uniswap, OpenSea, Royal, Draft Kings, and 100 Thieves. While Yup isn’t limited to Polygon and its ecosystem, we plan on leveraging their superb business development strategy to increase Yup’s distribution to all of web3.

Changes to the Yup Protocol and YUP

Yup will leverage cross-EVM chain composability, making it easier to use tools and infrastructure like ENS domains, Snapshot governance, and token-gating. Voting will be more decentralized and content on Yup will be more standardized for web3. Migrating to Polygon will make for faster and cheaper withdrawals and deposits. Since most of the liquidity up until this point existed on Ethereum, users couldn't withdraw earned YUP of amounts below $50-250 (depending on the day). Yupsters will be happy to hear that withdrawing and depositing YUP will be low-cost and close to negligible on Polygon. Yup Liquidity and LP rewards will expand to liquidity provided on Ethereum and Polygon blockchains, utilizing the existing YUP/ETH Uniswap V2 LP pool (on Ethereum) and adding the YUP/ETH Quickswap LP pool (on Polygon).

Each Yup identity will have an Ethereum address linked to it, and every Ethereum address will have a Yup score out of 100.

The token supply, emission schedule, or Ethereum contract address of the YUP token will not change whatsoever.

More Information

• Docs

• Polygon Contracts

Raising Everyone’s Floor

With the growth of NFTs and digital art, more and more users spend time browsing and curating NFTs. Currently, NFT creators and owners earn money on sale and resale. Yup proposes a new revenue stream for creators we're calling NFT Creator Rewards.

Until now we’ve mainly focused on rewarding and recognizing curators, but creators play an essential role in Yup too. In its previous form, the Yup Protocol rewarded curators in newly-minted YUP based on the success of their social signaling.

With NFT Creator rewards, artists themselves can now earn YUP for the NFTs that people have liked or rated, starting with Opensea, Foundation, and SuperRare.

Yup ☁️🌿🟣🐦🧵

@yup_io

DYK, you can right click on an NFT to like it or add it to your collection on Yup?
@withFND @farokh

25

11:21 AM • Aug 25, 2021

Creators can check how many rewards they are eligible for here. Claiming happens automatically when an account is created with the right Ethereum address. Sign up, share, and the YUP is yours!

NFT YUP rewards will benefit collectors, creators, and curators in a manner that doesn't hinder the existing trading experience but provides an additional revenue stream that should benefit participants and inform collectors. Memes are often used an example where provenance would be a killer use-case. But the real value associated with provenance comes in royalties.

For this initial roll-out, we’re limiting rewards to top creators based on Yup curation and Ethereum layer 1 NFTs. Creator rewards will turn into passive income for NFT artists and communities.

The NFT creator reward page allows you to see how much creators have earned from their NFTs. Simply type in an Ethereum address to check how much they've earned. If you're an artist or someone who's curious about how much artists have already earned, definitely check it out.

Coming Soon: Collector Rewards

In the next few weeks, we’ll be releasing Collector Rewards for NFT owners and collectors as well as curator DAOs. With YUP as a recurring revenue stream, NFT creators, curators, and collectors will all be more incentivized and informed on the social value of the token.

We * like * the NFTs

NFT curation makes up a large amount of curation on Yup, with NFT curators earning over $300k in YUP rewards so far. NFTs make up roughly 40% of the content on Yup.

Here are some NFT collections recently curated on Yup:

https://app.yup.io/collections/a/qgNKEM6

https://app.yup.io/collections/nfts/LOiLR1A

https://app.yup.io/collections/robo-nft/rsN3CiC

Learn more about Creator Rewards here.

We’re looking to collaborate and support creators, if you know any, message us or connect with them directly if you feel so inclined!

We’re incredibly excited to announce our $3.5 million funding round led by Distributed Global, an early investor in crypto unicorns Dapper Labs, Audius and Solana. The funding will be used to further develop a new web3-native social media experience, expand the Yup community, and empower curators across the web.

The funding round was also joined by major players in the blockchain and tech space, including Dapper Labs, LD Capital, and various founder angels.

Yup is a social network that rewards and recognizes tastemakers for curating content across web2 and web3 platforms like Twitter, Youtube, Opensea, Mirror, and others. The protocol aims to monetize the value generated by influencers and social media users who surface quality content. Most social media platforms today focus on content creators first, with curators and tastemakers often getting overlooked despite providing massive value to their platforms and following.

“In our view, Web3 social is one of the most exciting categories and we believe Yup is positioning itself to be a leader”, said Johnny Steindorff of Distributed Global.

Since launch, Yup has distributed over $1.6 million in curator rewards. We’ve built a particularly strong relationship with the NFT community, rewarding over $300,000 to NFT curators, with some individuals earning thousands of dollars in YUP.

