https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX_bKvAho2Q
DC: Clubhouse, for us, is a perfect example of a decentralized social media platform. Being such a popular voice on that app, how did that journey start for you?
JC: So, I don't think it's exactly decentralized, it's pretty central in how people come together. I think it's much more, they're trying to make it a platform that's a safe place for a variety of people. Anyone can get on and have a conversation. I don't think it's perfect yet, but they're doing their best to get there. But, I do agree with you, I think it's been a platform that's offered many people who have not had a voice. Certainly, underserved communities have benefited from it in terms of allowing people to come together. I think that's one of the coolest things. I got on the platform May 21st - invited by some friends on May 21st of 2020. I remember them saying it was this cool place where there were a lot of interesting people talking. They knew that I came from Radio and audio, and I do a lot of speaking, and it would be a great place to jump in. When I first got on the platform, it was a super heavy Venture Capitalist / Finance / tech user base. That's because when any new application jumps off, those are usually the first people to get on it. Especially people that are into future Tech. I found it really interesting because there weren't that many people talking about culture. So, after having been on a few stages; and for those not familiar with the Clubhouse "speaker-stage," it has an audience stage, and people can move in and out of the two. Which makes it really cool, and super simple, and allows people to interact with speakers. It really plays into that club mentality that they're building.
When I found it - George Floyd was really happening at that point - it was the moment where a lot of it was coming together. While I wasn't necessarily trying to get people on to talk about it, there was a lot happening in the world of culture around it. Especially in New York City, with a lot of the protests that were happening. SoHo, Manhattan being boarded up. A lot of artists were coming in and really using those canvases, those plywood walls. And I thought about people that I could have that conversation with. I thought of Ruba Abu-Nimah, @ruba on Instagram, she's just an incredibly creative mind. And a gentleman by the name of Jian DeLeon @jiandeleon - who I think is one of the best writers in culture, specifically, in the world that we work in. These, and other people I respect to get on board. It happened when Ben Dietz, who's also a friend, was already on board. We all came together and we had this conversation. And for us, that early audience was very small. There were less than 5,000, maybe 10,000 people on Clubhouse at that point. But, what made it really cool was the quality of the audience. And I'm not trying to suggest that it was a privilege being Clubhouse that early on, but more - because it was invited only, and I think it is, it allows you to kind of think about who would participate. Who would give back to the community, in a sense? I looked for people that were willing to talk, to have the conversation, rather than people that would sit in the audience and just listen to what was going on. So that was always really important for me. And that's really how it started for me. I really quickly, in May, understood that this was going to be massive. And there's a lot of people out there that have a lot to say that don't necessarily like being in front of a camera. If you looked at the tools that existed prior to Clubhouse; you had a Zoom, YouTube, etc. But the majority of that stuff, with the exception of podcasting, is all front face forwards. And what makes Clubhouse different from podcasting is that it's live, allows for interaction, and is not taped. So you're in the moment, which I think is really cool. And more importantly, the app allows you to understand who is in the audience and who you can "bring up" or "invite up." Because bios are quite important. I think I want to mention that, because, with most social apps, it's what you do in-feed that's really important. I think in Clubhouse what you put in your bio is what helps people understand what you do, who you are, and how you are willing to participate.
DC: Absolutely, I think that the very few tools in Clubhouse are really well utilized by the community. Because there are so few tools.
JC: Super simple, right?
DC: Totally, and the next question is also Clubhouse related- Personally I got into this space by listening to NFT conversations on Clubhouse.
JC: When did you join Clubhouse?
DC: February of this year - a bit late in the grand scheme -
JC: But still early!
DC: I still feel like there has been a huge shift from then to now. I've gotten at least a taste of what you're talking about on a smaller scale. And the NFT conversation - I still felt super early to the game. I actually minted my first NFT in 2019-
JC: Ooh! Congrats-
DC: Thank you! And it really started blowing up and I was hearing more about it in February and March of this year. And that's when I got in some really cool Clubhouse rooms with people like VPs of Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton on this app. Talking about NFTs and fashion - which is when it really clicked for me. So I'm wondering for someone who is so active on Clubhouse, and specifically in so many rooms about NFTs: Do you feel like a part of the NFT community on Clubhouse? And how do you see NFTs and Clubhouse interacting?
JC: Sure! On a topic like NFTs, if you actually are on Clubhouse, in a matter of a couple of days, by going in and out of NFT rooms - there's a tremendous number of rooms (or clubs as they say). Clubhouse is all based on this club mentality. So you can join a club and It'll notify you when that club meets, or when a room opens up. So I've actually had this conversation with people before where, if you're new into NFTs, or even into another energy that's happening at the moment, you can spend a couple of hours, or Days, on Clubhouse and actually get pretty educated on things. Because the majority of people who know what's going on are there having these conversations. And there are constantly people asking questions, from the very basic to much more complex questions that Pros would ask.
And we have as well. And I'm a huge collector. I have been collecting everything from punk rock fanzines, to sneakers - I'm just a big fan of collecting and euhemerizing. I keep all my concert tickets.
DC: So it makes sense for you - the whole concept.
JC: Yeah! I'm a super-nerd. For me what's exciting about culture is getting deep, deep into something rather than staying on the surface. And with NFTs, I think we almost fell into it a little bit.
