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Polygon Artist Spotlight w/ @y00tsnft artists
Recorded: April 24, 2023 Duration: 1:56:03Space Recording
Full Transcription
All right, everybody. Do not worry. Do not worry. I know that every time we play the wonderful Twitter music that is provided, but I do have something coming in that will allow me to play music on these spaces.
So we're going to get some better jams. You'll get to hear my terrible taste in music very, very soon here.
So stay tuned for that. But look, you guys, welcome to the space. This is a very special artist spotlight space.
We've got Candy Apple from the Utes and D Gods, and we're going to be talking to him about his journey in the space. Got my wonderful co-host that just popped out. I'm sure he'll come back in. But Candy Apple, how are you doing today?
Doing well, doing well. And I think Johnny's going to join, too. So I think he's here, which will be sick. So you'll get both of us today.
All right. Tag team. You know, I've spoken to you, Candy Apple, actually, a long time ago. I think it was around Thanksgiving last year, which is pretty crazy.
I remember I was at home at my parents' house when we had that Twitter spaces. I was just literally thinking about it like right before I joined. I think that was the last time we were on here.
So, yeah, been a while, but glad to be back. Glad to be talking to you. And now you've got the big, shiny, purple Polygon logo. So you've come up, man.
Things are definitely a little bit different than when we were last meeting, for sure. Got the brand account. You'll love to see it.
But what's going on, Rainy?
Oh, I can't hear him. Reese, you want to drop down and come back up?
All right. Well, look, we got Johnny up here. What is going on, Johnny? How are you doing? That is quite the handsome youth that you have, my friend.
How's it going, dude? I know I got I got lucky. I actually got this guy on the floor a while ago. But but yeah, been been good.
Been drawn, making stuff and just creating. So I'm really excited to be here, man.
Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you guys for coming up. We will get started here in a little bit.
But I do just want to engage the audience just a little bit.
If you guys would not mind, if you could go on up to the very top part of the space,
if you if you could just hit that like and retweet button, it would be greatly appreciated.
We could get some more people in this space to hear about the journey of Johnny and Candy Apple as D Labs artists.
So that would be much appreciated. Well, we got Reese up here.
Let's see if we can hear him. What is going on, Reese? Can you can you talk to us?
Maybe not. Maybe not. And he's having some technical difficulties.
The struggles of being a Polygon intern. It is it is hard sometimes.
Well, look, we can just we can just get right into it, you guys. Thank you for coming up.
But so let's see. I think like, you know, the first thing that I would start out, like to start out with is,
you know, how did you guys, you know, come up in in being artists and then eventually find your way to doing art or NFTs?
And we can start out with Johnny.
Yeah, you know, I actually always kind of drew as a kid.
I never I took classes when I was like 10 or something, but I always kind of kept it more of a private thing.
Got really into graphic design at like 15 and was obsessed.
And then kind of just kept doing that.
My teenage years and then really kind of took a break.
I was doing music for a little bit. I was a geology major in college.
I wasn't really thinking about art as much, but always was doing graphic design on the side and kind of drawing here and there.
But then, yeah, I met some of the other co-founders and we all started scheming up different ways we could build different things.
And so I was kind of like the most artistically inclined in the immediate group.
And so I think I kind of got, you know, grandfathered into that role as the artist.
And then from there, it's just kind of, you know, been working and we've been drawing now and working on stuff for like a year,
you know, a little more since we started the collection.
So kind of, kind of really serendipitous, but yeah, it was really, really cool.
Love that. Super awesome.
And you, so Johnny, you did the original art for D-Gods, correct?
Yeah. Yeah. The very first, first D-Gods collection was, was done by me on a borrowed iPad.
I love that. Crazy how things work out, right?
Yeah, it was so deliberate.
But, um, love it.
That's the charm.
That's the charm, though, is like, you know, borrowed iPad, did it in like a motel, like, you know, they look like it and they look sick, you know?
So I think it all works, you know?
Yeah, 100%.
Well, how about you, Candy Apple?
How did you start out as an artist and then find your way into the NFT space?
Yeah, so I started, um, like, I started drawing during COVID.
Um, uh, Frank and I were roommates at the time.
Um, we just stopped working on our last company and I was kind of like, uh, just super bored, honestly.
Um, and borrowed his iPad and just started drawing and animating and stuff and started posting on like TikTok.
Like, that's when like TikTok was like a, everyone was posting and kind of like everyone was going viral.
So it was like a really fun time.
Um, and then, um, about a year later, when I was actually on my honeymoon, a buddy of mine from college called me to like do art for his project that he was doing on Solana.
Um, and he was, this is Particles.
Um, at the time it was like a project called like Sleazy Bees, but, uh, we, we rebranded to like Particles.
So I don't know.
It's like, it's kind of a deep cut, but if you guys know, you know.
But, um, worked on that project for about three months.
Um, did the art for them.
And then, uh, Frank called me up and needed help with, uh, dead gods and kind of just started working with the team then.
And yeah, uh, basically been drawing since February of last year.
So I don't know, you're in a couple months.
So that's kind of like how it, that's like the long story short right there.
I love that.
And, um, like, so, so you started posting on, on just TikTok.
And did you start to, to get some like virality from that?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So started posting like these little animated, like short films and yeah, like went kind of viral.
A couple, like we had like, I got like 50,000 followers on that account.
Um, and it was under, it's funny.
It was under, uh, Rohan's account because like when I was like wanting to post them, he had already had like 5,000 followers or something.
Because like he had been doing some like growth hacking on Twitter, I mean, on TikTok.
And so it's like, well, why don't we just post them on his account?
They'll probably go viral like easier.
And, um, and so like, that's, that's why they were posting on his account.
It's kind of funny.
But, um, yeah, we had a couple, like we had one that had like over, I think over one and a half million views.
We had a lot kind of like, like half a million views and got some followers.
It was fun.
It was like kind of my first taste with like doing something that like went viral.
So like, that was just like a fun experience, you know, no, absolutely.
And, uh, I just want to say that it was an absolute pleasure being able to, to meet you candy apple at the airport.
So a funny little story for, for everyone.
Uh, my friend chiller whale, I was flying back with him from New York, NFT New York to LA.
He missed his flight.
He had to get the next flight to LA, but it ended up working out because he got to get on the same plane as candy apple.
So I was waiting at the baggage claim and, uh, I was finally able to, to meet with him.
So that was really awesome.
Cause I had done a space with you so long ago.
And then I was actually hanging out up, up in the, uh, the penthouse and I, and I saw you, but everybody was so busy.
I didn't get to introduce myself.
So it was, it was nice to be able to, to formally meet you at candy apple.
It was great to know.
Yeah, it was cool.
We missed each other the entire week and we finally got to hang out on the bus ride to like the, like the taxis in LA.
It's like so random, but I'm glad we got that time and it was super cool to meet you.
So, uh, let's next time, let's make sure we actually hang out in New York and not like on the plane ride back, you know?
Absolutely.
Well, look, I, I, I would like to get into, you know, some of your guys' inspirations for drawing the Utes.
I mean, I've just been able to identify, you know, with, with my Ute that I've had, you know, since, since mint day, I ended up, I ended up getting a Ute, you know, I, I minted my tube, I got Ute listed.
And let me tell you, like, you know, obviously my, my life has completely changed ever since I got into the Utes community.
And, and just being able to, like, I, I feel just such a strong connection with my Ute, right?
I, I just like identify with it so much as this digital representation of myself online.
And, um, so yeah, I'd, I'd really love to hear about your guys' like inspiration for, for coming up with the Utes.
Like, like, where did that come from?
Like, what's, what, what's like the animal that you guys are thinking of?
Is it a Yeti?
Like, what's going on with that?
Yeah, I can, um, I'll start on that.
I think that the, uh, we, when we started the project, obviously it had a different name, but, um, we wanted to make something that was like fun and like youthful, but like, wasn't a human.
And like, wasn't a monkey.
And so it's like, those were kind of the things that like, those were kind of our, like, our walls that we had, like, that's not touching to that.
And we basically just wanted to create like something that was young and something that was like more than anything, just like really fun.
And I think you get that at the end product, like with all the colors and like the smiles and the expressions and things like that.
Is that like, we, we knew that like people were going to like use this to represent themselves, not only on like Twitter, but also like for their job or like for their brand or whatever.
And so we wanted to make something that would reflect that and would reflect like youthful energy.
And so, um, like as for like the animal, I think like, yeah, the original, original inspiration was a Yeti, uh, which is really funny when you think about it.
But, um, I, I, I wonder if that's what a youth actually is.
Yeah, I think just kind of like piggybacking off of that.
Um, I mean, I think a lot of the times the way we work, um, I have found just with everything, the best creative process always seems to be pulling threads and seems to be kind of making something new and then reassessing and being like, is this good?
Is this bad?
Is it better?
Is it worse?
And then kind of following that road and not really being attached to anything that you create along the way.
I've found that at least in the kind of tech adjacent world that makes the most sense for creating.
And so I think we definitely started off with a Yeti and we started off with this kind of idea.
We wanted a youthful character.
And then from there, we kind of just kept pulling strings until we found something that, um, we thought just looked like cool.
And I think we wanted people to connect with it.
We wanted it to be fun.
And, um, and again, you know, we've talked about it a little bit, but I think having, I don't think there's a, a lack of artistry or, um, highly creative artistic people in the space.
I think there's so many great, amazing artists that are honestly probably way better, um, than at least me even.
But I think that making projects is just a different goalpost.
And so I think having more of a designer's mentality and approaching it from more of building a product and design is kind of, I think what can really push those collections to that next level.
And so I think that was a huge part of it too, is just trying to really think about what the person would use the youth as, and then kind of working backwards from there and being like, okay, what is this going to look like now?
Yeah, it's such an interesting perspective that's needed for the artists, right?
That's different, I think, than anywhere else in the art world, right?
Thinking of, okay, this is going to be a digital representation of someone and they're going to use this to build their brand and do all these different things on the internet.
So it's just, yeah, that's, it's, it's such a different way to think about when you're creating art.
So, yeah, I mean, you love to see it.
Well, I do want to ask you guys, so I know that the, you know, the youths, uh, you know, obviously, you know, they, they got delayed so that you guys could, could do the art and kind of redo it.
And, uh, I know that that was, uh, a very challenging process.
I've, I've seen some videos, right?
And, um, you know, I just, I, I, I think, you know, I saw Johnny, uh, reading like, uh, the, the color, the color theory book in that video.
Uh, can you guys talk a little bit about how drawing youths challenged you as artists?
Yeah, I mean, it was very different than Dead Gods.
And, um, I think that like, Dead Gods, to me, I know Johnny probably might have a different reaction, but like, to me, Dead Gods is easier.
Um, youths was challenging just because I think that there was, there was just so many periods where it was like, really just like black box.
Like, like, what are we going to do?
Like, we're throwing so much stuff away.
And I think it, for me, it was like my, I don't want to say ego death because that seems like very dramatic, but it was definitely the project where I kind of realized that, like, if you're going to make a product or you're just going to make something that people want and they're going to use, like, you just need it.
Like, it's the nature of the game.
Like, you're going to throw away a lot of stuff.
Like, you're just like, a lot of what you're going to make is just probably not going to work.
And I think that this is something that all designers experience.
Probably Apple has a million things that we'll never see, but that have been fully designed along with so many other companies.
And so I think, like, artistically, it taught me that, like, just because you make something and just because you're, like, you're an artist and, like, you drew it doesn't mean it's good.
Like, there is such thing as, like, bad art, you know?
And so I think for me, that was, like, a good lesson, you know?
So that's, like, kind of simple there.
Yeah, and I think, and, you know, it's kind of funny because I think that.
