Dance Party in Decentraland
I entered the metaverse.
And I don’t know what to think about it.
I’ve been curious about Web3 for a while, so I joined BFF to grow my knowledge of it. While I consider myself a techy person, this is a new thing that I still can’t quite wrap my head around fully—and I really want to know how moving towards a decentralized and blockchain-based web is impacting society. I have concerns, but I’m also very curious; so I decided to participate in the BFF community to learn more.
My introduction to Web3 was through an airdropped NFT token from BFF: the BFF Friendship Bracelet. The bracelet served as a sort of “all access” pass to minting NFTs in BFF’s PFP collection. As a lucky recipient of the bracelet, I took advantage of the minting privilege and secured two NFTs created by the artist Jade Purple Brown. Which are beautiful!
I’m an art collector, and I love Jade’s work; so for me, I was eager to support this artist and happy to own unique digital pieces from her. (I don’t recommend buying NFTs unless you are truly interested in the actual work.)
BFF Friendship Bracelet
You #1921
You #7880
After the PFP launch and minting, BFF invited NFT holders to an event in Decentraland to celebrate. So I joined, and it took me back to my college days when I first discovered The Sims. The interface reminded me of early game controls on the keyboard that never seemed to work quite right. The avatar creation was so much like setting up characters on old PC games. It cracked me up how much the Web3 “future” looked like my late ‘90s and early 2000s tech “past.” LOL!
There was a dance party in Decentraland, and you could use your arrow keys to do ridiculous moves. And in the virtual space, you could redeem additional digital assets by moving around the room to virtual merch booths.
It was an interesting experience, but I still don’t totally understand it. I noticed a lot of participants were also very confused about how to navigate the “space” and where to go to claim attendance tokens and digital shirts for your avatar.
I’m still eager to learn more, but I don’t think dance parties in Decentraland will teach me anything about this tech movement or how it can serve society for the better.
Or maybe this is all just about playing (hello again, Sims!); and, if so, then perhaps we can just be happy for that.