[Thoughts #38] Derivatives and Metas

Everything is a remix 😵‍💫

Anyone that’s into NFTs knows about derivatives and metas. The space is currently in a free mint meta mushed with a goblin and ugly art meta. Countless derivatives are popping up around these themes.

For the uninitiated, let’s go over what derivatives and metas look like in other industries.

Memes

Meta

Derivatives

Music

Meta

Derivatives

Fashion

Meta

Derivatives

Interesting right? Putting it into a framework because I’m really good at making shapes.

Taking it a step further, I believe there can be different layers of metas and derivatives like so:

So what does this look like with NFTs?

Derivatives and Metas in NFTs

So what’s going on with derivatives and metas in NFTs? A lot, and at an iterative speed that startups would be jealous of.

Remember Goblintown? It’s now a meta in NFTs.

What do you mean TPan? Well, buckle up, here’s the small sample of derivatives that have followed this goblin meta, without pictures to spare our eyes.

Goblin Grlz, baby goblinz, GoblinAI, goblinpisswtf, Goblin Land, Pixel Goblintown Pooping Goblinz, the list goes on. And this is what it looks like based on the framework.

But an argument can be made that Goblintown has actually created multiple sub-metas, more like this.

Another example of this would be Bored Ape Yacht Club with Ape characters, granting commercial rights, and airdrops.

Note that Goblintown didn’t necessarily create all of these sub-metas but rather revived some, particularly the Free Mint meta. Similar to how Crocs were sorta always a thing but have become popular again for other reasons.

Takeaways

As always, so what?

Trendspotting: We don’t need to be experts in knowing what the new cool thing is, but having a spidey-sense of what the next ‘thing’ might be is a valuable muscle to build. And it doesn’t have to be with only cultural topics like music or memes. It applies to work as well, with the term being pattern recognition. For example, when the Federal Reserve raises rates, what typically happens? Number go down 😭 If companies are relying less on paid marketing like Facebook Ads what happens?, They’ll likely leverage other channels like community building or content marketing to advertise their products.

Creating your own meta: This is really hard to do, but if you’re able to pull it off you’ll cement yourself in the history books of whatever field you’re in. Though only the first chapters in the book of NFTs have been written, several projects have and will continue to be cited time and time again due to the novel concepts and ideas they have introduced into the space.

Creating defensible derivatives: If you go the derivative route, there’s nothing wrong with that. However, if you want to increase the chances of the derivative being a success, make it unique. Below is a great example of Zedd remixing two metas (the Squid Game theme song and Do It To It, a popular EDM song) together to create a masterful derivative that premiered at a major music festival last year.

Noodles is a derivative based on Doodles. However, their unique angle is that they are the only Doodles-approved derivative. This allows Noodles to move forward with a roadmap without any concerns of being taken down due to copyright concerns.

And with that, I’ll leave you with this…

See you tomorrow folks! 😂