Bjarne Melgaard’s NFT project launched to great interest in January- the Norwegian artist is known for his contemporary, utilising often shocking or controversial statements and imagery to explore themes of abuse, addiction, sexuality, and much more. The Lightbulbman is a breath of fresh air amongst the NFT scene: away from generative monkeys and punk rip-offs, fine art in this style is radical and different, a concept which Melgard is more than familiar with.
Never far from controversy, Melgard and LBM curated a ‘Metarave’ — held in the Sandbox. Attendees were able to grab a POAP, as well as catch a lineup of electronic and dance musicians whose style pushed the boundaries with Melgarde adjacent methods. The ‘Metarave’ didn’t go down well with everyone, earning an ant-NFT backlash on Twitter and from press outlets.
Key to any NFT drop is the community around it- without people, the NFT game grinds to a halt. The Lightbulbman is a great example of a thriving, Discord-hub of games, music, gambling, and more to bring art fans together. I spoke with ‘Fett’, one of The Lightbulb Mods at the thriving server about the project and the future of NFT community building in Web3:
How was working with Bjarne Melgaard- Did moderating a project like LBM change your perception of him as an artist?
Before working on LBM my only experience of Bjarne was via a former housemate who also loved a phallic painting from time to time — I thought it was a curious style but never looked deeper into it. Ater meeting Bjarne for the first time at the start of this project, getting to know him, learning his mind, the way he sees the world… I definitely own my LBM proudly.
Did anything surprise you in the build-up to launch?
This wasn’t a conventional NFT project, no gaming, no token, no metaverse utility (we built that ourselves). The start of the project presented a problem for me as a community manager because I had no idea where to start, what to focus on. The team wrote an awesome narrative around Skygge and once we had built the economy and opened the casino, activity in the server more than tripled. Combined with the giveaways we did, collabs we had, etc, it went from very slow to very fast in a short space of time. It took me off guard in the final hours before the burning- there was a strong energy in the discord, probably the best I’ve felt in the space yet.
The LBM ‘Metarave’ went viral and attracted a variety of responses (both good and bad)- what’s your take on it?
24 million people saw it and most of them used it to swing a dig at Facebook, which is easy. It showed perfectly how an entire viral sensation can start off a misinterpreted Tweet. The reaction shows us that not only do people really just associate “The Metaverse” with Facebook, we also know that Furries really do hate NFTs. A particular highlight was when the New York Times quoted me and called me a “Cryptobro”. Of all videos Alex had to take, he could have waited until the gimps came on and I think we’d have bothered at least triple the people!
How has LBM’s community compared to others you’ve been involved with?
Much more Norwegian! This was my first international project (in that sense the Norsk language zone was always busier than the main chat!) We slowly rolled out Skygge as the community was growing to its first 500 members. Then we started with revealing ‘WAT’ as the in server currency and offering a prize to the person who drew what a WAT should look like. The casino then opened and we also started our daily games schedule. Between the mods there were lots of record breaking Gartic games, music quizzes with way too much Macklemore — not to mention the picture games which always got everybody active! We assembled a community ‘Lightlist’ (whitelist) from those who showed the most commitment to the server and games winners. We could then reward those in the community who were being helpful and friendly to one another, especially when helping to break down language barriers.
How crucial is discord to the NFT community right now?
Discord is very much the home of communities within the NFT space and probably will remain that way unless a better alternative becomes available. Discord is great though, you can really build mini-cities in there now with functional community economies. I think more Discord communities need to make sure it’s more than just conversation 24/7- even simple bot games in dedicated channels that people can play at their leisure will keep them coming back.
How do you think we change the everyday person’s perception of NFTs?
Terminology is a big one. Crypto got a rebrand into “web3” when it became clear exactly what Ethereum could do and it needed to look “shiny” — I think we need to move away from NFTs and use “NFT” more as a medium, as we would use paper for example. Digital Collectibles, Tokens, “what have you got on-chain?” And “what’s your digital-like” are phrases I’d quite like to see mass adoption (mostly because I think I coined the latter!).
Can you foresee a shift in community building when it comes to web3?
Community building has always been an important factor since web1, but the dynamic of web3 is knocking that of web2 on the head. In web2 an “entrepreneur” would seek out venture capital from above, with an idea or a product. The next step is to build a community that would buy your product, and the entrepreneur and the venture capitalists take the profits. Those dynamics always had communities at a loss. I’m a sucker for Apple, and Star Wars. Imagine how much of an idiot I truly am when it comes to being caught in that cycle.
Web3 introduces ownership and finance and now a founder can do bottom-up, opposed to top-down when raising funds and this is what most “NFT Projects” are. People are personally investing their own money (for real this time, this ain’t GME) into securing an asset that they then hope to pay back tenfold however long down the line. In that process, a team of founders gets a lump sum to develop their ideas and carry out roadmaps, web3’s less corporate idea of a pitch deck. Now if; for every Boba Fett action figure I owned, I got a split of the royalties attached to him I’d probably love him even more. Boba Fett would be paying my bills.
Ultimately I think that is what every community in the space is reaching for, to be part of something at the beginning in the purest and honest form, and then benefit them in the end as a result of that risk.
As I write, The Lightbulbman sold upwards of 1000 NFTs, with many more being traded on Opensea — LBM has managed to bring together Norwegian art lovers and NFT apes and degens through great community work. With an Alpha-zone and holder-only areas, it looks like there is much more to come from Skygge.
You can still purchase a Lightbulbman on the secondary market.