I honestly think a lot of artists would disagree with our takes.
And even I kind of have some hotter takes about art and the space in general.
But, yeah.
Give us the good stuff, Johnny.
Don't hold back.
Yeah, I mean, oh, boy, you don't even, these guys hear me rant all the time.
But, I mean, I don't know.
I just think that I actually don't really get along with artists that well, which is kind of funny.
I think I'm, like, too much of a capitalist or something.
But I really think that you need to, especially in the NFT space, it's, like, I mean, I was an artist in a band making no money.
Like, it is so hard to monetize being an artist.
And so I think artists now, they're, like, oh, I'm making, like, all this money and this project's generating millions of dollars.
It's, like, dude, that's not, that isn't because of you.
You know what I mean?
That is not because of you and your art is so good.
And that's why everybody is now appreciating this latent talent you've had this whole time.
Like, it's a completely new thing that this NFTs are creating where people are paying for community and identity and all these things.
And so, anyways, I just think it's so, so important to keep in mind that your role is to serve the community and to serve the holder that is going to be using the art that you're creating.
And so I think with that becomes such a greater responsibility to make it the best that it can be.
And, anyways, there's just so many other things that go into that.
But, yeah, I think that, like, you know, having a designer's, you know, getting more practical, just having a designer's mentality approaching it, I just think is, it's just a more useful paradigm.
And I just think people will make better collections if they use it.
But, again, I could also totally be wrong.
So, but I just think that that's just kind of the mentality we have.
And, yeah, I mean, we might be actually get more vocal about it because I do actually feel so strongly about that kind of stuff because I just think it's so important.
I think a lot of artists, not that there's a lack of gratitude, but sometimes it can read that way because it's just like this is such a crazy space.
And for artists to be able to even make any fraction of the money that they're making now, it's just like it's just so, so special, you know, and I think that's just a big responsibility.
Yeah, it's like, it's pretty insane when you think about the opportunities that artists have now.
And, like, I don't know, like, when I was, before I dropped out of school, like, I was working in the movie industry, like, worked on sets for, like, two years.
That's how I paid for college.
And that shit sucked.
And it was all, like, artists, like, trying to make money, trying to, like, fuel their, like, writing career, directing career.
And, you know, it's, like, the majority of those people, me included, just get burned out.
And I think that, like, we are so incredibly blessed to be in a space that, like, you can draw, like, a collection or you can draw a piece and it can sell an auction for $10,000 or the collection can sell out for an insane amount of money.
And I just think, yeah, to piggyback off of Johnny, it's important to realize why people are buying these.
And it's important to realize that, like, it's probably not just because of the art.
You know, it's probably a lot bigger than that.
And I think when you realize that, it's actually so freeing because it allows you to make stuff that people want instead of you, like, getting in your head trying to figure out, like, what is amazing?
What's, like, what's the most beautiful thing that I can make?
And, like, that just creates such a stressful and, like, kind of honestly, like, I think toxic work situation.
And so, I don't know.
Like, I just had so much more fun when I realized that, like, my buddies were going to be using these on Twitter and, like, who was going to represent them?
And it's, like, yeah, you do it for the boys.
Like, you do it for the gals.
Like, you know, going to DNYC, it's, like, seeing everybody with their youths on their lanyards.
It's, like, damn, that's sick.
Like, they love that.
And it's, like, why would I let my ego get in the way of that?
You know?
So, yeah.
I think, yeah, that's, man, it's, it's, I don't think a lot of people talk about it, but I think it's important, you know?
But, yeah, even to answer your original question, yes, drawing youths was, it definitely pushed us creatively, too.
I think, like, to answer it super quickly, I think, you know, color is so, so important, especially in a generative collection.
So, that was a huge learning curve in just figuring out how colors can fit together.
Because, again, you know, you guys know, obviously, you're stacking these images together, so you get a lot of combinations.
And then, yeah, I mean, I also think, too, it was the first time we had to really intentionally build, like, a new IP.
Because DGod's, you know, for better or for worse, just kind of came out of us randomly.
And so, I think that was definitely a challenge, because you get, and there's also the game within the game.
It's, like, you get in your own head about, okay, should I just make something that is just feels off the cuff?
Or should I try to make something with all these, like, design parameters and whatever?
Because, again, you know, as much as I have those opinions I said before, it's, like, it is still art.
And there is still that magic sauce that no one knows what the hell's going on.
So, yeah, no, use was definitely a challenge for sure.
But super, super cool to come out the other side.
And we're honestly still, you know, it never ends.
We're still working, still trying to make it better.
I love that.
I mean, you guys touched on some really good points, a lot to unpack there.
You know, I think, you know, like, personally, I've worked with, like, developers in this space.
And something that I've seen is that they love the feedback loop that's provided.
Like, how quick and how much it is in the Web3 space.
And, you know, I think, you know, obviously it's the same way for artists, for you guys, right?
You just get this massive feedback loop and just immediately get a bunch of people that are giving reviews of your art.
And you get to see how they enjoy it.
But then also, like, I think, you know, it's interesting to see things from the artist's perspective of how, you know, this is, it's not just, you know, the art, right?
You need to have, like, a super strong community manager.
And for you guys, like, you know, you have Frank, which is, you know, he's just, he's just the king of going around and pushing your art and the brand, right?
And, yes, Rhys, do you have a question?
Yeah, I was getting rugged out there.
Sorry, guys.
I just wanted to ask the two guys, speaking to the meeting last week, and they're really, really cool to get to know Johnny and Sir Candy Apple.
But I want to, just for the audience out here, is there any projects that, like, inspire you?
Like, NFT projects, maybe, like, Doodles or, like, some other sorts of projects where you take inspiration from where you really like the artist's work?
Um, yeah, I think, uh, I'm trying to think here.
I mean, big answer, yes, definitely.
Um, specifically, uh, early on making youths, like, Grumplin's work with Cryptoads, absolutely fucking great.
You know, um, it's just, like, really funny.
And, like, the ability to create a character with such, um, just such simplicity.
It was super special, um, and I think, I think a lot of people don't understand how, how hard it is to make a collection with that much character.
Um, and then, I think, more recently, you just can't fade a Zuki.
You know, like, that, everything, Johnny and I talk about, like, everything from the art to the website experience to, like, the badges to, like, your profile.
So, it's honestly just a perfect, um, user experience.
And that's, that's honestly just super inspiring.
Like, the art is so clean.
Everything works well.
Like, I don't think I've seen a single layering issue.
And trust me, I've looked throughout probably every, like, all of those, like, all 10,000.
So, you know, I think Zuki's, like, definitely, like, tier, tier one.
You know, amazing.
Yeah, I would, I would say that, um, definitely, definitely resonate with both of those.
I think, yeah, Granplin does some really cool stuff.
Um, I think there's, yeah, I don't know.
I, um, I also believe that it's kind of like in salon art, there's plenty of, of PFPs and art pieces that maybe don't look the most aesthetic.
And I think, um, but they have great communities and people love them.
And a lot of outsiders maybe view it as, oh, this, like, you know, Solana or Polygon or, you know, ETH, they all have bad art.
But they, but, you know, obviously, we see something that they don't see.
Um, so I've always been really curious about kind of what makes, like, what's the foundation for the art.
And so, um, I mean, again, I mean, like, board ape, I really think they just hit a nail on the head at the right time, too, with, like, aping into stuff.
And so I, you know, they, you know, being honest inspired me a lot.
Um, and then also, yeah, some of the more low-key ones.
Um, it's also cool seeing Mad Lads recently.
That was cool.
Um, and I'm trying to think, I feel like that ETHER, that, uh, new ETHER project is pretty neat, too.
So, anyways, but, yeah, lots of stuff out there.
That one's going to be sick.
Nice.
Well, you know, you guys, you guys were talking about how, you know, as artists, you know, you, you, you're like the piece of the puzzle, right?
And, you know, you, you've got, like, an amazing community, community manager and Frank.
And I'd just like to hear a little bit about what your experience has been like, you know, coming out with these projects and then having Frank, um, you know, really help to push the brand with your art.
Like, what has that been like for you guys?
Yeah, um, I think that, uh, yeah, Frank just makes everything seem so clear.
Um, I think that, like, he just has a very special ability to, obviously, to, like, sell a product, but also just to, like, invoke passion and invoke, like, um, just a deep emotional connection to something.
Whether that be a video, um, a JPEG, like, even a token, like, dust.
Um, and so I think that that's just special.
Um, I think that's something, that's a gift that I don't think a lot of artists get, is to have someone who can, like, take your art and push it to the next level.
It's really special and I think very rare.
Um, and I, again, I will always say I think Frank is fated and is underappreciated even now.
And I think a lot of people will be like, well, what do you mean?
I'm like, you don't understand.
Um, but I think that, yeah, that's just, like, super cool to, to have someone who, and I think also, like, Frank believes in the art, too.
Like, we won't push something if Frank doesn't believe in it.
Like, that's one of the, the metrics that we have is, like, is this something that Frank loves?
Is this something that he believes in?
If so, like, he's ready to go.
He's ready to rock and roll.
And so, like, that's, that's cool, too, is, like, when we have total buy-in.
And, like, I remember the moment with Utes is, like, when we were, like, damn, like, this is sick.
This is solid.
Frank was, like, I'm ready to fucking go, you know?
And, like, that was a cool moment.
So, I think, like, that's just a really cool thing that not a lot of NFT projects have.
I actually wonder if any do is, like, this relationship between, like, the art and, like, the project leader who is, like, totally fucking in love with D-Gods and Utes and will push them through anything.
So, that's, that's special.
Yeah, definitely.
Definitely echo all of that.
I think, yeah, you know, it's, I mean, I call him Rohan or whatever, but I, we've known each other for a while now.
And it's just really cool to be able to work with somebody at that caliber.
And I think that just even beyond, you know, like, the NFT stuff or whatever, it's just, he's just a very, very, very high, high caliber human.
And so, it's just cool to work with somebody like that just to make, it just makes you want to be better and makes you want to be the best that you can be in every domain.
And so, I think we have a lot of great conversations, you know, about art and about life, philosophy, different things that are completely unrelated to just even marketing and stuff like that.
So, it's, I honestly think that on the business side, it's, you know, objectively the best thing ever to have, you know, genius growth marketer pump your art.
Like, that's incredible.
I think everybody would love that.
But I think even, you know, for me on a friendship level, I think that's kind of, I feel like the real sauce is there.
And, you know, most people probably won't ever be able to see that, but it's cool just, you know, letting you guys know that there's a lot of depth there that I feel like you guys aren't seeing, which is so, so cool.
I love that.
You know, I mean, just from personal experience, like building with friends in this space, like I haven't found anything more rewarding than that, right?
Like, coming in with the people that you came in and being able to build things for other people to use and identify with is something that's very, very special.
And, you know, it brings me to my next question.
So, like with the level of attention that has been on D-Gods and Utes, I think that you guys are in a very, very unique situation as artists.
And what has that done for you as artists, having that level of attention on your art, and how has that helped you improve?
Yeah, I can, I'll rip it again.
I think like pretty simply, like simply, it's just like, again, everything is so new with this space.
Like everything, this whole medium is new.
Our artists are experiencing like transparency in a way they've never seen before.
And so, I think that it's just like a really, like seeing everything on Twitter and just like seeing what everyone tweets every day and like seeing what people like and what they don't like makes their job, honestly, like I think easier because it tells us what to do and what not to do.
And so, yeah, I think that's huge is having like, even when people like talk shit or like whatever about the art or about the project, like that is a data point.
Like that's helpful to know like, okay, like people don't like that, people do like that, you know.
And so, I think like that's new and that's special.
