Web3 + Comedy = The Rug
The mostly credible news source in Web3.
Deemed the mostly credible news source in Web3, The Rug is a group of comics who spun up out of the BanklessDAO. We currently sell limited edition NFTs of news articles that satirize Web3 events. Whether real or imaginary material, our goal is to leverage humor and wit to expand the imprint of cryptocurrency and offer reprieve in an often tumultuous environment. The simplest way to explain The Rug?
“It’s like The Onion, but for crypto.”
We take money, seriously.
When The Rug launched Issue #0 on Nov. 13th, it pulled in 205 likes, 111 RTs, and sold out 69/69 editions at .042 ETH <48 hours. The ETH was split evenly amongst all of our contributors.
Since launching our first tweet Nov 12, we’ve shot up to >2,300 Twitter Followers. We’ve recently crystalized into our own Discord server and are currently on-boarding a new batch of writers.
Why Mirror?
We chose this as our NFT launch platform because it’s truly decentralized (unlike OpenSea) and for its literary vibe, which felt like a proper house for a periodical. Also, it enabled us to create a smart contract that would evenly distribute payments in a single transaction - something we could not do on OpenSea, or Rarible. Mirror FTW.
Ethos from our first issue.
Our first feature article unpacks our ethos a bit. We were all chatting about how NFT dissenters had this whole “just a jpg” attitude pertaining to this wildfire trend that dwarfed all of the other trends in 2021. From our view it was sort of fascinating how people couldn’t see why thousands of re-printed Van Goghs, showing Starry Night sold for $37 on Amazon, but the original, which is housed in NYC at the MoMA, was valued at over $111M.
So we were sort of ‘cut up’ by this idea of The MoMA going out of business due to a “Right-Click Save As” attack, and decided to run that as our first feature article.
Process from second first issue.
As the second issue was being produced The Rug began to see more of a streamlined process. Effectively, a whole new glossary was born from simply having done it once. We had a better sense of article size length, titles, and word counts. We expanded our group as well, and tightened our workflow. We're very proud of Issue #1.
Enhancing our modality.
We’re always seeking new ways to incorporate different themes. For example, we’d done classifieds, so we tried our hand at fake ads, and movie titles. What came out of that was the MetaTheater. Who doesn’t want to see Edward Paperhands, Shrekt, and Dude, Where’s My Wallet? We liked it so much we spun it up again in Our Holiday Issue, so people could go see Miracle on (3,3) Street and Dai Hard.
Continuing to spin a’ yarn.
We’re aiming to bake in more utility with our existing NFT contracts, (POAPS, ‘Rug Collectors’ Discord access, unique collectors Items, “wen token?”, etc). So far we’ve minted Issue #0, Issue #1, Issue #2, and Issue #3. We’re shipping two more (Issue #4, Issue #5), and that will be the end of Volume 1. We’ve affectionately dubbed this first half-dozen The Rug OG Web3 Comedy Collection_v1.
For Volume 2 we’re looking at using a different model (possibly timed-release).
Our goal is to build funny content that the Web3 community can consume, and share for free. Since people also enjoy the limited edition collectible component, we are happy to include that and find new ways to make it valuable. Beyond that, when we run an article or send a tweet, and it’s well received, that’s us doing our job.
The Rug less traveled.
So where does it go from here? If you’ll permit an anachronistic metaphor, we are but a wandering worn-out traveler ambling up to a dimly lit inn after close, softly knocking on the door, and humbly requesting a room, with the hope to share in a warm drink and spin a yarn or two, for those fellow travelers on this dusty road-less-traveled.