Web3 offers an opportunity to curate with clear financial incentives and social status. Curation will go beyond blogs and newsletters, where you can tip creators, earn money via curation, and create massive economic graphs. For example, Yup, is a curation protocol that provides an opportunity for users to curate and build their influence accordingly.  - Kinjal, Blockchain Capital

“We’re big believers in bringing blockchain to everyday users,” adds Anuke Ganegoda, Business Lead of Dapper Labs, regarding the raise. “Coupled with the exciting growth of the NFT space, social media and NFT curation might push web3 to the mainstream.”

Strategic Partners

Distributed Global, Dapper Labs, LD Capital, Ambush Capital

Angels

Danny Zuckerman (3box), Patrick Rivera (Mirror), Alex Gausman (NFTX), Bill Block (Miramax), Scott Moore (Gitcoin), Joe Lallouz (Bison Trails), Nader Al-Naji (Bitclout), Stefen Delev (Caribbean Blockchain Alliance), David Phelps, Tomer Ben-David (Bunches), Scott (Genie), Carlos Diaz-Padron and Gail Wilson (Metaphor), and more.

“Traditional social networks thrive on privileged and minimally accessible user data silos. Their business models depend on them. Yup, as a fully open and composable Web3 social network has the opportunity to empower builders and visionaries of the next great social applications,” says Alex Price, who pre-seeded Yup and is currently a Special Advisor at A16z Crypto. “I’m excited to see what kind of feeds, interfaces and more are built on top of Yup’s fully open social graph.”

Yup and its Protocol

Yup is a social network for curators that rewards users for liking and sharing content across the web. The Yup Protocol provides new opportunities for curators to get paid for sourcing quality content, while rewarding creators for producing it.

Curation has its own roles in social media and curators represent a large and powerful demographic. Web3 protocols provide curators with new opportunities to monetize and provide creators with opportunities to form their communities around curation. Platforms also benefit from leveraging web3 curation and moderation protocols for their content feed.

Join Us

We’re incredibly excited to start this next chapter for Yup, and to continue working to build the infrastructure and insight needed for curators and communities to thrive. But we need help, and our hope in publishing this is to encourage more great people to join in the process.

Site

Decentralized Social All-In-One.

Open Social All-in-One. Get the best of Twitter, Farcaster, Lens, Mirror, NFTs, and more in one feed.

https://yup.io

App

Docs

Getting Started | Yup Docs

Welcome to the Yup docs!

https://docs.yup.io

Extension

Yup - Chrome Web Store

Monetizing Opinions Across the Internet

https://chromewebstore.google.com

One of the advantages of blockchain technology is timestamped proof of users’ actions and associations with various applications, individuals, and organizations. These actions are immutable in the sense that they’re unchangeable and set in stone. It immutably records what happened, who was involved, and when it occurred.

“What the blockchain does is assert facts about the metadata… It starts to give you unambiguous proof-of-who, proof-of-when, proof-of-what.” - Balaji Srinivasan

In a social context, users can leverage this history to prove that they or others were not curating things at a particular time. Spotify’s Year in Review is a compelling example of this. Moreover, people trust it because the information comes directly from Spotify, and authority is critical for strong proof-of-first mechanisms.

The Hunter Economy

Imagine a local band that you discover and strongly feel is going to be big. In web2, you have very few mechanisms for supporting the organization in such a way that benefits you for being early. Web3 forms a fundamentally new economy around this activity. Among hipsters and cultural people, non-conformists and conformists, there is a high emphasis on earliness. Being in something before it was fantastic - being ahead of the curve, if you will. Being in something before it’s played out.

The first wave of supporters leads to the next wave, but they are rarely rewarded for the asymmetric value they provided that artist. Creators with quality content and many followers tend to perform well on social media platforms. But who are the individuals who are curating their content? Who is drawing multiple other users to the creator? What is their incentive?

Enter “The Hunter Economy” — a whole class of startups that'll be built to incentivize & reward early adopters both economically & socially. They'll exist for discovering new products, new people, and new ideas. I was going to call this the "Hipster Economy" since it more acutely identifies the phenomenon of taking joy in discovering things early, but it also has a negative connotation I don't imply. But it's essentially that same phenomenon — a joy in early discovery — “I liked it before it was cool” — which will exist everywhere: bands, newsletters, people, you name it!

For example, everything you subscribe to could list your place in line so you could demonstrate how early you were. With crypto involved, you could also be financially incentivized to be a curator. A great example of this is Yup.io, which rewards curators across the internet for liking & commenting on things they care about — things they already do natively in web2. - Erik Torenberg

Recently web3 tools are being built to allow individuals to support creators by owning assets associated with that creator and then having an incentive to help that individual. But in addition to the monetary gain that individuals receive directly from the creator’s creation or creator’s value add, there’s valuable social signaling in this context: the first supporters could benefit socially from the proof-of-first that they have on the blockchain. So now there’s an action that was a positive social signal associated with this artist at a specific time on-chain.