Like we just get a lot of feedback and I think that's rare.
I appreciate it.
Yeah, I think it's, I think it's cool to just be able to see so many people use it and see the real time impact of the art that you make.
I definitely think there is a little bit of a darker side to it, to be 100% honest.
I think making art is already pretty vulnerable of an experience.
And like you're saying, you know, these engineers pushing code and seeing it real time, it's like there's a certain level of dissociation between a guy and code.
And I guess it depends on the engineer, but I think the best art always comes from like your naked soul.
And so, it does really suck sometimes to just see that feedback.
So, that, I would say it's great if you're in the best possible mindset to like improve.
And so, that's what we always strive to do.
But, yeah, I mean, honestly, just the dark side of it can also be really, really tough because you're just being that vulnerable with your art and have it go so up and then so down is just something I don't think people should take lightly.
So, I think even other artists out there, founders, whoever's listening, it's like, I don't know.
We've had so many conversations too with other founders and stuff and it is so mentally taxing.
So, it's like, you know, eat those omega-3s and meditate and work out and do all that shit because, yeah, it is not an easy space.
And I think like, I am under the presumption that like you should block people.
Like, be free with that because like, after a youth release, like that shit sucked.
I blocked a lot of people and I still do.
Like, even if it's not pointed at me, like if people, I think I see a lot of people like talk shit about like new projects with like new art.
And it's like, there's a difference between like critiquing, like, you know, having helpful points, but then also just like being an asshole.
And it's like, you should just block those people because like they're just negative and they're going to make your day worse.
And I don't know, it makes my day better when I don't have to see them on the timeline, you know.
So, yeah, I think that's like, yeah, you should block people.
I don't know if people are weird about it, but I think like it's just helpful, you know.
You know, I think like when I first got into this space, there was so much negativity in spaces, right?
And that actually motivated me.
I was like, I just wasn't getting anything out of it.
It wasn't intellectually stimulating.
I was just like, I'm not really interested in this.
Like, this is just, it's just the same people saying the same things about every single project that comes out and having the same negative takes, right?
Just looking for every single thing to nitpick.
So that's originally why I started hosting spaces.
Right.
Because I was like, well, I mean, if you want this space to be better, then you just got to go out and do it.
Right.
So I definitely agree.
And I think, I think that there is room to be, to have constructive criticism.
Right.
But if it's just, if you're just doing it just to tear down, right, like you literally train your brain to do that.
Right.
And that is what you will see.
So you'll, you'll actually train your brain in a way to where you can only see the negative things about the, about what you're looking at.
So first of all, that's super unhealthy, right?
That's the reticular activating system.
And if all you see is, is negative stuff in your training, your brain, like for eight hours a day on Twitter, well, that's going to transfer over into your life in general.
And you're probably not going to be a very pleasant person to be around.
So just, just a word of warning to everybody and, and just in the same light, if, if you look for the positive things and if you look for ways to improve, you'll literally train your brain for that.
Right.
And, and I think that that is, is a much better, a much better way to do things.
But Rhys, go ahead.
Yeah.
I just wanted to ask you guys, like with it being like a multi-artist project, how have you found like working with each other?
Like, I suppose you lean on each other to support, but you also like maybe certain styles compliment each other.
Like you fill in for others' weaknesses.
How do you find like working with like multiple artists on the same art form?
Yeah, I love working with Johnny.
I think we have a really good workflow and have for like a while, which is cool.
I think that like Johnny's like kind of definitely like, he, he rips a lot of ideas.
Like he's really big on like Photoshop, you know, he'll like throw a lot of stuff together.
And I think maybe I'm better at, you know, kind of like rendering things and maybe, you know, adding kind of that final touch.
Obviously like we all get final touches, but, but yeah, I mean, I think that like basically since Dead Gods, like Johnny kind of taught me how to draw in the D God style.
And like, since then, I think we've had a pretty good work, like workflow, which is sick.
Yeah, it's, I love working with other artists, but with Candy Apple, it's actually the worst.
Everyone else has been pretty great.
Finally, fact, fact, fact.
But no, but honestly, yeah, I think, I think it's because we were looking at trying to find other artists and stuff.
We have been for a while, but I really just think we're in a very unique spot where it just, the culture is so, is so important.
And I think the culture of an artist and even the mentality that we're talking about, like, I think most, if people really, I think knew how I thought about some of the art stuff, I think, I don't think I would be friends with a lot of artists.
And so I think that that's kind of a hard mentality to have, but, you know, it's worked so far.
And if, you know, as long as it continues to serve us, that's probably the one, you know, we'll keep until we need to change it.
And so, anyways, working with Graham has been just an absolute joy.
And I think that, yeah, I think we're both really on the same page about how we approach the art and then we're able just to kind of divide and conquer, you know.
And sometimes, you know, I'm much more of a big idea guy.
I'm actually not that good at, like, you know, spending hours and hours and hours getting the final, final details.
So it's cool to have different skill sets and kind of balance each other out.
But, yeah, sometimes working with another artist, you know, it can be difficult.
So you just got to make sure you're on the same page.
I have an interesting perspective on this, too.
I think, you know, it's funny we joke on the team, like, I'm the suit, you know, on the art team.
And I'm just coming in, like, I'm like, oh, we got to hit these things.
We got to do this or whatever.
But I think working with Johnny especially has been a dream because he's almost like a suit in an artist in, like, a suit's body.
Like, he gets the other perspective, too, which is super underrated, you know, where I think this is why earlier, like, when we posted this thing looking for other artists, one of the main things we wrote there was, like, having no ego.
Because I think what's magical working with Johnny is if a lot of times working with people, especially in the creative field, logical conclusions or having things that we need to do, whether it's for the holders, for what we're trying to achieve with the launch, etc.
It's hard to scope in versus, like, quote, unquote, like, pure art.
But I think I've never worked with anyone outside of Johnny and Candy, honestly, that are so egoless and down to scrap whatever it is as soon as there's an explanation or reasoning for why something might work or might not work.
And so even now, as people are speculating and worrying about, oh, what's going to happen with season two youths and, like, you know, season 3D gods, I think that we hold our taste and, you know, the things that the holders really want, but also delivering them.
And Johnny can speak on this way better than me, but, like, trying to deliver something that elevates our holders' taste, not just meets what they're expecting, has always been a goal and why I think we haven't missed yet in the art department, whether it takes longer than people expect or not.
Yeah, like, I think we always want to keep things fresh, and Johnny has almost, like, a science, as much of an artist as he is.
I think he's more of a scientist in a lot of ways, too, and I don't know, Johnny, if you want to talk on, like, elevating holders' taste.
There's some funny stuff in there, for sure.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I think, like, yeah, I don't know.
I mean, I think the best brands elevate everybody's taste because if you just think about it, any good brand is going to spend such a disproportionate amount of time
thinking about their brand and thinking about what it represents, and so they're going to channel all that extra energy and kind of pay it forward to the user.
So Apple spends so much time thinking about design that some random guy who doesn't think about design at all can buy an iPhone,
and now he has a beautiful thing in his hand that he's walking around with every day.
And people, let's say no one had ever seen an iPhone, people would think, wow, you have amazing taste.
How did you find that?
And he's just like, I don't know, I just bought an iPhone.
And so I think in an ideal world, you know, we think about these things a lot.
Like, we've definitely thought about PFPs, probably more than 99.9% of people that use them.
And so, you know, theoretically, it makes sense.
It's kind of like the only option is that it would elevate the taste and, you know, elevate the holder.
And so I think if it's not doing that, that's, you know, even kind of just thinking about it in real time, that's probably a huge problem.
And so I think that's kind of a good litmus test that we use sometimes is like, you know, and even we approach that with our merch and with everything.
It's kind of like, you know, we think a lot about streetwear.
We think a lot about stuff like that.
It's like in every domain, you know, can we basically give that disproportionate time and energy that we spend?
Can we pay that forward to the holders?
Because I think if you think about it, that probably in the long run will just add more energy to the system and add more energy to people that are just going to be fanatical about your brand.
So, yeah, I think that's really important to us.
I love it.
You know, it got me thinking about how your guys' art inspires people to work with it on the timeline, right?
They come up with little videos with their youths or their D-Gods or they make their own merch, like, and spin a little take on it, right?
And what has that been like for you seeing other creators take your art and be inspired to do things with it?
I think if anything, it just shows, like, the beauty of this community more than, like, whenever I see stuff like that, I always just think, like, wow, like, how cool is it that people even, like, want to do this?
Like, how cool is it, like, they know they'll make a video and they know it's going to go viral because, like, we have a community of chads that are, like, there to, like, blow it up.
And so I think, like, that, when I see it, is, like, super cool that they feel comfortable enough to, like, be vulnerable to, like, share their art and, like, know that it's going to blow up and, like, it's going to be loved by the community.
So, like, that's cool for me.
Yeah, I think it is, you know, first thing is just, wow, that's just so, so incredible that people are inspired enough to create something new from something you've created.
And so I think that's kind of, like, the big, big takeaway.
But on a, you know, on a real level, I think that our brains are always thinking of, like, optimization and shit.
And, like, you know, part of it is, like, okay, how can we make guidelines and how can we design principles so that people can make the best possible things from what we create as well?
Because, I mean, even just, I'm probably just thinking of that because we're trying to figure out more rules and stuff for our brand.
And so, yeah, I think it's just cool to see people create stuff and share it and then really just recognize the power of setting the play and then watching a bunch of people run it.
And just really understanding what kind of leverage you have there.
Because, yeah, any small tweak, even if we change the logo once or we change anything, you know, it affects a lot of people.
So I think, again, going back to that, you know, we have responsibility to these people and just trying to make it really, really good.
Love it. Go ahead, Rhys.
I wanted to talk about the way everyone's, like, structuring this question about D-Gods and Utes.
Like, Utes 2, like, no more mids and, like, D-Gods, Grails will be Grails.
But then a lot of people say, like, oh, I don't want my NFT chains.
What do you as, like, artists like about the collection?
I don't mean, like, you don't like it.
You just, you think it's mid.
Or maybe Frank thinks it's mid and the whole team just want to change it.
What would you say to people who, like, you know, talk about that and don't want their NFT change?
But, like, some traits where I'm like, oh, I'd love, like, a Wii upgrade.
Just in this Wii 1 trait, like, what do you not like the most?
Yeah, I think that, like, I mean, there's a lot of questions in there.
I think that, like...
I can say he stabbed you after, but...
Yeah, I mean, actually, Frank, you take it and then I'll piggyback because I feel like you're more passionate about this.
Yeah, I mean, look, and the way I see it is when we made Dead Gods, there was a moment and a place in time where we made that project.
And, you know, today it's a meme, like, sticks are lame.
The knives, oh my gosh, get rid of the knives.
The arrows in my back.
What is going on here?
You have to understand the context of when Dead Gods came out.
Like, A, nobody was making shit that looked like that.
And, B, you know, that was a time period where we were being flooded to the ground.
There was, like, this vibe where we wanted to make D-Gods so definitively badass.
But I think over time we've learned a lot in how that might not age and it's not timeless.
And so, you know, looking at it today, this is one of the things I always say.
We're, like, listening so closely and we see people concerned about X piece of the art or Y piece of the art.
But if you actually just do the mental math of, like, hey, can we just take some traits out?
Like, no, because I think that changes the integrity of the collection.
So it's almost like the responsible thing to do is you have to redo the whole collection if you want to even update little pieces of it.
Because once you start updating little pieces of it, you almost lose the sovereignty of it.
You lose, like, yeah, you lose the provenance of it.
So that's where this concept of seasons comes from.
But I think there's, like, a deeper hunger that honestly stems from Johnny more than anything where we see what we do on the first go.
