The Metaverse Podcast - Art for DeFi with Pplpleasr
Primer: Join Jamie Burke as he interviews DeFi's high-quality meme generator, otherwise known pseudonymously as Pplpleasr. She talks about her journey into the crypto world and shares how she accidentally got into this niche intersection between the DeFi and NFT space.
Who is Pplpleasr?
Introduction by Jamie
Featured on Fortune Magazine's crypto cover and NFT series
Launched and started PleasrDAO - honorary member in the DAO
Influenced by Chinese/Japanese art, animated films, underground music scene, video games in her art
"You're best known as DeFi high-quality meme generator. Who would have thought that was a career but you showed the world it really is. Interesting to know what your family thought of that career choice. I'm sure they're over the moon about it now, but doing it is probably quite weird."
- Jamie Burke
Her Crypto Journey
A brief journey of Pplpleasr's journey into the crypto world:
College years
First heard of cryptocurrency in college
Did not have any money back in 2014 and was not sure of crypto
Too busy finding a job to have the bandwidth for anything else
Discovered crypto subreddit
Had been working and saving up around 2017
Looking for places to invest but did not know anything about traditional finance like stocks & bonds
Was an avid Reddit user and discovered cryptocurrency subreddit
Was initially drawn in by the language used in it
Had a new age internet native culture that appeals to a younger crowd
Learnt about blockchain and found it to be revolutionary
ICO days
Bought ICO coins and rode through the peak and trough of the market
Thought this was the new way of finance/investing, until the bear market hit
Hard to convince parents that crypto is a real thing and not a scam, especially during the downturn
"I was trying to convince my parents because I was initially like, look, you know, I'm like 10x my money. But then when the bear market hit, I lost all my money again and my parents were like, see, this is not a real thing."
- Pplpleasr
Went back to her regular life and job after that and put DeFi aside
Held on to her tokens during the downturn and because they dropped so much that it made no sense selling
Firmly believe in the technology and that the price will go back up one day
"I held because I was like, look, my $3,000 that I put in has plummeted to like $600. Why would I sell now? And because I truly did believe in the technology. So I was like, well, you know, it's probably gonna go back up one day."
- Pplpleasr
DeFi summer
Her good friend made good money farming during DeFi summer and she got interested again
Unemployed during that period and needed income desperately
Jumped in, wanting to earn some passive income
In hindsight, her unemployment status and a lack of savings made her more courageous
She took more risks because she had less to lose and did not have much to begin with
Jamie said that she is an exemplary Degen in the DeFi space
She does not come from a financial background and her DeFi literacy is self-taught
Deep-dived into DeFi out of sheer necessity to earn an income
"I'll admit there were times where I understood what was going on through forceful learning. And then there were other times I just kind of went with it like, or at least pretended to know, what was happening, you know. Like people in DeFi will be conversing about this and I'll be like, yeah, totally."
- Pplpleasr
Her knowledge is very shallow compared to her peers who are actively building and doing DeFi
Even after reading the whitepaper, she sometimes has no idea what is happening but still has to continue and make an animation for the project
She is the perfect guide to the DeFi world for normies
Her struggles in understanding DeFi is precisely why she can empathise enough to come down to the level of the average people
She tries to make it understandable to herself first as if she is explaining to a 5-year-old
"I was also in a way making it more digestible for myself, right? Like, honestly, it was more of like, explain like I'm five to myself. And then while I'm doing that, I might as well use a visual medium to explain it. And then maybe when other people watch it, they can also understand."
- Pplpleasr
First animation for DeFi project
Started a Twitter account to learn more about the DeFi space
Noticed that DeFi promotional efforts mostly revolved around memes
Uses the same language that she knew and spoke
Reminded her of the culture and language used while she was browsing around the crypto subreddit
Those memes are not done professionally at all - remembered making a joke that perhaps those projects should hire her to do the memes instead
"It was a joke I made. I said, haha, you know, I noticed all these memes, but nobody who's actually making them has obviously spent a lot of time on this. And just because I needed a job, I was like, they should just hire me, I'll totally do their job. That's literally how it started."