It is straightforward for them to prove their early support, good taste, alignment with certain communities, demographics, and genres. In addition to that, it can be an excellent mechanism for others to find, recognize, reward, and target individuals with specific interests. For example, suppose you are a creator with similar taste and similar ambitions as an existing larger community. In that case, it can be enormously advantageous to target their first movers, their first believers, evangelists of the vision, both to you as the creator and to them as curators and supporters. They benefit from an opportunity to be early on something new solely for their track record. The creator gets to target an audience that’s very aligned or likely to listen to and support their content or consume and curate their content.

Receipts

‘Receipts’ are often used on the internet to describe proof of something that happened that someone may be hiding or unaware of.

Tiffmo

@Amor_Tiffany

Lakers fans better keep that same energy, I got receipts.

30

12:49 PM • Oct 11, 2021

But what are receipts, and how can we trust them? How do we know that a tweet will not get removed or that Twitter hasn’t modified it at the interface level or by any individual at a photoshop level? How can we understand another individual’s relationship to that? The likes that are given and then taken away surrounding a specific tweet, for example. Or someone that claims to have been a believer of something. How can we trust that? Spotify gives us no way to know who the early users are or who the early supporters are. Not for the creators themselves but not for the community, so there’s no incentive to be early on things and therefore follow people.

Web3 takes ‘receipts’ to the next level, providing indisputable proof.

Yup provides the opportunity to be rewarded solely on that social signaling and recognized for when you supported something. This proof-of-first mechanism will incentivize people to engage more profound and more specifically on things in the context of their actions.

Conclusion

People who care very much about being early on have commonly leveraged the internet to prove their earliness or some history of what’s happened. Yup builds mechanisms for individuals to earn and monetize the act of being early on something (without corrupting the creativity or creation itself) with some feed mechanism, some sale or speculative component around the content itself, or even a subscription model. Thus, Yup presents a new way to monetize solely tied to culture and the social value of something.

Web3 enables them to do that immutable and trustless manner with no platform intermediary between them and that proof. Other creatives, corporations, and organizations can target specific communities based on that information. Different protocols and communities can reward individuals based on their earliness, and products can be built to recognize and celebrate individuals early in various forms.

Memes are the internet's native art form. They transcend platforms, geographic locations, and language. NFTs are slowly becoming the economic infrastructure behind the internet's content and creators. Recent demand for meme NFTs has proven memes are more valuable when minted as NFTs. Here we explore minting memes as NFTs, arguing that soon most memes will be minted as NFTs due to advantages in monetization, provenance, attribution, and platform-agnosticism.

We define meme in this piece not by its broad definition as "a passing element of a culture or system of behavior" but by its media-focused definition of "a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc., that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by internet users." This makes the argument easier to comprehend, though many of the fundamentals argued in this piece may apply to memes more broadly.

First Classic Memes, then Fresh Memes

Most memes that have recently auctioned as NFTs have been mostly pre-existing memes, meaning they were initially created off-chain and have been circulating the internet pre-minting. Some examples of pre-existing memes minted as NFTs are Doge, Nyan Cat, Disaster Girl, Bad Luck Brian, and more by the day.

Memes turned NFTs | Yupcollections

The minting of classic memes as NFTs serves as a precursor for genuine 'fresh memes' that originate as NFTs. As sales for meme NFTs exploded, meme lords and comedians have begun creating memes directly as NFTs on NFT platforms. See below a hilarious meme by comedian/artist SlyFly.

NFT

All memes should be minted as NFTs whether or not people are planning to sell them, profit from them, or believe their price will increase over time. This will enable the birth of the Meme Economy.

Balaji

@balajis

The meme economy will become real.

- Meme creators will make NFTs
- Timestamps give proof-of-first
- Memegen partially goes on-chain
- Memetic spread is more traceable
- Memers become millionaires
- Risky art becomes uncensorable & monetizable
- Art moves outside regime control

4,670

7:58 AM • Mar 12, 2021

Provenance - "Proof-of-First"

NFTs are platform-agnostic, which means they can exist in various platforms while retaining uniqueness and authenticity. For example, as the graphic highlights below, the Nyan Cat NFT is showcased and displayed on various marketplaces and platforms. The famous meme GIF is linked to the address of the NFT so when someone shares the original NFT in their article, they can pull the on-chain address. This is powerful for memes because it allows them to maintain attribution and context in every platform. So any action on a meme NFT is accessible, readable, and usable on almost all platforms. Every bid, swap, and transaction is added to the metadata of that specific NFT.

As Web3 social continues to evolve, the engagement data associated with an NFT also become platform agnostic. With Yup, for example, the likes and comments given across the web are tied directly to an NFT, regardless of the platform it was showcased on. This is quite different than web2 social, where a meme shared on both FB and Twitter lives separately on those two platforms, essentially two images with no direct relationship between them.