But the thing about PFPs and NFTs are, like, they're so community-based and so culturally driven that it's almost like once you release it into the public, now you start to see the entire piece, the whole collection from a different perspective.
And so I think that's what Johnny's just really in touch with is, hey, once we release this thing and see it a thousand times, there's a totally different and creative angle that we can take this that people underrate the importance of.
But, yeah, anyway, I'll let Johnny continue on that.
Or Candy, too.
Yeah, take it. Candy, you go first. I'll hop in now, sir.
Yeah, no, I think that, like, I think Frank said a – the thing I mainly wanted to say was that, like, you can't just change the – like, take out the knives and take out the arrows because, one, like, people are like, well, I bought the D-Gog because it has the knife in the head.
So what the fuck? Like, what about me?
You know, and it's like, okay, well, shoot, like, you're definitely, like, you're a minority in that situation, but, like, okay.
So I think, like, the connection that we kind of, like, talk about is, like, you know, if there's an album that was good, but, like, let's say, like, Drake wants to, like, go back and fix some songs.
Like, he's not going to go back and, like, update an album from, like, 10 years ago.
Like, he's just going to make a new album with, like, banger songs, like, better songs, and, like, that's better because it upholds the integrity of, like, his older albums, and, like, he's also making new music.
So he's bringing in new fans.
He's, you know, doing new things and making cool art.
And so I think, like, that's the thing, like, for, like, what we do in the future is, like, we just want to make new stuff, like, make new art, make stuff that's cool because, one, it's going to – like, that's something that holders want.
They want new stuff that makes themselves look cooler on their PFP or whatever, and it also brings in new people who's, like, wow, I didn't like the Dead God art, but I like what they did there.
So, like, now I'm going to buy in.
So I think it's just, like, updating it as we go.
It just seems like a way to get something that's more palatable, more artistic.
There's more versions of it, and I think, like, that's kind of, like, my main takeaway with what we're doing.
Yeah, and I think – yeah, no, I think all that – I definitely resonate with everything everyone said.
And I'm piggybacking a little bit on, like, the context.
It's, like, I think we recently kind of became aware of just how many – how just, like, everything is put in context of the moment that it was in,
and just every, honestly, great piece of art usually is contextualized within, like, the time it's made.
And so I think Dead Gods was great.
I fucking love Dead Gods.
It was really, really cool.
And at the time, I think it was exactly what we needed to put us in the position we are now.
But I think, you know, it's a different time now.
We know different things.
And so I think it's not necessarily about anything being mid or being good or bad.
I think it's more about just kind of bringing it back to center in the present moment of, like, okay,
is this the best possible PFP and the best possible art for the people that own it right now?
And I think if we look at it and we're being objective, we personally feel like there's a lot of room for improvement.
And I think, you know, then there's the game you have to play where you don't want to rug other people,
so you have to make sure you're not just changing the whole thing and you want to iterate it and stuff like that.
But, yeah, and I think, you know, also kind of unashamedly, it's like, yeah, I want to make the best art possible.
And I also just really, really, really want to win.
Like, I would love to fucking flip Yuga and Apes and all, like, you know what I mean?
Like, it's all love, but, like, fuck those guys.
You know, it's like I'd love a good, healthy competition.
And I think that it's like, yeah, you know, maybe some artists want to just, you know, create stuff that resonates with them.
I think that's totally fine.
I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
But I think at D-Labs, we really, really, really want to fucking win.
And so I think we realize that it's easier to win if we have art that's better.
And if we know how to make it better, it's like, okay, bet.
Like, let's get to work and make it the best we can.
I think the theme there is almost like, hey, we internally, especially, and Johnny and Candy have both been here for so long at this point.
Like, no matter how big we've gotten, there's always, like, this chip on our shoulder and this, like, feeling of being an underdog.
So when you're an underdog, the only way to win is it's not by winning by two points, right?
It's a fucking blowout.
And so whether it's the art, whether it's the branding, whether it's the fucking pumponomics, whatever it is, right?
Like, we want to just be the best in every category.
And so I think when we look at the artwork, the best way to put it is, like, right now, there's things that we identify that we can do better with the D-Gods artwork, with the youth's artwork.
But that's just the kernel of the seed.
It's like, okay, that's where it starts.
But now, how do we use this to tie it into the story of what all the other things that we're launching?
And how does that fit in the theme of kind of, like, the new direction for the artwork?
And maybe, you know, the best way is just, like, man, how do we make this undeniable?
And how do we make our holders so proud to represent the artwork?
Because it's great marketing, right?
Like, people underrate this part of it, but the best marketing for any NFT project is everyone posting pictures of the NFT.
Like, nothing is getting more impressions than literally thousands of people posting pictures of your JPEG.
Like, there's no better form of marketing today.
And so there is something cool about these art upgrades.
Maybe, like, the best analogy, too, is, you know, I look at the NFTs almost like the hardware.
Let's just say that it's Apple, right?
It's like we're putting out the hardware, but we want to make software updates to the hardware constantly.
Like, that is what makes it a strong piece.
That's what makes it able to, I think, surpass whatever narratives exist today is, look, if we want to make D-Labs undeniable and the NFTs that we put out undeniable,
then we have to take this constant iterative approach to the way that we create things.
The thing with NFTs very specifically is, as much as I would like to be very quick and just update things as fast as I make tweets,
there's such a relativity to, you know, the rarity of all the NFTs.
People are buying them at market prices.
You have to respect the reasons that people are buying them.
Like, even with Utes, too, I see people concerned.
They're like, oh, I bought my Nouns.
Like, oh, am I going to get rugged?
Or, oh, is my D got grail?
Or, oh, I bought this clean one.
And it's like, no, that's the point of trying to make the new direction, not just, like, removing knives or cleaning things up.
It's taking it in such a paradigm-shifting way that people aren't expecting.
Because that's the only way to do justice to all the different stakeholders that are involved when it comes to buying art on a secondary market,
which we respect, you know, and want to uphold.
But at the same time, like, man, D-God's in youth with fresh branding in a totally different lane.
I don't think the market nor people even in our community are ready for that because that allows us to launch things that you're not even expecting us or that we're able to launch today but contextualizes it.
And this might seem esoteric, but it's very grounded in what I see every day.
It's very grounded in the data.
People say that art doesn't matter.
But, you know, somehow, every single time, like, the top market cap projects always end up having, you know, what most people agree is the best art.
And so just looking at the – not listening to opinions but looking at the data is like, yeah, art actually matters way more than people think.
And I think fixing a lot of the core floor problems that we have with both D-God's and youths to start with but also using that as a launch pad to go kick off the next run of, like, five, six launches that we have with fresh branding and a fresh kind of feeling within the community.
You know, it's like you buy a new suit and you're putting on the fucking suit and it feels all fresh and that feeling is what we want to give both to the community and also to the broader market.
Like, hey, like, we're going to constantly reinvent ourselves because that's what a good band does.
That's what a good team does is not, like, rest on our laurels with whatever we made yesterday even if people fucking love what we made yesterday because we know we can push the boundaries and make it better tomorrow.
I love that.
You know, art as a utility, who would have thought that that would matter in the NFT space, right?
You know what it is?
And, Johnny, I do want to hear Johnny riff on this.
It's just cool.
Like, people miss this a lot but, like, so much of this space is just driven on what's cool and what's not and what people think is cool.
And I think, like, for us, we look at Dead Gods and even Utes at this point today and we're like, those were cool for a moment.
But, you know, Supreme updates their fucking designs every month.
They have the core branding still there but they update their designs.
They update new collections, like, every – basically every quarter, every season.
And I think we want to take a similar approach to the way we're doing this where it's more about how do we meet the market needs but blow people's mind on a constant basis, not just with the things that we put out on the networking and community side but also on the art side because I think those are the two core things that are the most important to us.
And we want to keep blowing people's minds, yeah, in a way just that they don't expect.
I don't know what else to say.
That's what gets people fucking really excited.
When your favorite band drops an album that sounds like the last one, it just, like, diminishes your excitement.
But if we can constantly reinvent ourselves but make the new versions of these absolute fucking hits, that's what I think, honestly, if you had to ask me, gun to my fucking head, what is our secret sauce?
What is the D-Lab secret sauce?
Why is everyone so mad at us on the timeline all the time?
I just think we're going to make cooler fucking art and make a cooler brand than everybody else at the end of the fucking day.
Go for it, Johnny.
Yeah, I mean, I think, like, I think there's value.
Like, I think value exists outside any domain, right?
Like, a good chef makes valuable food.
A good artist makes valuable art.
A good marketer makes, you know, valuable marketing campaigns.
So I think there is really a value to just being cool.
Like, I think cool is kind of a catch-all word that can mean a lot of things to different people.
But I think everyone can agree it's just having that cool value and that social capital you get from repping a cool thing is actually a huge, huge, huge component of any successful brand.
Like, Apple's cool.
Nike's cool.
And I think that, again, it's like every company like that has evolved.
And I think we've done some cool shit, and I'm very proud of it.
But it's like, we're not as cool as we could be right now.
And so I think we just want to be cool, lurer than we can be.
And so, yeah, I think the art and making stuff that just, I don't know, maybe shocks people in certain ways and having that element of surprise, it's just like, that's, I think, what really cool art collectives do.
And I think we kind of view ourselves as that.
You know, I think even the way I feel like, you know, Frank interprets technology and marketing, I really do feel like we all feel much more like an indie band, you know, playing our different instruments and making art.
Then we do, like, a super rigid corporate business where we all have our different roles.
I think it really more feels like we have our different instruments that we're playing.
And, again, we just want to make a really, really cool album.
I guess that's the theme, too, Johnny.
Like, what we always say late at night, it's like, right now it feels like D-Gods and Utes maybe are, like, the cool indie band on the block.
You know, we have the fucking, we have a dope fan base.
We've made some good records, but how do we take this thing to the next level is, I think, the approach with Season 3 and with Season 2 for Utes is, like, all right, at a certain point, being an indie band is not cool anymore.
And it's time to take this thing to, you know, to real scale.
And I don't know if you agree, but that's what it feels like we're trying to do here with both Season 3 and Season 2 for Utes.
Yeah, I think, and the analogy I keep going back to is, and, you know, I'm not even a huge Nirvana fan, but I feel like some of the stuff we have is much more Bleach than it is Nevermind.
And so I feel like, you know, we still want to keep the heaviness and all the stuff that made everything we've done really, really cool.
But, you know, there's a reason that Bleach was just a little bit inaccessible to everybody, and there's a reason Nevermind, you know, catapulted Nirvana into the stratosphere.
So I think that having that kind of framework is, I think, much more similar to what we're trying to do.
You know, we're not trying to make a completely different thing.
We're just trying to take the best parts of everything and really just make it shine.
I love that.
You know, I think it's really cool to hear about your guys' perspective on dynamic branding to be able to continually expand the brand.
And it's something very interesting, and it's not really, you know, a perspective that I hear in this space.
So, you know, obviously, you know, I'm very excited to see where it goes.
And just as a personal holder, I can tell you that I feel cool representing myself with my ute.
You know what I mean?
I do.
I'm like, oh, man, like when I ended up, you know, buying my ute the first day, right?
Like I minted my tube.
I wasn't super into it.
And I was like, I don't really identify with this.
So, you know, I sold it.
And then I saw this one, and I was like, oh, okay, that's me.
Like, that's definitely me.
Like, I'm going to get that.
I could see myself.
It's like, it felt like getting a tattoo.
You know, I was like, I'm going to represent myself with this for a very, very long time.
So I want to make sure that it really speaks to me.
And then like over time, it just started growing more and more.