- Pplpleasr
At that time, Blue Kirby - an influencer for Yearn Finance - was looking for someone who is good at video editing
Her friends sent Blue Kirby her works on Instagram and he was impressed
Started collaborating on a crypto project called YFI and made her first animation for them
In the past, she was just a passive investor. She became an active contributor after her second entry into crypto during the DeFi summer
Creative or DeFi?
Did Pplpleasr identify herself more with the creative or the DeFi community?
Even though she started pre-DeFi summer, she was not part of the Ethereum community
She considers herself as a normie who had exposure to crypto
She definitely came to crypto because of DeFi, rather than NFT
Took a different path from the average creator because she stumbled into DeFi first and was too busy to look into the world of NFT
Even though she was introduced to NFT and DeFi at the same time through Blue Kirby, she started DeFi before NFT
The DeFi and NFT communities are so separate that she only has time for one because she was too busy doing commission work for DeFi projects
In the beginning, doing this creative work is just to make some side income
If she learned DeFi, she can use it for creating investment memes to earn a commission.
Alternatively, if she goes back to get a real job again, she can do DeFi in her free time
Her Big Break
Animation for Uniswap V3 teaser
When she was working on this animation, she knew it was going to be a big deal
Had an aha moment where she thought of dropping the animation as an NFT
Hit two birds with one stone and let her name be on the radar in the NFT space
Turned out to be a good plan - NFT was sold for 310 ETH, over $500k at that time
Previously her commission work was between 3k to 5k
A bunch of her supporters and fans got together to form a DAO to bid for this NFT
They succeeded in winning the bid and that is how PleasrDAO began
Must Art be non-commercialised?
Felt that the NFT art community did not treat her seriously as an artist because most of her works are commercial meme art for DeFi products
Hopes that in the metaverse and Web3, we do not have to carry pre Web3 notion of what art is
Anything can be art and the subject matter should not matter
She can also be independent and has the creative freedom to do what feels right when doing commissioned work in Defi projects
As a creative, it is important to have freedom and just let the subject matter guide you
Front cover for Fortune magazine
Her thoughts on this:
Crypto has a time dilation effect where one month of crypto feels like several months or a year in the real world
Attributed her success largely to luck and being at the right place at the right time
Not a very normal trajectory for creatives like her as it usually takes 10 years in the traditional pre Web3 world to attain her level of success, but she took only months
In the traditional world, creatives like her will aspire to have their own creative visions fulfilled and not be working for anybody
And people get there by either working for others or doing commissions
Freelance work is considered lowly because you're executing other people's vision, almost like a slave to others
But she did not feel that way working in a web3 environment
Being more selective on new projects
After the success of the Uniswap NFT, she was wondering if selling NFT is her purpose
Her personal goal changes all the time
Currently, she sees herself following Linda Xie, helping to spread crypto awareness using visual arts as her medium
She is more selective on projects she works with because she is too busy to do commissioned videos
Wanted to do projects that align with her ethos now, which is to educate people about cryptocurrency
Partnered with Ethereum Name Service (ENS) to reward people who were active in crypto
Airdropped to 100 randomly selected people where they can receive a Pplpleasr NFT for free
Currently trading at 5 ETH
She also did the Ethereum documentary crowdfund in collaboration with Linda Xie around July to make a movie poster as an NFT
Huge success - raised over 1000 ETH over 48 hours
Ethereum: The Infinite Garden
After that, the creative director of Fortune magazine asked if she can do a cover for them for the next issue on cryptocurrency
She jumped on it because she wanted to educate the masses about cryptocurrency
If making a front cover can make the entire crypto community more represented and elevated, and can entice people to learn more about crypto, she wants to use her skills to do that
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