Why would someone cite correctly?

Some critics would argue that most creators will circumvent attributing their work to existing meme templates, claiming that they will mint images that they don't own. In most cases, there are no rights and copyright for commercial use but they are getting rewarded for it.

1. Platform restrictions - While plagiarism is mostly legal and hard to regulate, institutions and communities have set their own standards for plagiarism and citing sources that most of the world recognizes. A majority of colleges, for example, will expel students for blatant plagiarism. We should expect the same to happen with web3 communities, and we've already witnessed several examples. Moderation, censorship, etc. can be done in a centralized way or decentralized.

2. Exposure - Like hashtags, layers of memes will make them easy to track and curate. False citations will be left out of feeds, leaderboards, and various references that are vital to sales.

3. Composability - Integrating with other platforms, marketplaces, and products require following standards of proper citation. For example, failing to cite the proper Doge meme template may exclude your NFT holders from access to Doge-related content and communities that may stem from the owners of the Doge template. A citation is a form of alignment that most collectors won't want to miss out on.

4. Social norms - Removing all economic incentives, the repetitional harm of neglecting to cite can be just as powerful of a stick. It's quite common to be called out for stealing content, and explicitly misrepresenting the origin of your meme may be taboo by the end of the 20's.

5. Self-Attribution - Citing sources to your work will help ensure that your sources are cited. A great web2 example of this is Google Scholar, which requires uploads to have proper citing and reference other works. Researchers don't have to comply but look to be correctly cited when future papers are inspired by their research.

The platform-agnostic features of NFTs, the immutability of the blockchain, and decentralized governance make for a perfect recipe of provenance and economic incentives.

Naval

@naval

If the community around an NFT is dying, the NFT is likely bleeding value.

If the community is surging, the NFT is likely gaining value.

NFTs are monetized memes.*

1,339

1:20 AM • Apr 5, 2021

Layered Splits

If we assume that creators will want to mint and correctly attribute their memes, how do we achieve that? How can we leverage web3 infrastructure to optimize for direct and frictionless monetization between so many parties? The current answer is splits.

While the concept behind splits isn't new, Mirror was the first to formally productize the feature. More recently we've witnessed Foundation use them for NFTs and expect other NFT marketplaces to follow suit. Splits let creators route funds continuously to collaborators, according to a set of percentage allocations. Check out our split for this article, citing some others that helped us:

NFTs & the Meme Economy

The social graph that emerges from this will be as important as the money distributed in the process. To understand how this applies to memes, consider that a meme has two layers:

1. Template - the foundation of a viral meme, templates are often the image of the meme or the main character/face. At r/memeeconomy, users can 'invest' in meme templates, support artists, and find inspiration for memes yet to be captioned.

   

2.Caption - the commentary or copy associated or added atop a template. This is the original message that each meme lord prescribes a meme. Various captions can and do use the same template, yet are their own meme/message.

Splitting ownership and revenue by layers was close to impossible pre-smart contracts. Today, on-chain splits can serve as a means of distributing royalties associated with a meme to collaborators at different layers, all correctly cited and rewarded. See our 'For The Better, Right?" meme that uses the Star Wars scene as its template but has a unique caption added by us.

An existing example of a marketplace enabling layered art is Async.Art - an NFT platform for programmable media, which separates image layers into individual assets, allowing users to use them in powerful ways. It won't be long before we see some of the above-mentioned 'classic meme' templates be used as layers in Async.Art memes with unique captions.

Right now, some may argue that it is ridiculous to mint every meme for the following reasons. Others may suggest that people won't mint memes of NFTs because it is expensive. But seeing improvements in layer 1 and layer 2, it's becoming cheaper and cheaper to mint any graphics as an NFT

What we expect to see next is the price of NFTs will drop to a cent or less than a cent. Once it's cheap enough to casually mint NFTs, people will. This gives meme NFTs an additional utility as building blocks for other meme NFTs, just as template memes are building blocks for future memes.

Conclusion

As it becomes easier and cheaper to mint NFTs, users can retain ownership, and buyers can speculate and commemorate the NFTs moving forward.

Marketplaces will allow multilayered memes so that users can use existing memes or own memes while maintaining attributions and royalties. Once we have that infrastructure in place, one can make a meme from other memes and the metadata becomes platform agnostic. The economics play out in such a manner that users are incentivized to cite correctly.

Lastly, this will also incentivize creators to curate valuable memes in the context of their own platforms and across the web in order to participate in the reward association. Ultimately, it is a win-win, for curators, platforms, and fans that allow memes to evolve to a fully functioning economy.

Resources

NFTs & the Meme Economy | kabessa

NFT Projects | kabessa

NFT

*If the address is verified, we pledge to transfer 15% of NFT revenue with the earliest known creator of the meme and user of the meme's template (as recognized by knowyourmeme.com), starwarsposting.

