Lessons From Radiohead

I want to say upfront that I don’t know a damn thing about Web3. Not really. But this is how I got even this far.

My first job worth mentioning was as a managing editor at a music and vinyl website. I am a musical omnivore with a deep love for live music. Along with this came a loathing of Ticketmaster and scalpers. I learned little tricks to maximize my chances of getting a ticket at on sale, like logging in beforehand to minimize the chance of getting kicked out and joining online fan groups that might have inside info.

Later, these tricks became instrumental in getting Covid-19 vaccination slots for my beloveds when they were in short supply, as finding vax slots employs essentially the same skills as finding Radiohead tickets. 

I grew my network, running my own group called Show Buddies that facilitates Washington, D.C.,-area ticket sales at face/cost, and I admin’ed small groups on email and then later WhatsApp. I was dubbed the Ticket Fairy because I am excellent at finding concert tickets that my friends or I want, even when it seems impossible. I have never missed out on a ticket that I really wanted and, on principle, I never pay over cost. 

From music site editing, I moved on to jobs in tech comms, marketing, and product management, including a stint as the Editor-in-Chief of an IT digital magazine for a government consulting firm. For this, in 2015, I was #11 out of 30 on Hinge’s Most Eligible List in the Policy and Law category even though my job was only peripherally related to policy and law. (They did not care, and I got zero dates from this.) More usefully, I obtained some pretty high certs in Agile development and wrote proposals that won multi-billion dollar tech contracts.

It wasn’t all that fancy. While I was freelancing in between jobs and later as a side-gig, I bartended or worked related jobs in the service industry like bottle service or promo work. “Who wants a free shot? You just need to tell me which country Irish whiskey is from!” Yes, I said that. In a crop top.

I started buying crypto in 2017, starting with Ethereum. I watched ETH move, learned how she liked to slither, and tried to predict her leaps, pivots, and sways. When she crashed from ATH, I knew she would return, and I kept DCAing. I stayed away from the market when I was broke or when I was scared, like at the beginning of the pandemic, but I would always return, too. (“Diamond hands,” I whispered.)

During all this time, I’d somehow maintained my networks of ticket fiendz, more intact than not even after a year or two of horribly streamed or recorded concerts watched from the couch while clutching a bottle of wine you didn’t bother pouring into a glass because who cares everything is meaningless and you have reached the end of Netflix.

My good friend Josh, who had gone to shows with me for a decade, had gotten into Web3 while he was off saving, or at least feeding, the world with World Central Kitchen. We tracked ETH prices and talked for six months, maybe a year, about doing something in Web3 together. He got involved with a DAO called Friends with Benefits, likened the Soho House of DAOs, as a member of their Host Committee as well as Learning Channels Lead. Josh hosted an FWB happy hour at Songbyrd, a local music venue, last spring, and I attended. 

Unbeknownst to me, so did a few other guys who had the same goal as Josh of growing the Web3 community in D.C., and they serendipitously met and fell in LOV3. W3DC was born.

When W3DC held its first event in June, of course, I volunteered because Josh was one of the founders. Because I was having a spectacularly bad day [tbh fling], I just bartended because I didn’t feel like socializing, but I met most of the gang, and I liked them all instantly.

And I also realized within minutes of being there, without talking to anyone, that even with my bachelor’s in Information Systems, MBA, tech experience, and years of buying crypto, I knew  less than Jon Snow about Web3. If anyone should know something, it should be me, right? I even have a fintech cert that includes a crypto specialization. But everything I’ve learned to date just makes me more aware of all that I don’t know and want to learn.

I wanted more. I hooked up with Weld Recruiting and started submitting my resume for Web3 jobs. What better time to position myself in the industry than crypto winter? I learned through applying for positions that Web3 doesn’t just need builders, NFT artists, and policy wonks. (This is D.C.) Web3 needs marketers and strategists, ops, product, and comms people… 

And everything is so shiny and new that no one has Web3 experience yet. One interviewer—for a senior-level management position, no less—said something about “D-A-Os” and seemed surprised that I even knew to call it a “dow.” Apparently, a lot of other people know as little as I do, and that is fairly comforting. We’re all navigating this Wild West together.

I didn’t see any of the W3DC crew again until August when Josh, who also helps manage Community and Curatorial Logistics at Arkive, hosted a museum trip to the Phillips Collection. Several of us are also Arkive members. They said they needed help starting a newsletter, which I had done at other jobs, so I volunteered to write theirs. (Upcoming!) 

I went to their Web3 networking and job-hunting event with Weld at Nighthawk Brewery. I attended D.C. Startup Week and recruited more members to the W3DC community. In Discord, I tried to speak more frequently because I know from running my communities how sucky it is when no one participates, and I tried to answer questions when I could because I know how busy the founders are. So, naturally, I became their Discord Community Manager. 

Concurrently, at Arkive, I voted on acquisitions (yesss, Team Vogue Fans), offered to host a trip to the O Street Museum (TBD), and always tried to remember to say “gm gm.” Through W3DC, I had met artists, musicians, gamers, and small business owners who were leveraging Web3 to enhance their work, selling NFTs or original pieces of music, or promoting themselves through events and social media. But, again, I felt like an imposter, a fraud. What do I know about art, especially decentralized art, really?

I have shares in a few works via Masterworks (including my prize, Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop, a Picasso, and a Kusama painting of a red pumpkin named RED GOD). Also, I own a couple gauche or unassuming pieces by WRDSMTH, instantly recognizable by anyone who’s been to the LA area, Robert Montgomery, and a few D.C. artists. I was a decent sketch artist and worked at an art supply store in high school, and I enjoyed Art History in college—even considering majoring in it whenever I was distraught from tech or business classes.

At one point, an event management company for which I had bartended for years asked me to be their Director of Operations, so my side-gig became my gig-gig for a while. They have ties to the D.C. arts scene, as two of its three founders are successful artists, so I worked many exhibitions and museum events, along with private events, music festivals, and everything in between. I got a better sense of the arts community and had a fantastic time working alongside some dope artists and curators who moonlight as bartenders.

Still, I did not feel like any of that qualified me to be any kind of art curator. Why should my vote matter?  

Recently, I went back to my roots and bartended W3DC’s event with Lobby3 featuring Andrew Yang as a speaker and panelists from Republic Crypto, Circle, Humanity Forward, and Blockchain Association. Big time! I wasn’t trying to write a love letter, but I am so proud to be part of all of it in a small way, proud of the community for turning up and out, and proud of my friends for what they’ve built and continue to push forward.

And, frankly, I’m proud to be writing this article at all because that means that even my voice—everyone’s voices—is being heard by Arkive. And that does make me feel qualified.

The power of Arkive and W3DC is in their success building communities in which everyone feels a sense of pride and ownership and is empowered to take action. Arkive has one of the most active and involved online communities I have ever seen. And when I meet W3DC members IRL, the difference that I see when they return to Discord is profound. They care. As you can see, I did the same thing, too. When you promote a vibe in the community that everyone is qualified and that their vote counts, they start believing it themselves.

Community is foundational to Web3, exemplified in DAOs. I learned how important community engagement is when I got or helped friends get twenty-six tickets to the 2018 Radiohead tour. That’s also how I scheduled or helped friends schedule twenty-eight covid vaccinations for twenty-eight people whom I or they love. Community is priceless. And community, like art, can be curated by anyone.

I don't have a job in Web3 yet, but I’m in talks with a few companies, and things are looking good. In the meantime, I’m having fun bartending at a music venue nearby. The Smile is playing in a few weeks, and two of its three members are Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood. It’s not quite Radiohead, but I’ll take it.