And I, it's like, I, you know, you develop a relationship with the art and, and it becomes
a part of you as who you are as this digital two, you know, two dimensional digital representation
of yourself.
And, uh, it's just something that I, I, I've never experienced before until, until utes.
Right.
And, uh, it, it's, it's been very special for me.
More band analogies.
It's like, I think another, we use that a lot.
Cause I think Johnny comes from the music world and, you know, that's what a lot of
what we band, uh, bonded on initially.
It's like to us, Coldplay is a great example.
There's like an awesome interview that Coldplay had after making, I think it was yellow was
their first hit.
And he was like, we're not wrestling on any laurels.
We have no laurels.
And it's like, obviously they went on to make fucking Viva La Vida, Paradise, like just like
infinity bangers.
Even like Ed Sheeran started out with a team.
Nobody thought this little fucking white ginger kid could rap ended up making like the biggest
songs in the world with like these fucking pop rap hits or whatever.
And it's, it's always this element of taking things that people might not expect that you're
going to do, but just like constantly leveling up, um, is our approach, man.
Cause it, it really is just, you know, how do we, how do we take the special things that
make what today is really, really good.
But again, you have to freak it cause things get old, man.
At the end of the day, I don't care what anyone says, like apes are going to start looking
fucking corny and old after a certain point, you know, punks, whatever it is, like whatever
is out there are going to end up looking like yesterday's thing.
If the future stuff keeps looking better and better.
And it's just more exciting.
I think right now where we're at as a team, it is like this Herculean effort to put out
like new artwork for sure.
But I think as we scale the team, we're going to find a way to make that more consistent
so that holders of D labs, NFTs and assets feel like, Hey, if there's a problem with my
fucking NFT, if I don't like the way this thing looks or over time, it just looks not
as cool, whatever it is, like, we're going to be more in touch with the real, the real
emotion behind that before you even are yourself.
And we're going to already be working on the next thing that's going to get people excited.
And man, like if I, I think people are worried about sometimes the execution, because they
see a lot of bozo teams that will say they're going to do, whether it's an art upgrade or
change this thing or change that thing.
And they flop on it.
And if I can guarantee one thing, it's just like, we're just not going to flop on this,
dude.
Like, it's just, uh, we care too much about it to a degree and we think so hard and we're
making so many iterations of the stuff in the background that, um, yeah, man, that's not
the concern.
Our biggest concern is always just like hitting timelines, which I don't know, Johnny candy.
That's the, that's the next question.
How are we feeling on this sprint coming up?
You're feeling good, baby.
That public riz, that public pressure, you know?
Yeah.
Hey, building public, that public pressure.
That's where we thrive.
That's where we thrive.
That's true.
Now, definitely like going to DNYC, put a fire under our ass even more though.
It's just like seeing all these cool motherfuckers and getting to talk to all of you.
It's like, it was always for the community, but like now it's really fucking for the community.
Like we look like, I love you guys.
And it's, it's so cool.
Like, like that brotherhood and sisterhood too.
It's just, it's really special.
And so like that was super inspiring for me.
Yeah.
A hundred percent too.
I think I'm much more of like an IRL guy.
Um, I was not, did not spend that much time on the internet.
And so I always kind of had like felt a little bit like an outsider trying to like meet all
these people just purely on Twitter or on the internet.
But DNYC absolutely just changed a lot of things for me and, and just see meeting everybody
and, and being able to put faces to PFPs and stuff like that.
Um, it kind of clipped, clicked in my lizard brain and I'm like, oh, okay, this is like
the real people buying this shit.
Um, and so, yeah, no, it's just, I definitely just seen the community.
It's just so, so fucking cool.
You guys are literally the coolest ever.
So, um, yeah, let's fucking go.
Love it.
Go ahead, Rhys.
Frank, do you see youths and D-Gods being, with what you're saying, do you see it being
an ever changing art collection?
Like, do we get to D-Gods season 10 and youths season 10?
Here's the best way to put it.
I think our goal is to stop changing it.
But the only time that we're going to stop changing it is when we feel like there's,
we've left everything on the table and we just have not left everything on the table,
man, like so many late nights, we'll be sitting there and, uh, you know, just constantly trying
to figure out how to make this thing better.
And I, I just think, man, like there's something special about D-Gods.
I think that's like something right now, very prescient with what's coming next with D-Gods,
but it's like, like there's just something special about the character, the expression
on his face, the fucking, the, the don't give a fuck attitude that was so, so crucial to
the way when we first started this project that we wanted to convey.
I think the whole meta that created D-Gods in the first place was, Hey, like everyone's
doing these animal profile pictures, especially when we launched D-Gods, like what's better
than a fucking animal on a spiritual level.
It's like, let's make gods.
But I think over time, we've just seen so many little things that we can change, but
also we've gotten into new styles and we've, we've gotten into different interests and
like obviously just grown as human beings over this last year.
And I think we have a different perspective and, uh, yeah, it's like, man, I think people
want a clean PFP.
I think people want something that looks cool.
They can show their friends IRL and they're not going to get made fun of.
I think these are all like obvious things, you know?
And I think with youth, it's like, I think there's a way we can make them way more fun
and make them feel more different where some of them feel very similar today.
And so we recognize this on a very D-Gen and human level, like where the problems are,
but it's not as simple as people think of, Hey, like, let's just go change this or let's
go pop the colors more or whatever it is.
It's like, Hey, how do we take all these problems that we have, but solve them in a
really creative way so that people get shocked when they see it, because anybody that was
there for dead gods understands the value of like, man, when you refresh the entire
collection like that, you, you, you have a new launch pad where people are paying attention
more and it amplifies all the things that we're going to launch after these remasters.
And after these recreations of the artwork, it's going to, on a business suit, suit Frank
is back corporate Frank is back, but on a business level, what it does is it creates
a huge marketing vortex of everyone seeing the new artwork, checking it out, talking about
it, discussing it.
And then it creates a megaphone around all the things that we launch afterwards, which
is precisely what happened with dead gods and precisely, honestly, what happened with
you list and with youth as well.
And so now that we feel like we've understood these elements of nature, like let's harness it
and actually pair together some of the stuff that we're launching with dust labs coming
up, some of the stuff that we're launching, you know, within D labs on this membership
stuff as well.
Let's like create this harmonious grouping that we call season three and season two, both
for D guys and youths respectively.
And man, like, I just think core, core level that the visual imagery, like how we talk about
it internally, it's like, how do we make something that's impossible to ignore?
Like that is the headline.
Like how do we make the new, because everyone is like, okay.
You guys are changing the artwork, whatever, dude, I'm here for the fucking, I'm here for
my 20% yield or I'm here for this thing or that thing.
It's like, dude, I get it, bro.
I'm just as DJ as everyone else in this audience.
I get it.
But if you want amplification around all the things that we're going to launch, nothing
does it better than a refreshed brand that is perfectly on target that people aren't
expecting because it wakes, it makes people almost metaphorically open up their fucking
eyes and pay more closer attention.
So it's, it's just as much of a strategic thing than it is like a, Oh, we just want
to update the art because we're a bunch of hippies in Los Angeles.
Like it's way less the latter than it is the former, but you know, like I also do get
excited about art and I do like working on the art stuff, but both Candy and Johnny are
here and part of the core team at D labs because they understand it's more than just the artwork.
It's how the artwork supplements and compliments all the other things that we want to do.
And I think that's the nuance that we have that I don't see in a lot of other teams.
And that's what I'm the most proud of.
So exciting.
Yeah.
Cannot wait to see what comes out.
Really, really going to be great with this, uh, refresh branding.
Uh, I'm going to go wild with it, with my good night posts, with my youth that I do.
Um, but look, you guys, I do want to ask the artists, you know, is there any advice that
you guys can give to aspiring NFT artists in this space?
Is, is there something, um, that you can leave them with?
I feel like I'm too far into the generative art world to like give any advice to like one
of one artists.
Um, so yeah, honestly, I don't know.
Um, I'd say what helped me a lot was like join a lot of sub downs, you know, a lot of art
groups, but within like generative art, I think that like Johnny, I talked a lot about, I think
like the design aspect of, uh, generative art.
Like if you're a project, if you're working on a project and you're creating art, I think
that, um, yeah, coming at it from more of a design perspective at first than an art perspective
will probably be more helpful.
Yeah.
I mean, I think, um, yeah, I think specifically for people in the space, like, I guess it depends
on what the goals are.
Um, but yeah, I think a lot of the design principle stuff I think is super, super important.
Um, I, this is kind of funny.
I'm not even necessarily doing this right now, um, within the context of my own personal
art, but I read this thing the other day where, um, it was like the two hallmarks of, of people
that are doing really, really great shit is that the first thing they need to have is like
an insatiable desire to learn.
So like, you just need to always be learning and always be growing.
Um, but then you also need to couple that with, um, like just a relentless action bias.
So you always need to be outputting and doing things.
And I think, um, a lot of artists can get caught on either one.
Like you have a lot of artists that post a lot, but they're just not that good.
So then they're not learning and it's not great.
But then you also have artists that are learning all the time and really, really good, but maybe
not putting themselves out there.
Um, and so I think those things are super helpful is that, especially with like new
tools, like AI and mid journey, all these crazy things.
It's like, there's just no excuse not to get so, so good and learn so quickly.
Um, and then also just put your stuff out there.
And, and yeah, I think that coupled with like design stuff and color theory stuff, kind of
more like the practical basics.
Um, I would say those are, you know, we'll cover a lot of, of what it takes hopefully
to be a good, uh, artist in the space.
I love that.
And, and, you know, you, you touched on, on a important point of putting yourself out
there as an artist, right.
And I do see, you know, whether it's, uh, artists or developers, sometimes like, you know,
they do have a difficult time kind of like getting themselves out there and being more
forward facing and, and, um, yeah, so I, I think it's really important to just, you
know, put it out for people to see, right.
And, and see what happens.
But then also if you are having a branding problem, maybe get with somebody, uh, that
can help you push your art, right.
If that is not your strong suit, like that's okay, you know, but I do want to leave a little
bit of time.
We do have some requests, uh, from, from some people in the audience.
So I do want to bring some of these people up.
Uh, I'm going to bring up a loop X who actually just had, uh, you know, he, he's, he's got
a legendary thread pinned to his profile about color theory.
So we're going to let some of these people up, ask some questions and, uh, we will get
it going, but, um, let's see loop.
How's it going, brother?
Can you hear us?
Loop X.
Yo, all right.
I can hear you now.
Hey, there you go.
I missed the last like 30 seconds.
Oh, I was just giving you, uh, uh, lots of flowers, but no, I, I was just talking about
how you've got that color theory thread that, that did super well.
So I just wanted to bring some people up to ask some questions.
So do you have some questions for the artists?
Oh yeah.
I've, I've 5,000.
Uh, no, but yeah, great, great to be up here.
Um, I, I don't think Johnny or Kenny Apple, I don't think we've ever met, uh, reading,
I don't think we've ever met either.
I loved your thread though.
I, that was iconic.
So yeah, I remember that.
Wow.
I appreciate that.
Yeah.
It was, it was, it was heavily influenced by, uh, that, that, uh, Figma that you guys
made.
Um, and you know, I honestly, I think when like, you can really make, make a lot of magic with
generative art.
If you're really specific about, you know, the colors, uh, and, and outlining the algorithm
to make sure that the, you know, every single PFP, uh, works really well.
Um, I guess for first question is, you know, how do you guys think about, uh, you know,
taking, taking, you know, the, your first, uh, set of colors and then thinking, okay,
we, you know, we have this, this massive 10,000 PFP collection, um, and we have to, you
know, come up with very strict rules to make sure that we don't have, you know, 2000 that
are bad, uh, and have, you know, lots of conflicting colors.