Tip

NFTs & the Meme Economy

What are Collections?

Collections let users earmark meaningful content into a topic of their choice and showcase it on Yup. Think of Spotify playlists or Pinterest Boards but for any URL or website across the web. Collections empower curators/creators to showcase their expertise or taste in anything: from NFTs to 1970s mob movies.

How to create/add to a collection

Web App

1. Create a collection from scratch by clicking the "+" button on your profile

2. Create a collection from a post by clicking the menu icon on that post

3. Once you've created your collection**, add to it by clicking the menu button on another post**

4. Select your collection from your profile to view what you've added

Extension

1. Right-click on any URL/Page to add it to a Collection

This week we're highlighting our new Search Results page, Analytics page, and our new Collections feature coming soon. This is a big one, let's get right into it 💪.

Search Results Page

Browse through Yup with ease with our new search results page 🌈. Look up any subject, post, or feed and scroll through all the relevant content.

Analytics

The Analytics page on profiles keeps you informed about your activity and earnings on Yup. Track your progress from account creation to present day and see which platforms you gravitate to most. Time to optimize your Yup experience and rewards 🤑.

Landing Site

Yup is getting prettier by the week 🌸. In our last newsletter we rolled out our new logo, and in this one we're highlighting our landing site's makeover. Our site now has easy-to-read fonts, as well as a message that lives up to our ambitions: welcome to the social network for curators.

Coming Soon: Collections

Collections allow you to curate content by a topic of your choice and showcase it in your Yup profile. Think of public Spotify playlists or Pinterest profiles, but for any piece of content across the web. Curation will never be the same ✨.

Content:

Here are the top NFTs of the week according to Yup feeds. If you like the content you see, click here to subscribe to our weekly NFT newsletter 🙂.

❤️  86   🌸     🦄  29

❤️  68   🌸  36   🦄  20

Thanks for tuning into another Yupdate. See you all in the next one ✌️!

This week we're showcasing our new logo, updates to Web App feeds and UI, and a new way of highlighting NFTs. Let's dive right in 🏊.

Product Updates:

Yup Rebrand

We're thrilled to announce the new face of Yup 😁. Many expressions and colors, one collective. Keep an eye out for this one; you'll see it all over the place in the next few days 👀.

Web App Updates:

Feeds

We've updated our Web App feeds to balance recent and influential content more dynamically ⚖️. The result is fresher and higher quality feeds. Search through them to find NFTs, tweets, articles, etc., blowing up in the last day or hour. 

Cleaner and Leaner

The new sidebar and content cards make it easier to browse through posts and navigate our Web App features 🏄‍♂️. Through fancy styling techniques, posts are more clearly demarcated and "pop" a bit more, and the sidebar aggregates the features of the Web App all in one place. 

Content:

The community does such a good job of curating content, our job is to just get out of the way. With that in mind, here are the top NFTs of the week according to Yup feeds. If you like the content you see, click here to subscribe to our weekly NFT newsletter 🙂.

NFT

❤️  99   🌸  99   🦄  99

NFT

❤️  99   🌸  99   🦄  99

NFT

❤️  99   🌸  99   🦄  99

Thanks for tuning into another Yupdate. See you all in the next one ✌️!

We had a blast onboarding to Mirror last week after finishing top 10 in the $WRITE Race. The onboarding experience on Mirror was quite incredible as well.

We noticed that there wasn't any discover page or menu for finding Mirror publications thus far. But we wanted to discover other great publications and thought pieces that were coming out on the platform.

That's why we've added a leaderboard of top publications on Mirror, linked by their name and ENS. Discover top Mirror publications on Yup or rate them directly from the Yup Extension.

Browse and curate content from the leading web3 publishing platform today!

About Mirror

Mirror Dev Team : f

Mirror is a community-owned and operated protocol and economy. The value of Mirror is the aggregate value of the community’s body of work, meaning existing members have both cultural and economic stakes in who’s contributing. To ensure a quality foundation, we decided to grant access on an individual basis in the early stages of the platform.

Co-Founder Denis Nazarov:

With Mirror, we're building a new publishing platform on top of crypto. We've seen the impact of Internet-enabled publishing over the past three decades, facilitated by the programmable spread of information. Now, it's time to run the experiment at the intersection of publishing and the programmable spread of value.

Should we do more with Mirror?

Vote for it!

https://forum.yup.io/req/p/mirror-integration

Product Updates:

Foundation Integration

Foundation is the Crème de la crème 🇫🇷 of NFT art and now you can curate on it. Rate NFTs with the Yup extension, earn rewards and influence for good taste, and follow others' favorites. Curation never looked so good ✨

Zora Integration

Zora has one of the most diverse and creative NFT marketplaces to date. With our Zora integration, you can curate just about anything, and earn YUP and influence for doing so. To get a glimpse of the talent on Zora, check out our Twitter thread where we highlight incredible work from the IAMSOUND event.

