Session 3
Where we try to deconstruct the DADA Effect: what happens when people draw on DADA that rewards intrinsic motivations and creates community. It was a super interesting discussion. Watch:
The written chat was super interesting:
Judy: Recommended viewing: The Social Dilemma documentary on Netflix about the destruction of society by the social media business model.
The Center For Humane Technology Design Guide: https://www.humanetech.com/designguide
A tweet that illustrates the joy in intrinsic motivations.
Marielle: The history of Facebook notifications could be interesting to explore. But isn’t a ‘like’ a fake validation because it’s free.
Sparrow: I think it has to do with effort. So a ‘like’ can feel ‘fake’ because it is low effort. A drawing as a response, or a thoughtful comment, is a more meaningful validation. Effort goes into it.
Marielle: Yes, the click doesn't mean much, but thoughtful engagement does. But at the same time, people do care about their likes.
It’s weird because people also withhold their clicks too.
Beth: Yes this is the point I was making — I personally am not motivated by likes, but I would be failing to design an accessible and inclusive incentive program if I didn’t take into consideration this may be to some others who would be engaging with the same platform in the same ways.
Marielle: I wonder if a certain amount of likes equals the critical mass of a thoughtful comment, drawing, etc.
Beth: And maybe some people are motivated by likes but for different reasons than others — for example, one artist may be motivated by knowing their work was appreciated by certain community members they admire while another is motivated by the quantity of likes.
Marielle: Retweets are an intermediate currency.
Beth: So to design incentives that will be exciting to a diverse community we need to take into account that even the same action or result may be motivating for different reasons.
Marielle: Ideally, the greater diversity of potential value imposed on the incentives, the better.
Sparrow: It is a very different feeling, the same ‘likes’ ‘follows’ etc, very different on DADA than on social media.
Beth: Or different actions may be functionally equivalent — for ex. someone may be worried they’re not “a real artist” and the way they will feel this way is to receive certain compliments, for another it may be other artists to want to join in collaborating with them, for others it may be getting a lot of likes or getting paid — we can’t make assumptions about what will be engaging and why, but we can practice inclusive design by intentionally examining and questioning this.
Marielle: This evokes the connection between art and physical intimacy/vulnerability-the exposure of self.
Sparrow: One of the things that we should probably keep in mind is that we’re not really designing this system to be for everyone. Yes, there are some artists who want to get a lot of like and get paid. They have spaces for doing that already in the crypto art world. That’s fine. We want to design something for the others. So, it doesn’t need to attract and engage everyone.
Beth: I think I misunderstood the beginning of the presentation to say that buying and selling art was one incentive y’all were specifically designing for — this is the only reason I mentioned that! Now I realize y’all were showing this as a counterexample or contrast, my bad.
Ser Ste: I agree! the important thing I wanted to pass is just not to demonize solutions just because they’re misused and abused by other humans. And platforms.
Judy: No problem Beth! Actually the art is going to be completely separated from the marketplace.
Sparrow: Yes!
Beth: This is even better and more interesting then :)
Marielle: This sounds like tenure in academia. If it could work for artists, it could work for academics — a group who similarly act on intrinsic motivations.
Judy: Hopefully!
Ser Ste: Totally! I remember hearing Bea talking about integrating music on DADA?
Judy: Music, animation, one day…
Marielle: Science!
Beth: There is an awesome community publishing project out of MIT that could be a good analog: pubpub.org.
“Communities are publishing groups focused on a particular topic, theme, or expertise. They can be a university press or a single monograph; they can be a journal, research group, or conference. You can start your community or browse any of the existing PubPub communities today.”
Beth: An example of collaborative community review on pubpub that could be analogous to a community curatorial effort on DADA:
https://mitpressonpubpub.mitpress.mit.edu/data-feminism
Marielle: lol I was just about to mention that book as something that went through a similar process.
See you in two weeks!
