gm yb_effect
Creative Ramblings
In April 2021, inspired by a common practice on crypto twitter, I decided to make a pseudonymous account on Twitter. I called it the yb_effect. The letters YB are my initials and effect references to the butterfly effect - an idea developed by Edward Lorenz that has truly impacted the way I think and live my life. I’ll dive into the reasoning in a future post.
Initially, I really just used the alt account as a way to get over my fear of hitting the tweet button. But eventually, it became pretty fun to test out different ways to attract engagement and experiment with a variety of writing styles. By August of 2021 - a few months after I started the account - I decided to leave my job as a software engineer at Salesforce to pursue writing in the crypto space full time.
My goal was to build a following by teaching others what I was learning about in the web3 world. Right about at the start of my journey as a creator, I came across the Doodles NFT collection on OpenSea and saw the one in the picture above. Immediately, I knew this nft embodied what yb_effect stood for. Just a dope, creative dude ready to learn and share. I decided to buy the piece and set it as my pfp on Twitter. In about 3 months, I took yb_effect’s following from 500 to 11k and landed myself a job at Chapter One, a crypto seed stage fund.
It was in those months that I realized the true power of putting content out there in a consistent matter. In my opinion, it is probably one of the strongest asymmetric bets anyone can take in their professional career. In fact, during my time as head of research at Chapter One, my primary job was to research and build out the firm’s web3 knowledge base. Check out the Chapter One Library. I also started and ran the first cohort of the Chapter One research program where I guided 10 university students in writing 30+ blog posts for the crypto space in 2 months.
After a year of working in the crypto industry, I decided the thing I wanted to do most with my time was really give myself complete freedom to learn, think, and write about whatever I wanted too. And that’s what this blog is for. A means to research and put ideas out there.
I believe everyone should have their own version of yb_effect. Build another identity that you can escape to whenever and just be creative. Most people are highly structured throughout the day because that’s what jobs require. Today, the majority of people depend solely on their jobs as an income source in the labor economy. However, I strongly believe that in this next decade, we’ll see a mass migration of folks moving to a hybrid model. One where they have parallel income streams from the labor and passion economies. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw many talented and ambitious students start to skip the labor economy all together.
I’m not too sure how all of this is going to happen. But that’s the future I want to see - a totally new model for earning income that works for aspiring creators. The passion economy is already well discussed but still far from mainstream mentality. I want to hop in and do my own research to see how I can make an impact in the future of the passion economy. And that’s what this blog by yb_effect is for - to strategize how creators around the world can work together to embrace citizen journalism and help everyone see The Bigger Picture.