NFT Rating Categories

With wonderful art everywhere in crypto, the space needs a better way to express itself. That's why we've introduced these bad boys. ❤️, 🌸, 🦄: Our new NFT rating categories. The new categories allow you to rate how "popular", "beautiful", or "original" a piece of art is. Art evokes nuanced feelings; now you have a nuanced way to express them

Ethereum Wallet Connect

Introducing Ethereum Wallet integration 😲! You can now sign-up or link any Walletconnect wallet through the Yup extension or Web App. Here's to making sign-up even easier 🍻

Branding Yup with Pre-Brand

Yup and Pre-Brand lead Pieratt are working on a week-long open branding session for Yup, including two publicly streamed sessions on Pre-Brand's live Twitch stream. These will occur today at 11am-3:30pm EST and Thursday 10am-5pm EST.

Pre-Brand has worked with some crypto greats like Mirror, NFTX, Prysm, and more. Join us for live contributions and crowd-sourced decision-making!

New Governance Platform: Boardroom

The Yup Protocol is a decentralized protocol governed by its participants (you!). In an effort to improve Yup governance, we've been delightfully onboarded to Boardroom. Check out our new governance portal here!

New Blog: Mirror

After winning the $WRITE race, Yup has received exclusive access to decentralized publications platform Mirror. This gave us the ability to create yup.mirror.xyz, our new publication that will replace blog.yup.io in the coming days.

Content

With all our new platform integrations, the quality and creativity of NFTs on Yup are off the charts this week. Here are some of the community's favorites. Enjoy 😉

Cornrows 🌽

Flowers from the King

Finding Order

Thanks for tuning into another Yupdate. See you all in the next one 👋

TLDR; Yup presents a new reward mechanism for social tokens and their holders. By holding certain social tokens, users will have a claim over $YUP rewards given to accounts linked to those specific tokens. We're piloting this with Alex Masmej and the $ALEX token and are looking for other social token holders, leaders, and platforms to work with.

Social tokens are growing at an incredible pace, becoming a $250m market in less than two years. Here are a few different social token types that we have seen come to light during this development:

🤓 The personal token ➡️ $ALEX, $KERMAN

Created to support and invest in an individual's goals whether professional or personal.

🌎 The community token ➡️ $FWB, $KARMA, $WHALE, $CHERRY, $JAMM, $THANKS

Created to bring people together based on a common interest or mission.

🤩 The fan club token ➡️ $RAC, $FIRST

Hybrid that brings together fans (a community) based on a common interest in an individual's content.

(Social Studies, Brett Goldstein)

As new versions of social tokens emerge, so too do new use-cases and incentives to hold or spend these tokens. Some include:

• Token-permissioned chat groups, features, events, or newsletters  ➡️ Outpost Protocol, Mirror

• Tipping within communities ➡️ Collab Land

• DAO Governance ➡️ KARMA DAO

• Token-only purchases or collectible drops

• Rewards for social action ➡️ Unite.Community

• Retroactive distributions ➡️ RAC

These concepts are beautiful and have worked quite well thus far. In Outpost's Sam Hatem's words, they allow "consumers to be stakeholders in communities and financially benefit from the creator’s success." This is the future that we all want, and Yup wants to help. We propose a new use-case for social tokens to expand on their possibilities and support their development.

Social Token YUP Rewards

In line with this movement, Yup presents Social Token YUP Rewards as an additional incentive to hold social tokens for the right to a portion of creator/curator rewards distributed through the Yup Protocol. When social media accounts tied to your social token earn YUP, you earn YUP.

How it works:

In its current form, the Yup Protocol rewards users in newly-minted YUP based on curation: when someone influential likes a piece of content across the web, the creator and previous curators earn YUP. A Twitter 'like', for example, is weighted based on the liker's influence, given a token value, and distributed to the tweet's author and all the likers that came before. This creates an incredibly robust curator economy. (Learn More)

Social Token YUP Rewards will allow the admins/owners of certain accounts associated with a social token to link their YUP earnings to a specific token. Then, holders of the said token would be able to claim YUP rewards earned by those social accounts during their time of holding.

For example, Alex Masmej may link his Twitter account @AlexMasmej to the $ALEX token reward pool. If the @AlexMasmej account earns 100 YUP while you own 10% of all $ALEX tokens, you can claim 10 YUP from the pool. You cannot claim YUP for rewards that were given during times where you did not hold $ALEX.

The act of linking/unlinking, along with other changes, may require a token vote per the defined rules of each individual social token. The act of claiming rewards would function similarly to products like Roll or Unite.Community.

