The Do it Yourself(DIY) culture has always struck me as something strong willed as you are taking matters into your own hands. Be it either assembling your own furniture or creating something that you need from scratch, it always leaves you with a sense of accomplishment and I find that very admirable. Do it with Others(DIO) culture, a spin off of sorts from DIY, I find on the other hand takes on a rebellious nature. This probably naturally occurs when multiple strong willed individuals from the DIY culture comes together in the first place.  Why rebellious?  The reason why Do it with Others culture arise in the first place is when individuals are unsatisfied with a system that has been put in place(usually a system that is seen as the norm). These individuals then realise that it is near impossible to create a substitute system by themselves. Thus the only rational move would be to Do it with Others. This I find equally admirable if not more so as to participate in Do it with Others is a refusal to be complicit in the systems that have been put in place by taking matters in their own hands.

What interested me the most however, was Marc Garrett’s take on block chain cryptocurrency and how it is linked to Do it with Others.  I actually agree with him when he says that cryptocurrency has pretty much veered far from what its initial intentions were. Blockchain used for cryptocurrency revolves around the concept of a decentralised bank and thus it revolves around the idea of Do it with Others as there is no one source controlling your money but instead it is numerous different peers interacting, working together and transacting.. And the idea of how the value of any currency being a social construct simply fascinated me. However, cryptocurrency now has become less about these two concepts and become more of a “quick and easy” method to earn money with more and more people joining in the cryptocurrency craze simply because there were more and more people joining in on it. However with that being said some have even used this new culture to make a statement. An example would be the Dogecoin. A cryptocurrency based on a dog meme. It was created to show how people would buy anything due to “fomo” (fear of missing out). As a result doge coin’s value increased to 2 billion which I have to say is absolutely ridiculous and quite comical. And that in is own way is also art. Back to the talk, I was actually a little bit confused and skeptical when Marc Garrrett started talking about using the blockchain idea to create artwork but I was completely blown away by “Plantoids”. I thought that it was honestly quite ingenious how the artwork is separated into the physical hardware, the plant and the soul that is the software. The artwork itself is a physical artistic representation on the beauty that could arise from blockchain and thus, by association, the beauty of the Do it with Other’s movement. Although, in my opinion, for the Do it with Other’s to truly be common place and the norm of society is a dream that is a bit idealistic, it is still an ideal that we could strive for as there is so much to gain. We already see permeating into everyday culture through blockchain and cryptocurrency and we see it could be reiterated in many different froms as seen through “Plantoid”. Thus I am excited to see the future that the Do it with Others culture will bring us towards.

For anyone who is interested, I feel that this journal piece by John Oliver from last week tonight is an excellent piece explaining cryptocurrency and blockchain.

Also this video by the team at Extra Credits in the segment “Extra History” explaining the history of paper money is wonderful in explaining the concept of currency and how its value came to be because we simply accept it as how it is.

Thank you for reading this and have a nice day !