How do you, how do you guys think about making those rails?
And how do you, how do you go from like, okay, you know, we have, we have this cool
you looking thing, uh, you know, we can, we're gonna do some glasses, some hair, some, you
know, some t-shirts.
How do you go from that to then, okay, you know, we're actually coding these, these strict
guardrails into our algorithm.
Um, and you know, how much testing is involved?
Is that like, is that, you know, truly like, all right, let's run it, see what happens, see
what we get, try to fix it.
Like what, what's that process like, uh, kind of iterating?
Um, yeah, I mean, I think, um, tons of testing, tons of iterative, iterative loops.
I think, um, a big thing to consider is like, there's this quote we read about how like color
is the most relative medium.
We're just like, you know, color is, is completely contextual.
Like, you know, for example, like, I don't know, I think like, this is my personal opinion,
but like, if you wore like red shoes and red socks, like all, all red, like that's not
my personal style.
And like, I could say, oh, I don't like red, but if you see a red Ferrari or like a vintage
red port, it just hits different.
So it's like, everything is contextual.
Um, but I don't think that's just limited to color.
Like everything is contextual.
Like the way the bucket hat is drawn might affect the way the vest looks.
It's like, everything relates to everything else.
And so you just have to constantly, um, we call them Jenny's, but like getting generations,
like the quicker you can start making a generation, you actually like are now working in reality.
It's no longer like, oh, I love this shirt.
Cause it's blue.
It's like, oh fuck.
The blue shirt looks horrendous with the red hat.
Like now we're in reality and you can tweak it.
Um, and then, yeah, I think like in terms of just, that is the discipline.
And it is hard to have constraints.
Like we still struggle with that too.
It's like, you want to add every color, but it's limits create style.
And so you have to just be like, no, we're not going to add this purple because it's, you
know, that's the thing we're willing to sacrifice to make something, um, stylistic.
And, and yeah, and I think, and then honestly on some practical shit, um, I was thinking about
this the other day.
So like, I kind of want to write something about it, but at this point, um, I think that
neutral colors are like the fruit superpower.
It's like, cause neutrals, you can add as many neutrals as you want, um, theoretically.
And then it just makes the colors that you do choose pop.
And so you can still make it feel pretty colorful, but if you're just spamming neutral colors,
it can really help just on a practical level.
It's kind of like vegetables, you know what I mean?
It's like, if you don't have that much chicken breast, but you have a shitload of broccoli,
you're going to get kind of full and it's good for you.
And then when you do have that little bit of chicken, it kind of hits different.
Um, so I think that's kind of, I don't know if that made sense at all, but yeah.
I think the best like, uh, example of that is, you know, you to the end of the day has
way less colors than a vast majority of NFT projects, like way, way less, way more restrictive.
But I think again, the way we set up the generator and the way we set up kind of like the colors
throughout it, it feels more colorful.
I think even as you scroll through it, then a vast majority of collections, because it's,
it's not, if you have too many colors, you end up just getting things that feel muddy
and Brown and like just a little bit disorienting.
But when you have very, you know, concentrated moments where things pop out something like
I see a guy in the audience right now, he's got pretty much an all cream youth, but it's
got like the black sunglasses and the black free hat and it's like the black pops there,
you know?
And it's like, that works because everything else is very neutral.
But again, I think with two, with youth square youth season two, we're going to like flip
the whole color theory wheel on its head again.
And, uh, yeah, like whatever you're seeing right now is like not at all what I'd expect
honestly on the next go around.
So, um, yeah, I think there's that too, but just adding there.
Nice.
Well, let's get on over to Brandolf.
What is going on, Brandolf?
Do you have a question?
I do, Smokey.
How are you doing?
Very good, sir.
What's going on?
Well, I actually, I haven't had the opportunity to share the stage with these gentlemen, and
I just want to commend you on your great work on this art.
Uh, one of the things you touched on about the, uh, neutral tones, uh, was something that
actually struck me, uh, while watching the, uh, sort of behind the scenes from the movie
Elf.
And they talked about their North pole set where the backgrounds were all kind of a
pupy kind of color, just kind of vague color.
Uh, but the magic pops because the characters had their colors and their highlights.
And so that, that really plays into something that's always stuck with me about that kind
of design.
Uh, but I think that the most significant thing that I think it was Johnny brought up, uh, was
the focus on design, uh, when going to make, uh, art for a PFP project.
I think a lot of projects get too hung up on how they feel about their art, right?
Uh, and, and they get stuck on that and then they don't do well.
And, and, you know, they're, they're too hung up on their personal feelings about their art,
but having that consideration for the overall design and how it will be perceived at the end
of the day, you know, the images have a perception value when we look at them.
And that's the most important factor.
And that's why, you know, the D gods have been so successful and the Utes have been so
successful is because you have that thought to the purpose.
What impact is this image going to give a viewer when they first see it?
Are they going to look into it deeper?
Is it going to interest them?
Is it going to engage them on a visual level?
And these are the things that don't get, I think as much attention and a lot of projects
would do well to, to take notes from you guys, you know, given this alpha on how to approach
the art.
Uh, cause at the end of the day, we're, we're dealing with, with status symbols and not, you
know, personal connected art pieces.
Love it.
Great.
Great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
A hundred percent agree.
Totally agree.
I think that like Johnny and I've talked about, um, publishing some form of like, uh, like
a paper or even just like another Figma file on what we did for you.
It's on like how to make a good PFP.
Um, and we have like, we have a lot of that written out and I think maybe the hesitation
lies in the fact that like, you know, it's hard to explain how to make a good PFP without
showing like bad examples.
And I think it's like, you know, do we show like, you know, that's tricky.
Like we know a lot of people and it's like, we don't want to necessarily show like bad
examples of NFT projects.
So it's like, I think it's kind of a touchy subject, um, for some people.
But I think that like, I agree.
I think it would be super helpful for people to know just cause it's like, we, the goods
took so long cause we were figuring it out ourselves and like, we figured it out, but
it's like a lot of projects don't have the time or like the ability to like really figure
that out.
Um, and would love to like help out projects like that.
So, uh, you guys, if you do, if you do, uh, you know, write that out and use some of the
bad examples, if you could just DM me and make sure that none of them are my bags, uh, that
would be greatly appreciated.
Um, we could get that going.
Just me though.
Everybody else.
It's fine.
Um, bad examples are going to be the guys, uh, dead guys in youth first season.
And once we put out the new ones, true, true, true, true, true.
Like that's the thing too, is like a lot of people are like, I like the original D gods.
Well, if you look at like, even like 20 original D gods versus dead gods, it's like, okay, you
realize why we changed it.
And I think our goal is, uh, to do the same again, both with the season three and with
the next season of youths.
And another thing too, I'm just like reading the comments right now and like reading some
of the people's thoughts, take it from someone who like came into the space as like a
Bitcoin maxi and like got into shit coining and like even got into NFTs.
And honestly, when we first launched D gods, didn't even understand like necessarily the
value and the importance of art community, et cetera.
Like just don't let anyone let you, don't let anyone make you feel not cool for caring
a lot about the art because it's one of those like lizard brain things.
And Johnny and I talk about this all the time that like everyone actually really does
care about the aesthetics and the art and the way things look, but it's almost like
people are conditioned to be like, Oh dude, I'm a bad-ass and I'm here for the fucking
money or what it's like, bro, if you're really like here strictly just for the dollar, dollar
bills, you probably would not be in NFTs for multiple reasons.
Like go into stock, you can get into fucking crypto trading, do defy, whatever it is.
But what makes NFTs unique oftentimes gets ignored as people try to compensate for the fact
that they want to seem like a macho person that like doesn't care about all these different
things, but it really does impact the entire market in a way that as someone that's studying
the market every fucking day, uh, people underrate a lot, like the quality of the floors in a
collection actually end up mattering a lot.
The rarity distribution ends up mattering a lot to the overall performance of the NFT
itself.
So again, don't want people to come out of this and feel like, Oh, the only thing that's
coming out is like new artwork.
But I want people to come out of this and think like, Hey, this team fucking really cares
a lot about the art and we're very unapologetic about that.
Um, because we think, yeah, it's like that is the flagship product.
That is the core thing at the end of the day.
And then everything else only works.
The best way to put it is honestly, man, like if D guys and youths were, uh, pretty ugly,
like compared to the rest of the market, if everyone could replicate what we're doing,
like we'd probably be at zero and nobody would be in this space and nobody would care about
this anyway.
So just think about it like that to understand how, how important some of this stuff is.
We recognize that.
And, um, yeah, it's just hard.
It's, you know, a lot of people try to recreate dead gods.
A lot of people try to recreate youths and what they look like and how they feel.
But I don't think anyone here has seen a derivative yet that honestly looks better than the original,
which I think is a testament to the two fucking gentlemen up here on stage.
Like there's just a lot of iceberg things that go into the design here that, um, yeah,
man, like it's just not, it's not easy.
And these guys have literally thousands of files that have been scrapped in the process
of the final work.
And even then I just know we can do better than what we've done so far.
Well, excited for the, the new art that is coming out and, and, and cease and desist on
the way for some of these, uh, these derivatives that are diluting the brand.
No, there's not even a point anymore to cease and desist, bro.
It's like, you know, just like they're, they're not getting the, they don't have that.
Oh dear.
Is it, is it just me?
I was getting a call, but it's all good.
We can move on.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Okay.
All right.
Well, let's get on over to, uh, some of these hands.
We've got Galavas.
We have not heard from him yet.
What is going on, Galavas?
Yeah, no.
Hey everyone.
Love the spaces.
Um, and I love the discussion around derivatives because as I'm looking at projects coming
out now, you know, it's, uh, either a distinct derivative of directly the character within
the PFP collection, but I'm what, what I'm noticing more and more of, and specifically
as to, uh, what youths and D gods have done is there's now kind of derivatives to the color
palettes that you guys are using, which is fascinating to me.
That speaks a ton is that you guys have so much, or you guys put so much attention into
the design of these PFPs themselves that people are now just focusing on the color palettes
that you chose in order to create their own.
So I wanted to get an understanding of how you feel about that when people do use your
color palettes.
It was cool.
I saw a tweet, I think yesterday, like someone is like, just put like six circles and a white
background and like all the colors were like the youth colors and they're like, what brand
is this?
And it's like, that was the youth brand.
And it's like sick how it turned out that way.
And I think like, I don't think that we, uh, when we started using those colors, I don't
think we necessarily thought that was going to become like the brand colors of youths.
I think we use them because they look the most aesthetic with the youths.
Um, but then it turned into like, before we were launching them, like coming up with
the logo, coming up with like the idea for like what the brand could be.
And it's like, those colors were there the whole time.
And it's like, oh shoot, like those are iconic.
Like let's use that.
So that's, that's pretty cool.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I definitely echo all that.
It's just, it's really cool to see, uh, see the colors kind of play out.
Um, yeah, and colors just make everything more fun.
So love to see it.
Nice.
Thanks for that.
Globus.
Let's get on over to jet.
What's going on jet.
Hey, yo, a full panel up here, baby.
Smokey, Sir Candy, Johnny, Frank, my brother in Christ.
Wait, Frank, I thought you weren't doing anything.
We're, we're supposed to be fighting youths.
What's going on?
You guys are supposed to be doing nothing.
Bunch of bozos.
Nah, I'm just kidding.
The fun is getting to that point right now where I told John, I was like, yesterday, I
told Johnny Candy's coming today.
I think like, man, you know, we have a lot of stuff we're super excited about launching.
I really want to accelerate these timelines because I've never felt more confident on anything
that we're working on in the fucking history of our, of this fucking project than the stuff
that's coming out now.
