The 'why' of building a Community Flywheel is pretty obvious (to most). Number-go-up token holders, value from a marketing team spend & social noise created by community members. We almost never discuss the 'how', though. Specifically, how do you stop a post TGE flywheel from being pillaged by 'crabs in a bucket' extractors, and how do you make the flywheel spin more efficiently?
Every high-performing network, project, or group eventually faces some sort of cultural dilution. New entrants overwhelm the old by failing to adhere to set cultural norms. New, non aligned participants shift the vibe & good contributors get driven away. The whole thing starts to rot.
The old guard, the 'culture carriers', get drowned out by noise. In theory the solution is simple, but very hard to execute. You have to build a Cultural Immune System, and empower it to fight.
The Unwavering Cultural Barrier
The first line of defense is a strong Cultural Barrier to Entry. This is necessary to stop cultural dilution before it starts. This barrier isn't arbitrary, it's not about message limits or easy-to-game filters. It has to be people-based and policed by vibe curators.
This is why rituals and lore building are so important. They are a community's educational guardrails.
- The Rituals: Attach your barriers to specific ritual practices or 'lore.' New entrants must prove they understand and adhere to the cultural norms, not just the technical specs.
- The Vetting: Cultural leaders, your high-value contributors, do the vetting. This empowers them to police their own space and provides newcomers with a clear opportunity to 'learn' what the culture is truly about.
New entrants get educated or indoctrinated, lurkers get to observe the rights of passage that communicate the culture and carry its values, and those unwilling to participate or contribute are filtered out by those who do add value. This creates a flywheel cycle of cultural defense.
Energy Vampires and The Crab Mentality
Think about adding someone useless to your friends group—accidentally or by force. These people act as energy vampires.
Energy Vampires suck the life force from a group & also degrade the reputations of those who allow them in. They are the complainers, the whiners, the value-extractive forces that deteriorate morale and sap energy from others. It's the friend who conveniently thinks it's time to go home when it's their turn to shout beers. Don't be that guy..
This is intrinsically linked to the Crab in a Bucket Mentality. One crab tries to escape, and the others pull it down. Anecdotally, 90% of crypto participants are crabs in a bucket—they see themselves as victims of circumstance and are unable to pull themselves out of the bucket because they lack the tools and skills to escape.
How does a community deal with the crabs in a bucket mentality?
Filter: Determine if new entrants want to escape the bucket or stay put.
- If they show a willingness to escape, help set them free. Provide them with the tools and resources they need to break free of the bucket. This means learning resources, tasks that give them the means to escape, and clear opportunities to contribute. If they are strong, they will likely fend for themselves and even grow in the outside world, becoming future leaders and contributors.
- If they DON'T, they will be recaptured by the other crabs, or be boiled and eaten by the culture carriers.
Boil and Eat Them: White Blood Cells attack!
Setting and enforcing cultural practices is essential. You must be willing to defend your tribe. This is why people with agency are so powerful. They set the terms within the community by encouraging culture creation by all participants.
You must build a community structure that empowers leaders to act as hungry Americans doing whatever the fuck a seafood boil is:
- Create strong community barriers to entry to find the energy vampires before they can start sucking. You could vet participants via a voice chat or implement a voting system.
- Set and empower strong cultural leaders that have the explicit power to remove, mute, allow or help encourage the bucket crabs into transformation or they get dunked in hot, spiced water.
- Create and adhere to strong, educational rituals for community participants to follow and experiment with.
Building an immune system with strong white blood cells that have agency to actively filter and fight allows cultural carriers to empower others and destroy those who can't. That's how you get a flywheel to spin faster and smoother with every rotation.
Happy eating.
Chop