We have all seen how some memes and videos end up going viral on social media sites like Twitter, TikTok and Instagram. Some of these memes get passed around and reproduced millions of times, oftentimes with the author earning nothing, and no ability to track the image itself.
Rewarding Creators
The creators behind viral memes often remain anonymous, and they do not earn any reputation or money for their contributions to these social media platforms.
As it stands today, the networks that host the meme or the viral video are the ones who benefit from it being reproduced over and over again.
But what if the author (or owner) of a meme could be verified on a public blockchain, allowing them to not only earn something for their contributions, but build a reputation as well?
In the Polkadot ecosystem there exists a project called Nodle (NODL), and it's developing technology that could make something like this possible in the near future.
While the project has been operating as a parachain within the Polkadot ecosystem, they have started to utilize rollups on zkSync to enable more transactions, while inheriting the security of the Ethereum mainnet.
During the project's March presentation at ETH Denver, they demonstrated how you can use their app "Click" to take a photo, cryptographically sign it, and then upload it to social media.
Imagine if we applied the same concept of Click to digital images (such as memes) and videos before they go viral on social media platforms.
In such a world, memes would be a published as NFTs to decentralized blockchains, and the creator would receive crypto rewards for any views. The author would also have the ability to sell the meme to somebody else, who would then receive all rights to it.
By the way, a blockchain project called Opulous is working on a similar project, but for musicians.
If our social media platforms were revamped with the idea of NFTs in mind, the talented individuals who publish these viral images and videos could be rewarded in crypto tokens for their contributions, while simultaneously building an immutable online reputation.
Pitfalls
Although the idea is exciting, we have to consider the pitfalls. For example, how do we prevent an unscrupulous individual from modifying a recently uploaded viral meme/photo/video, and republishing it under their own signature?
We would need to rebuild our social networks to be decentralized, engineered from the ground up to recognize the original author of an image or photo. This could come in combination with a revolt against traditional social media, which has become more and more prone to censorship and demonetization in recent years.
The technology behind Verasity (VRA), which is being used to verify that an ad has been viewed by a human, could also be used to verify that memes, photos, and viral videos have actually been viewed by real people before the owner of a viral NFT is rewarded.
Authors Deserve Compensation
As it stands today, the creators of memes and publishers of viral videos receive very little reward in comparison to the owners of centralized social media platforms like Twitter, TikTok and Instagram. For now, big tech end up being the ultimate benefactors of our content.
But imagine if these viral memes, photos, and videos could be cryptographically signed by the author before publication. The creators would then be recognized and rewarded properly for their contributions to the network. Decentralized blockchains like Nodle, and zero knowledge proofs are bringing us closer and closer to this reality.
If you learned something from this article, be sure to check out my other posts on crypto and finance here on the HIVE blockchain. You can also follow me in InLeo for more frequent updates.
Until next time...
Resources
Crypto meme [1]
Nodle YouTube Channel [2]
Digital Artist photo [3]