And we're trying to figure out how to accelerate it here.
But at the end of the day, the concerns that people have about youth volume right now, Polygon,
like D-Gods, whatever, it's like, what, think about what they're saying.
They're basically saying like, oh, there's no attention on fucking D-Gods and youths right
now.
And it's like, okay, bro, like, I promise you, like, I'm not worried about our ability
to garner attention when we need to garner it.
Like, we're going to do that.
But like, let's do it around something that's positive and exciting, not just reactionary
towards how people are feeling right now.
But like, if people are worried that youth is never going to have volume again, like,
I think you're just so sorely mistaken.
And you have a very short term memory because I think if anything that we've proven in this
fucking space that I think we deserve some credit on is when we turn on the engine of
excitement, when we turn on the engine of like, hey, it's time to pay attention, I don't think
we've ever missed, truthfully, on getting people's attention and getting people to pay
attention.
The key thing here is in Q2, how do we do that again, which I know we will, but do it
around something that we believe is going to exponentially grow the projects, both youths
and D-Gods.
And I think that starts in a lot of ways with these refreshes and with the rebrand, but
that is only the beginning.
And so, yeah, okay, it's not happening right now.
Okay, Polygon is like getting flipped by fucking cannabis blockchain or whatever random fucking
blockchains in daily volume on cryptoslam.io.
I see the tweets just like everybody else.
I am so deeply not concerned as a massive bag holder in all of these projects, like, because
I know the thing that we're working on right now is something the market does not have
and deeply wants, and when we're in that zone, our ability to market that and get attention
to it, I don't think should be questioned, but it's more like, when is this stuff going
to happen?
And I think that's where our brain is focused on more than anything right now is, hey, how
do we push these timelines up?
Because a lot of people have, you know, very generous timelines they think is going to take
all year.
They think it's going to be like end of Q4.
You know, it's like Q2 is the goal for a lot of this stuff.
And, uh, let's fucking hit it out of the park and remind people, you know, why would
you even gotten this far and been consistently growing for a year and a half in the first
place?
Bro, like the thing that people don't understand is real quick, real quick.
And just for, we got a big space here and just for everybody, uh, that is in the audience,
uh, just so you know that, you know, everybody's running with that narrative of, of crypto slams
numbers of, of, of this and that.
Right.
But it's not tracking polygons numbers correctly.
So, um, just, uh, to let everybody know, I know crypto Twitter goes wild with, with the,
the first thing that they see.
But, uh, if you do, do dig a little bit deeper, you can actually tell that like, oh, actually
it's, it's not track tracking volume correctly.
So just for everybody, uh, to know that, but go ahead, Jeff.
No, I mean, all I just wanted to say was that like the people who haven't experienced the
full kind of like, uh, uh, vibes of the whole community of just being a part of both projects,
like they just don't understand, man.
And like, once they actually come to be a part of it and they just zoom out and just
enjoy the process, I mean, just connect with you.
I mean, bro, you're like freaking on spaces almost every single day, bro.
Like you're probably one of the most approachable founders in this space.
Uh, Candy's out here, Smokey's out here, Johnny's out here, like all of us are out here.
Like, no, like the PFPs of youths are still one of the best on every freaking blockchain,
man.
Like, uh, no one's going to like fade that.
I just don't understand all this FUD.
And I did reply to you like, bro, like seriously, man, like nothing to worry about, man.
Like, uh, uh, we've got our best.
FUD is simple, man.
It's just like, you know, we did the bridge, which we said we were going to do in Q1.
And, uh, you know, everyone memed the delays.
It's like, we did not delay it, hit the, hit the deadline there.
It's just like, you know, right now there's no catalyst, right?
There's no clarity on like, oh, when's the next thing coming out?
When's this like, you know, which a lot of people want to know.
The thing is on ETH, it's just a different play.
It's a different playbook that we're going to run, you know, and this is part of, I tweeted
yesterday.
We're just reinventing ourselves comma again.
It's a different playbook, man.
Like we're on Solana, you're constantly playing this battle of like, how do you stay on top
of this thing?
Cause everyone's trading this stuff so fast every day and momentum isn't as strong.
Like when you get momentum on Sol, you typically get, get momentum in the, in the space of like
maybe 10 to 30 Sol is like what that crazy momentum looks like.
Maybe, maybe 40 or 50, um, in terms of a Delta.
But on ETH, it's like, man, people that have been in, even like since we've bridged, you
guys have seen how quickly something can move and the momentum builds way bigger on ETH.
And so I think for us, it's like looking at it, Hey, how do we do this in a way that,
uh, you know, just creates a stronger narrative and a base that allows this thing to grow exponentially,
which we haven't hit yet.
And I understand that.
And the same thing with Polygon, where it's an earlier ecosystem.
I think there's a lot of good quality projects coming out and I think the story for Polygon
is only getting started, but yeah, it's like in, in the journey of growth, you have days
and weeks that are up in the, and, and that are down.
I remember days where people were capitulating on the Solana volume.
Yeah.
People don't remember this, but we minted back in fucking September of 2021, bro.
Like there wasn't even like a launch pad, dude.
We were cooking on these fucking, looked up the candy machine contract.
There's barely any documentation marketplaces before Magic Eden was even
dominant.
There were days where the Solana volume fucking dipped down super hard and each people were
calling for the death of Solana.
It's like, okay, people expect up only, but this is literally growing pains.
And that's what excites me is that there's just a lot of potential there.
But, um, yeah, there's no catalyst yet right now.
There's nothing like clearly exciting coming down the line outside of a bunch of words, which
we understand.
Like, I know that well aware, but I think that's part of the strategy, which is, Hey, when
we launch things, it's like, you know, check your wallet type thing.
It's like, okay, it's like time to go.
And then there's like four or five things that follow it up after that.
And that's why we call them seasons, not episodes.
I can't wait for it, bro.
And I'm, uh, just strapped in and just ready to ride, man.
Thank you, brother.
Snolky.
Thank you so much, man.
Thank you so much.
I love it.
Thanks for coming up, Jet.
Always a pleasure to have you.
And, uh, I have a lot to thank you for, for, for helping me in my spaces hosting journey.
So much love brother.
Well, let's get on over.
Let's get back to loop.
What is going on loop?
Yo, all right.
So I get a question about, uh, kind of, you know, the youths are very, they have a lot
of emotion in their faces.
Uh, I think this is a super interesting to kind of click into, uh, because you can, you
can do a lot with the emotion and it can kind of give your community a way to act.
Like, I think if you look at a Zuki, a lot of the people in a Zuki kind of act like their
PFP looks and like kind of that grin on their face, uh, where it's like this laid back,
uh, kind of, you know, swag.
And I think, I think it's pretty powerful and like you can, I I've done this.
You can, you can change a few pixels on a PFP and it drastically changes how you feel
about what you're looking at and, you know, wanting to choose that PFP using emotion kind
of to your advantage.
And, you know, especially in youths, uh, you know, season three of like how that kind
of comes into, uh, uh, your thought process and also like how it plays into the generative
art algorithm.
Uh, cause I think that's tough.
That's another hard thing to, to throw into the mix.
Yeah, I think, uh, expressions we played with a lot of expressions.
Um, I believe there's a one of one in the collection that has like 15 youths with different expressions
in them.
And we did that, we threw that in because, you know, I think we wanted to show that
like all the different ways that a youth could look.
But, um, I think that a lot of those like looked really goofy.
And I think that that wasn't necessarily the vibe we wanted to be, wanted something that
was like chill.
Um, and like we have like the, like the smiling faces, like, you know, kind of like, um, he's
like, you know, he's kind of mischievous, you know, he's kind of like, he's kind of a
D gen, which is like something that we wanted.
But I think that like, yeah, it's tough on a generative side, less so with layering and
more to just like have a cohesive, um, feeling across the whole collection with so many different
expressions.
Um, I think like you can kind of like overdo it and it can kind of kill kind of the vibe
that you're going for.
So that was tough.
We had to do a lot of cuts for that, but I think it helped.
Um, I do miss personally, like I love the D God expressions from like the season one D
gods and, um, like, I love those and I like personally, uh, would love to see them come
back.
And so I think we're figuring it out, but like, I think like that really helps the collection
there.
And, um, so I think like, yeah, I totally agree.
Expressions are super important, but it's also super, super tough to nail.
That's awesome.
That'd be, that'd be pretty sweet to see those old expressions come back.
Yeah, I think, and I think also, um, an underrated thing about emotion is that sometimes it doesn't
have to be like a distinct expression.
I think we've found that with the D guys, there's a certain energy in just emotion that
they have in that expression is not necessarily overtly stated, but it, it, like you're saying
people can act like how it, how it feels and how it looks.
And so I think we definitely have, have tried to maintain that energy of like, okay, what
is the D God expression?
What are the use expressions and how do we just make that better?
You know, for season three and season two, um, because yeah, there's also just kind of
like more of an energy behind them too.
That doesn't necessarily mean like, okay, we're going to put a bunch of crazy faces or
something like that.
Nice.
Thanks for that loop.
Let's get on over to Hutchin whale.
What's happening?
What's up guys.
Uh, got a couple of comments and then a question first things first, I think this space is
so cool and, um, I think we need to do more of these because it's just so cool to hear
the whole team.
I know Frank, Frank talks a lot and he falls on the sword a lot and takes all the FUD,
but, uh, it's just awesome to hear some of the artists perspectives and especially publicly
because I feel like a lot of, a lot of collections probably, or a lot of, a lot of people on Twitter
don't understand like the thought that goes behind all this.
And just to hear you guys' take on everything, just kind of like help solidify how much actual
fucking like thought and energy you guys put into this.
So props for that.
And then with regards to the seasons, I think it's, it's really cool that you guys are doing
seasons because like a lot of the OG guys like bond through the changes, like the OG
vibes of like the fucking old days.
And we were in the mud at like five soul.
We didn't give a fuck.
We rep the profile picture, like went through the dead gods process and we fucking bonded over
that.
And one of the cooler things is we have so many new holders now, but like, they don't know,
like they, they don't know like 95% of it, like OG Minaj and like fucking like the trizy
shit.
Like that was hilarious as a community.
And like, when we go through these seasons, I just, I hope that the other people like actively
like take part.
Like, I know you love your fucking apes and your Azukis, but like come fucking play, like
play in the fucking sand, get to know the community a little bit because that's literally
what fucking makes us like the D-Gen shit and the shoeies.
It's, it's all awesome.
But like the real, like we fucking love the art.
So, um, that was my commentary in terms of, uh, the question.
So, um, like as the OG, like Babushka guy, like, I think I can speak for Babushka Dow.
We love what you guys did, but like it didn't like with the dead gods, you didn't necessarily
have to force the Babushka.
And I feel like it was forced a little bit.
Like, so like, how do you think about how you're changing traits, like alien glasses,
for example, or like Babushka, where like, we love those traits as holders, but I think
we're like ready for change.
So how are you thinking about like keeping certain traits that are awesome, but like
derugging certain traits or is everything just completely going to be totally different
or just like upgraded versions?
You don't have to divulge too much.
Yeah, I think, um, can I be corporate frank for a second and let's not talk about any
specific traits here.
Yes.
Yes.
To not move anymore, you know, like, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I'm trying to think, but you can talk about it high level.
I mean, but yeah, yeah.
High level.
I think that like, we like the, the two words that we had for D gods when drawing dead
gods was like, we wanted to look chad and handsome.
And I think that like, we did that.
Uh, but I think like, we also like could have done it better.
And so I think that like, overarchingly, like we just want to make D gods better.
And I think that like, we have a really good idea of like what that means and like what
that looks like.