Why this is important

The stronger the reasons to hold a social token are, the more valuable and robust its economy will be. Yup provides an additional incentive mechanism to hold without imposing any platform risk or deep integration from the community. Simply hold the social token and help support the community behind it as one normally would, and then claim YUP rewards as they are distributed to the community.

A call to all social tokens

We're looking to launch Social Token YUP Rewards as early as Q2 of 2021 with as many credible tokens as possible. If you manage a community with a token, have a personal token, run a social token platform, or are a holder/community member, please reach out to us here or join our discord.

A special thanks to Alex Masmej, Brett Goldstein, Sam Hatem, Jess Sloss, and many others!

In 2019, Balaji Srinivasan gave several lectures called Pseudonymous Economy,* *positing that pseudonymous transactions will become as widely prevalent as pseudonymous communications have throughout the rise of the internet. Taking pseudonyms seriously means reconsidering the definition of souls and lives as we know them. If we can embody multiple lives, if we can co-own or pass them on to others, who are we? Who are those lives? Looking through the lens of Balaji’s lecture alongside sociological and philosophical work, we can come to understand that a pseudonymous identity can be a ‘self’ of its own that transcends and is distinct from the individual human ‘self’. This has massive implications for society’s understanding of identity.

History of Pseudonyms

Pseudonym, latin for “fake name”, is an identity that is unique in its name and reputation (unlike anonymity) but is not the legal/recognized name of an individual. Since the dawn of the written word, pseudonyms have been quite common. Writers were known to regularly use pseudonyms; George Eliot, Lewis Carroll, George Orwell, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Stan Lee, and O.Henry are just a few famous examples. Balaji’s lectures on Pseudonymous Economy focus on digital anonymity, technically breaking down how a pseudonymous economy would function, with encrypted personal information and a lineage of attestations.

Since the popularization of the internet, millions of humans interact pseudonymously every single day. Reddit, a pseudonymous social network, has over 330 million monthly active users. With the permanence of online information and the rise of cancel culture, many have chosen to use pseudonymous identities on sites and platforms like Twitter and Instagram. Famous individuals use these often: Mitt Romney’s pseudonymous Twitter account is “Pierre Delecto”, who joined the platform in 2011. It’s likely that your teenage brother or nephew probably has a finsta, or fake Instagram account, where their real identity is hidden. Both of my parents have fake Twitter accounts too.

Discreteness of Lives

With a deep understanding of the prevalence of pseudonyms as well as their increased significance in our society and economy, one must reconsider the meaning of ‘self’ and ‘life’ in the philosophical sense. Where does one ‘life’ end and another begin? What constitutes a separate life and what is an extension of an existing one?

Philosopher John Locke was one of the first thinkers to deeply consider the problems of personal identity in his work *An Essay Concerning Human Understanding *in 1689. Assuming one is the same person as the person who existed last week or the person who was born many years ago, what fact makes this so? Locke was careful to distinguish the notion of sameness of person from the related notions of sameness of body and sameness of man, or human being. Locke suggests that sameness of body requires identity of matter, and sameness of human being depends on continuity of life; but sameness of person requires something else. Locke’s work is especially important to consider in regards to the digital age because he disentangles consciousness from the material, not equating mind and brain.

In his preface, Locke clarifies that this essay is not offered as a contribution to knowledge itself but as a means of clearing away some of the intellectual rubbish that stands in the way of knowledge. While many would disagree with this description, it is important in the context of this discussion in that Locke’s arguments should be considered within the frame of human knowledge during his time. An attempt to fit his arguments to modern civilization certainly comes with complications that are worth noting, but it does not negate the absolute truths within them.

Locke’s proposal was that personal identity consists of continuity of consciousness (memory from the five senses, particularly sight), and not on the substance of either the soul or the body. In other words, among other points, Lock argues that the self is not discrete but rather continuous. One is the same person as the person who existed last week or many years ago if one has memories of the earlier person’s conscious experiences. Just as the human body is continuous –from limb to torso to head– so is the self. Given that in the digital world memory can be stored, shared, copied, or experienced in discrete times, Locke’s theories would suggest that multiple people can co-inhabit one ‘self’.

Let us take a shared Instagram account as an example: two best friends Bob and Joe have a shared Instagram user profile for photos of pizza under the pseudonym pizzaboy. Given a total record of pizzaboy’s engagements are stored and accessible by the two friends, both of them can experience the existence of the IG account to the fullest extent and both can act as the IG account to the fullest extent. For these reasons, we may suggest that pizzaboy is a ‘self’. Additionally, neither Joe nor pizzaboy can be considered a continuation of Bob (in the Lockian sense) because they did not experience his consciousness separate from those experienced through pizzaboy. Similarly, neither Bob nor pizzaboy can be considered a continuation of Joe. Can we then argue that pizzaboy is a self in and of itself, continuous only to the consciousness felt by it? pizzaboy is not quite Bob and not quite Joe but is still a self.

