How I Learned to Love the Meebits

If you follow me on Twitter (@cyberh49), you might have noticed that I was very disappointed with the Meebits launch, as a collector and as an NFT enthusiast.

First, full disclosure – I own two Meebits, and I love LarvaLabs’ projects, especially CryptoPunks.

I was disappointed with the Meebits launch due to the following reasons –

1. Rushed Launch – I felt as if LarvaLabs didn’t plan the Meebits drop optimally. There was no PR campaign before the announcement, there was no communication or engagement with the community, which most of it loves the CryptoPunks, there was the exploit in the contract which allowed one person to get a very rare Meebit, and to me, the entire release of the project felt as if LarvaLabs were concerned that someone else will beat them to the metaverse, so they wanted to release as quick as they could.

2. Pricing – one of the best things about CryptoPunks, Bored Apes and many other avatar projects is that they started with very affordable prices and gave everyone an equal opportunity to get a rare avatar. In the Meebits case, there were two problems – the first one is that it created an inequality between punk owners and non-owners, as the owners got a Meebit for free, and the non-owners had to pay ~2 ETH per Meebit. It was balanced in the secondary market, where you can still purchase a Meebit (usually a common one) for ~1 ETH, but the inequality remained, as only minting gets you an equal chance to get a rare piece. The second problem was that most people cannot afford to buy an avatar at these starting prices, which leaves many collectors out of the game. In contrast, Bored Apes allowed minting for ~0.1 ETH, which is ~20x cheaper, and look at the community that evolved around them.

3. Body Traits Flexibility – While punks are heads, and you can decide which body you want to add to them, change clothes and go wild, the Meebits are pretty rigid, and while each one is unique, it can’t change clothes, as it will become a different one – meaning, you will have a constant look in the metaverse, which in my opinion, is very limiting, as I’m not a character from a cartoon, and I tend to change my clothes (almost) every day.

4. Multiple Identities – let’s say I created an entire persona around my punk (like, for example, @gmoney, @beaniemaxi, @digitalartchick, and others), I believe I would like that persona to go with me across platforms. Why would I change my identity to one nobody would recognize me in? I believe LarvaLabs should have stuck with something much more similar to punks.

So, after this manifest, why am I still calling this post “How I Learned to Love the Meebits”?

After I talked to a lot of people I appreciate, and some of them really liked the concept of Meebits, I cleared some time to think about this project a bit more, because although my arguments are valid, maybe I did miss something. I was concerned that the people who were all for Meebits are talking like that because they are punk owners, and are rooting for LarvaLabs, and not because of valid reasons, but as I kept analyzing the project, I started thinking – well, there’s a lot of potential here, and, of course, I’ll explain.

I believe that Meebits are a cool type of a decentralized project. Unlike Bored Apes, where the founders navigate the direction of the community (at the moment, at least), the Meebits is decentralized in a sense where you can do almost whatever you want with them (under the terms and conditions of LarvaLabs, of course). LarvaLabs didn’t give any milestones or action items to where Meebits will go, but they did give vox files to each owner, so each owner can make cool stuff with their Meebit. I believe that that’s why we witnessed the rise of a Meebits DAO (@MeebitsDAO) so quickly after the launch of the project (the DAO is not affiliated with LarvaLabs), and I believe we will see more of those coming soon.

The second thing which reminded me of decentralization, in a sense, is how clean the shapes of the Meebits are. From one point-of-view, you might say that an expression a punk or an ape has, gives it personality, but in the Meebits case, you can decide their what their personality may be, which for stuff like animations, derivative projects, vlogs, etc., might be a game changer, as it gives a lot of freedom to the creator. I can’t even imagine where all the community initiative involving Meebits will take us, but I’m sure that once you give the community the power to create, you are going to get projects you didn’t even dream about. I mean, just look at punks – the PUNKS comics, Spottie the rapper, PunKit avatars, RTFKT, and so many more cool projects and amazing personas. I think we’re approaching the beginning of a very cool phase for Meebits, and for this community.

The main take from here is that community is key for the success of every project, and decentralization gives the power to the community. Once the community has the power and a blank sheet (Meebits, for example), amazing things are going to happen.

I’m very excited and already building cool stuff (did someone say Meebands?). How about you?

Nicki Meenaj :)