We hosted, on our show Culture Club, a room with Beeple and Christie's when he first launched his NFT and really had no idea just where that thing would go. And I think what makes Culture Club very cool, and specifically, ANNEX which is where we do a lot of the NFT conversations, ANNEX is sort of like a sub show off of Culture Club. What's important for us was bringing on an audience and educating them very much in the same lines as we were educating ourselves at the same time. So we bring on experts to whom we would be asking questions that we're pretty sure our audience wanted to know. And it's been really amazing! There's a lot of, as they call, "NFT whales" on Clubhouse. People can really move the needle on an NFT on Clubhouse surprisingly. And it's become one of those platforms. I think Discord is also a huge play, and to some extent Twitch, and Twitter of course; but Clubhouse is where there's quite a lot of conversation. And on any given day there is either an opening or closing party for somebody that's launching an NFT which I think is super cool.
My education on the world of NFTs, less so on the world of tokens and crypto, but definitely within what's happening with NFTs - It's happened there. And it continues to happen there. and where we have a lot of fun is in hosting these opening/closing parties because you can actually watch in real-time how these things transact. Which I think is cool.
DC: Yes! You get some really historic moments in real-time. And I feel that - sometimes I'll just hop into a room and I won't even initially realize the gravitas of the situation that's unfolding in front of me. And I'm like - oh wow! somebody just topped a new record and I was right there. We weren't able to do that before.
JC: You can't understate how amazing it is to talk to not only creators of these digital assets, these digital works; but how you can interact with them on Clubhouse and have that conversation. And again, it happens in real-time.
DC: Absolutely - So one of the conversations that I've been having on Clubhouse lately is around NFTs and publishing. Based on your 13+ years building Highsnobiety, such a multimedia empire, How do you see NFTs affecting the future of publishing, digital or otherwise?
JC: I actually look at it a little bit deeper than that. I think that tokens, in general, are going to really change how publishers interact. In a very simple example, we're about to come out of a world where we've been stuck in our homes, and in our offices, and wherever we are. Now everything's opening up again. And usually at an event, you hold a ticket, or you're on a guest list. But with what you can do with tokens these days, especially around gating, you can actually use wallets to allow for people to enter into events. So FWB, which is "Friends With Benefits," one of the really interesting social tokens out there, with a very large community behind it - they're at Bitcoin week in Miami this week. And I was just looking at their newsletter, and for their big event, you can only enter the event if you hold 60 FWB in a wallet. So I think we're really starting to see real-world examples of where a digital wallet and what's inside that wallet really plays into what's happening in real life. A lot of people, especially if you look at social currencies, Social tokens were very unsure what you would get from it, but very clear that it can lend itself very well to a membership model. So for me, it's not so much about what NFTs are going to do with fashion because I think eventually we are going to be in a place where wearables are going to be incredibly important.
To either own or purchase a wearable when you buy an actual physical good. Or my belief is that you'll be able to apply that to a variety of different worlds or lands within the metaverse, and within gaming. But it's not necessarily just about NFTs, it's about how you were able to begin to partake in communities, especially within fashion, by holding something. And today that something is tokens, in a specific coin, or it's holding an NFT, but we're only really touching the surface. We have no idea where this is going to go. And honestly, it's June 1st today (when we're talking) and I think that the current run has been going since about January or February. And I really think that by the end of this year we're going to start seeing Innovation and how people accept it. And certainly, brands are all trying to figure out how to get involved right now.
DC: I think the thing that you're touching on is the access point, specifically smart contract technology behind this. While every token is different, the fact that they can provide access, or fulfil some kind of authentication process - is amazing!
JC: You nailed it. I was on a newsletter today that required you to have a token in your wallet, and it uses a wallet-connect to allow you to read the newsletter. So it's becoming the new gate, maybe not the new password, but definitely the new access point, as you say.
DC: Not your followers on social media anymore, now you need to buy in somehow.
JC: That's also going to be changing for sure.
DC: Absolutely - Thinking about these elements of access, tokenomics, etc. - Maybe with Highsnobiety in mind, but maybe with digital publishing in general, what else is exciting you at the moment? What do you think is going to happen next throughout maybe this year and next year within publishing?
JC: All of it is on the table. I'm new myself to a lot of this, but if you look at what's happening within Decentraland. If you look at Sandbox, which hasn't launched yet, there's a few different worlds that are coming out. I had Bobby Hundreds, who started The Hundreds line, was on a clubhouse with me once. And he talked about how he went out and bought his kids the best toys, the best things, the best tech. But at the end of the day, all that they wanted was tokens in their Fortnite game. And when I look at my six-year-old son who plays Minecraft and Roblox, and he just started a new Marvel game and I had to buy crystals for him. All they want is these digital coins in order to be able to buy up within those worlds. And I think that for sure is how a generation is looking at things. That doesn't mean that you or I, or even a younger generation, would stop wearing clothing. But there is now this interconnection to something else. And we're going to, 100%, see more and more brands figure out how to enter that space. And maybe it's in the wearable space, but I think that more and more you're going to see this idea of access through membership, via some sort of token system, really beginning to play out. But to get there requires a lot more people to understand and start using digital wallets. The METAMASK and Bitski wallets of the world, citing two of the thousands of examples of wallets out there. And I think we're going to see a lot of innovation in how people look at the wallet, how people use the wallet, how they store it. Today it's on your phone, and that's going to become a place where you turn to often. I use a ".eth" domain, which currently works with a few browsers and a lot of wallets so that I don't need to remember this long string public key for my wallet.
We're getting to a place now where more and more of us won't even have a conversation as to what a wallet is. In the same way that we had a conversation as to what a smartphone is. And I think the big innovation is - and again I think we're at the very early stages - you minted your first NFT in 2019, I bought my first crypto in 2017 - we're still super early on this. And what's going to happen on the blockchain, without getting too deep into it, is going to really advance what we do in the real world, we just don't know how it's going to happen yet. So I'm excited to see where it goes.