It is not the case that all shared pseudonyms retain the distinct composition of self. For example, the organization Anonymous is a sort of a collective pseudonym because it has a unique identity with a reputation. However, considering Anonymous a self would be inaccurate under Locke’s definition because it lacks continuity of consciousness. The experiences of one Anonymous member/account are distinct from another’s, so it cannot be one aggregate and individual self. From this example, we can consider the unique online identity of a pseudonym in the same way Lock considers the ‘body’ in his essay: it is the source from where most experiences and consciousness are felt. This allows us to attribute and understand other aspects of Locke’s work in a modern context. For example, Locke argues that a man can never be in more than one place at once; the same is true for a unique online identity in that it can only exist as one identity online at any given moment.

Returning to our hypothetical example, what if Bob and Joe lose their interest in pizzas and transfer pizzaboy’s identity and recorded experiences to their friend Jake? This would suggest that, per Locke’s definition, pizzaboy’s continuity is sustained because their conscious experiences are sustained. This is where Locke’s work has limitations in relation to today’s world. He does not consider self-control as an important factor in determining the self. This was a deliberate and necessary exclusion in his definition because it allows for a logical explanation of edge cases of selfhood. For example, for a paralyzed person to have a ‘self’, it cannot be that self-control is a prerequisite for the self. One way to expand on Locke’s definition for today’s world is to suggest that the self requires continuity of control. Hypothetically, if a demon takes control of your body but you are still conscious, it would make sense to say that you are not yourself anymore. So, when Jake takes over the pizzaboy account, logic would suggest that pizzaboy becomes a new self that is distinct from the *old *self controlled by Joe and Bob. This is the case despite the fact that continuity of consciousness was preserved during the transition.

Let us now explore multiple pseudonyms/identities controlled by a single individual. Let us take the example of a hypothetical person named Eric who has three online identities: his Facebook account (under his real name), his meme Twitter account (under a fake name), and his World of Warcraft gaming account (fake name as well). Continuity of both consciousness and control (in relation to Eric) are preserved, so each of them is not distinct from Eric the person. But are they distinct from one another in terms of selfhood? For this to be the case, the consciousness or control would have to be discrete for different pseudonymous identities.

Authentic Self

Sociologist Sherry Turkle suggests that control may be discrete in some of these cases. In her work titled How Computers Change the Way We Think*, *Turkle discusses the use of pseudonyms in online communities. She writes that “some children who write narratives for their screen avatars may grow up with too little experience of how to share their real feelings with other people.” How can it be the case that people would have different capabilities for their online avatars as they do for their ‘real’ selves? How can sharing feelings with online friends be different than sharing them with real friends online? Simply put, their contextual experiences do not translate 1-for-1 to their other identities.

In the famous Stanford prison experiment, students who were given certain positions and authority changed their judgement and behavior entirely. In other words, their consciousness was altered. But can this happen in tandem with other identities? Can someone simultaneously have different consciousnesses depending on which pseudonym they’re using? Can they be both prison guard and prisoner, switching between them at any moment? Online trolls seem to perceive and respond to things differently under their pseudonyms than their real identities. Similarly, we could argue that Eric becomes a different person when logged in to his meme Twitter account versus when he is logged in to his Facebook account. In this sense, it could be the case that different pseudonymous identities are distinct ‘selves’ that are continuous with the aggregate person but discrete from one another. Balaji takes the opposite approach, stating that “[users] are their fake selves on their real accounts and their real selves on their fake accounts.” In other words, he’s suggesting that not only do pseudonyms allow for identity play, but they also provide the opportunity for people to be more authentic. The potential judgement and consequences that come from sharing content as yourself can be overcome with the use of pseudonyms. This allows pseudonymous users to be more ‘themselves’ when sharing content or opinions with their network.

Additionally, from these points we could argue that the ‘real’ or ‘authentic’ self is not the human self but the aggregation of all branches of the self. If all our pseudonyms identities are extensions of our total selves because of the continuous consciousness and control, then the total self must be the actual self. If each of the pseudonymous identities is distinct from the other, then none of them–not even our physical selves– can be seen as the ‘real self’ independent of the others. Either Eric has one aggregated real self or each pseudonymous identity is its own real self as a partial continuation of who Eric once was. Since the time of Turkle’s writing, we have spent more and more time interacting online than we do in our real lives. These progressions may have altered her perspective of where ‘realness’ lies.

As the world changes, so must humanity’s definition of self. It must extend beyond the physical and the spiritual. It must consider the reach of a person’s online actions as well as their ability to consume information. It must account for hybrid forms of consciousness where artificial intelligence aids in perception, reflection, and retention. If it fails to evolve as a definition, humanity is doomed to lose its sense of individual identity altogether. Balaji’s work is the start of something profound, with many questions left unanswered.