And so, um, I think it comes from like, although what we were talking about before is like, we
just deeply, deeply, deeply care about you as an individual and we want to make something
that you will love and, um, be proud to like rep.
And so, yeah.
Love that.
I guess on a high level, what I can contribute here too is the thing is like when you change
one trait alone, like this is part of why we call them seasons and why we want them to
be, you know, the entire collection to look and feel different, whether that's colors,
whether that's, you know, the actual illustration style, whether that's the, the shape and the
feeling and this weight of the trait itself.
Um, it helps like take away from like, Oh, about one specific trait, like, Oh, the babushka
got changed into this or that.
It's more like, Hey, like we have a new vision and direction that we're taking the project
and like the art informs that.
And I thought it was so powerful what you said, Hutchin, um, you know, about, about like
D gods and like going to dead gods was such a moment and it created such a bonding.
It's, it almost like sealed the history of like the previous parts of the project and
opened up D gods to like the new chapter.
Right.
And I think people are underrating the effect that that's going to have on youth because
for a lot of D god holders, they've been through that and it's going to be very exciting.
Like, don't get me wrong, but with youth, I think it's going to, what it's going to do
is say like, Hey, this was a time capsule.
The OG youths were at the time of like tubes and the tube delay.
And I was there for that.
And then it's like, Oh, nothing was fucking happening on polygon or whatever.
And it will kind of mark the end of like nothing happening for youths and start this era
where like youths becomes a lot more of the main character in its own way.
Um, and so like that, I think is on a, on a simple, like psychological level, it's going
to be a visual indicator that like, Oh yeah, there is now progress and change happening.
And it's the start of that.
So I think people underrate the effect that dead gods had on the D gods community because
it almost seal the chapter of like, Oh, this was the time where D gods was struggling
and trying to figure it out.
And dead gods was like, okay, now we've like, quote unquote, died and come back to
life and climb the top of the fucking mountain.
Like what's next?
And what, what, what, what fun can we not get through quite literally?
Like the whole meme of the D gods art is like, they're scarred, they're battered, but
they're still standing upright and they're fucking looking at you.
And like, there's something that was very real in the real world about what that meant
for the community.
And so I think a lot with youths, a lot of what people wanted with utopia, utopia was a
fucking lie.
Like these things that we're kind of putting out into the ether right now, they're going
to come back in a big way and kind of create a much deeper story that that's all tied into
real life.
And man, like I know I'm sometimes going on these rants, but sometimes I think what we
just do differently is we're not trying to tell the story of our bond and like the
fucking wizard scrolls or whatever.
We're trying to tell the story about real life.
And, and even like the provocative phrase, like utopia was a lie.
Well, what does that mean?
It's like everyone that bought a U or got into youths was told the story of like utopia.
Oh, it's a curated community.
But guess what?
Like a lot of the people that got utelists sold, it's like, oh, we want equal rarity,
but you know, equal rarity now every, it's a fucking stable coin.
And it's like, there's like this real world narrative that's playing out.
How do we weave in the narrative of like the NFT world and the youths themselves into
this elegant final package?
And utopia was a fucking lie.
Time for the uprising.
Time for the uprising.
Let's go.
I love it.
Well, look, let's get on over to the scribbler.
What's happening?
You, my guys, thanks for letting me up.
Smokey, it's been a honor, honor, man.
Frank, I love you.
I love you so much.
And it's been a honor to be here, like sharing the stage with Johnny and Candy Apple.
Like, they're like my inspirations, man.
I started my NFT career as an artist by seeing D-Gods, man.
Like, fuck, what a collection they have made.
Like, I've put most of the tweets with D-Gods.
I started my doing, like seeing the D-Gods, how the art is like.
And it's amazing, man.
I'm just excited for the season three and, you know, the youths too.
I'm just super excited, man.
Like, fucking excited.
I don't know what to say.
It's like the first time being in a space, like with Frank.
And I'm emotional, man.
I'm just fucking emotional.
And I just have one question to, you know, the Johnny and Candy Apple, man.
Like, do you guys have any plans?
You know, I know the new recolors are the great things, you know, with the backgrounds
for youths and D-Gods.
Are you guys experimenting with any different backgrounds for the season three and youths
too?
I think that probably, I'm not too sure how it'll go down for youths.
But for me, the backgrounds are probably like my favorite traits in the D-God collection.
They're so slept on.
I think they're a massive character to the D-God.
And so I'm personally just very excited about those.
But yeah, I think those are, and it's fun because like, I remember like crazy backgrounds
used to be a thing.
And like OG, like, I think like Solana NFTs are just NFTs in general.
And now you don't see them as much, like different backgrounds.
And I think it's a fun addition.
So I'm excited about them.
But dude, I've seen you on the timeline all over.
And I've always wanted to say, I fuck with your PFT, bro.
It's sick.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks a lot, my man.
Like, you know, I think you're seeing my youth, I guess.
But yeah, the one thing I want to buy this year, I just want to, you know, don't want
to buy it on floor.
I just want to buy like yours, you know, you're the heat wave glass.
Like, fuck yeah, man.
Like, I just want to be like Johnny, man.
Come on, let's, let's fucking go, man.
It's been a great honor, Frank.
Like, fucking go, bro.
I'm just super excited.
I don't know what was the same.
I'm just super excited.
The space is so good.
So good, man.
Love it.
Thanks for coming up, Scribbler.
Great to have you.
Let's get on over to Brandal.
You know, I, I, I don't want to take away from the art focus and I'm going to bring it
back to that, but I just wanted to speak to Frank's point about sort of the, the expectation
that, that, you know, the up only and the constant pressure from those people and sort
of the, the, the lack of a, of catalyst at the moment.
Um, you know, not, not all of the developments and the action has to come from you guys actively
putting out constant content.
Uh, you know, uh, you know, uh, the bridge is technologically finished user on Polygon.
Um, but there's a, there's a cultural bridge as well.
And this is something we discussed last night on our, uh, Polychads, uh, spaces and actually
big Neil in the audience from deterrence brought this up, but the founders on Polygon, they really
are excited to participate with the Utes and, and have that community.
And, you know, we were talking to them about being available, being prepared for that moment,
stepping out to make the effort to bridge that gap, uh, yourself, instead of waiting for the
Utes bridge to bring you some kind of glory out of nowhere.
Um, but I think your, your new art direction is going to be really exciting.
Um, but one of the ways that, that we could tie that in with what's going on on Polygon is
there's actually a lot of, uh, meta right now around collab art is collab art as something
that you guys have considered, uh, or would consider, um, because I know we do have some
pretty design heavy projects coming out, uh, that, that could fit into, uh, a nice, you
know, side direction, some, some, uh, some of the details while the big moves are happening.
Nothing on the, uh, on the outlook right now.
Pretty, pretty heads down.
Um, I keep the artists in a basement.
I gotta stop joking about that.
Uh, cause I think some people took it seriously in the past.
Um, there was a basement at one point, but it was like a nice fucking basement.
Okay.
It was someone tweeted is like Frank is keeping candy and his wife hostage in a basement.
I'm like, bro, what the fuck?
It's so wild.
It was a nice bit.
It was a good ass baby candy.
It was a good basement.
No, it was a good basement, bro.
It was a massive basement.
And it was, it was like, you had a carpet.
There was a movie theater, bro.
It was sick, you know?
Yeah.
We chose to go to the basement cause it was, it was too, uh, all the nerds were upstairs.
The artists went downstairs.
It was, uh, by choice.
And then now today it's like, we've got a bunch of people that he got house, but I told
Johnny candy, let's get the garage cleared up and, uh, let the boys fucking cook in there.
I'm always trying to sneak out and like not do the, the, the corporate Frank stuff and
work with the cool kids.
But, you know, sometimes duty calls, uh, trying to set it up so I can help with the final leg
of some of these sprints right now on the art side.
But, uh, yeah, this is some of that public riz of Kevin, if you're listening, um, you
know, but yeah, I mean, that's something to riff on too, is just at the end of the day,
man, the core product is the art.
And that is what like the nuclear piece of a lot of this is.
And then everything else kind of radiates out from that.
And I think a lot of D got holders, a lot of you holders came in because there's something
about the art that stood out to them or piqued their interest.
And then you end up staying and like getting deeper in the community because you find other
people that also resonate with that.
So I'm, as much as I'm a crypto nerd, I like all the tokenomics stuff and like, we're never
going to forget that.
And it's a big part of what makes, you know, crypto art, NFT art.
It's you, you can't take the NFT out of the art, right?
It's like the way that we interpret and build interesting experiences using technology with
the blockchain, et cetera, with the art is what gives it value.
But, um, yeah, man, the JPEG has got to look really fucking good at the end of the day.
Love it.
Well, let's get on over to Jakey and then we are going to close out this space, but what's
going on, Jakey?
Yo, yo, happy Monday to everybody.
I hope everybody's having a great day.
Um, shout out Johnny, shout out to Candy Apple.
Those are the fucking guys right there.
Um, I do have a question that's kind of irrelevant to the topic a little bit for Frank.
Um, there was a time there, I don't know, a few months back where you were pretty heavy
on the content side, right?
You were, uh, doing those like live streams and that's something I heavily enjoyed.
Um, I know you like mentioned a little bit too about doing like, uh, you know, just a
building in public, like, you know, kind of content series on Twitter.
I want to know with D-Gods season three or two coming up, do you plan on, you know, doing
those live streams again, that those, those content pieces?
Cause that was just something I really enjoyed.
Yeah, we do want to ramp up again on the content.
Look, I guess this is like, we are wrapping up right now.
I'll be very honest.
Um, the way I see it is we're probably X number of weeks away from like the full on kind
of D-Gods and Utes hype cycle kicking off again, um, could be, could be not as long
as people think, could be a little bit longer.
I know it's all going to be scoped within Q2 for sure.
And, uh, once that kicks off, it's like, yeah, we're going to do all those things.
And like, you're going to, it's going to be very hard not seeing people tweet about
D-Gods and Utes on your timeline.
And I think hopefully at this point, we've proven ourselves over and over again on like,
when I say that we're going to like kick off the cycle, like I mean it.
And I think we know how to engineer that to, to maximize virality, maximize impressions
and all of this stuff.
The, the, the thing is the bigger that we get, there's no trickery involved, right?
We just have to deliver something that's dope that people actually think is cool because
the bigger we've gotten, the more people pick apart every little detail of what we do.
And we recognize that.
So yeah, like, I just don't want to start the fucking, you know, I don't want to start
the fucking excitement before it's time to start the excitement.
But when we do, it's like, you know, that's when, you know, it's actually time.
Um, I guess that's my thoughts on it, but we experimented a lot with a lot of different
mediums and it's all toolkits in the arsenal at this point.
So there's, we've, I think we just have a lot of toolkits in our arsenal right now.
It's like, okay, what makes most sense for this campaign or for this launch?
And then how do we execute that to blow it out of proportion?
Um, yeah.
Nice.
Well, great question.
Thanks for coming up, Jakey.
And, uh, I just want to thank Johnny Candy Apple and Frank for coming up here and all
the speakers and all the listeners that came for the space.
I think that this was a super great space, really, really great to hear your guys' perspectives
as artists.
And I think it's really important and I think it's something that's not done enough.
Um, so, and I just want to, you know, personally thank both of you guys and Frank, you know,
just, just for, for the changes in my life that has happened since I joined the youths
community and, and have been able to identify, uh, you know, with my youth and be involved
in this community.
And that couldn't have happened without the amazing art that you guys have put out.
So, uh, really appreciate you guys and, uh, looking forward to everything that is coming
out.
I will be anxiously awaiting.
Uh, so, all right, everyone.
I hope everyone has a good start to the week and we will see you all next week.
All right.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
