Pride and Corporations | Decentraland Pride 2022

In a year full of rainbow logos, what should Web3 companies do for Pride? David Cash puts that question to Adam Ilenich of Rarible, Benny Or of The Meeting Place and 0.xyz, Lee Knight of SuperRare, and Iara Dias of Decentraland in the fourth panel of Decentraland's Metaverse Pride 2022. They talk about hiring and paying queer people, putting money behind Pride, onboarding new builders, and using the metaverse to reach queer people in places where it is unsafe to be out.

Watch on YouTube

Chapters

1. 00:00 Welcome: corporations and Pride
2. 01:30 Adam Ilenich on Rarible
3. 03:01 Benny Or on The Meeting Place and 0.xyz
4. 06:08 Lee Knight on SuperRare and onboarding
5. 10:40 Iara Dias on producing Metaverse Pride
6. 19:34 What brands should do for Pride
7. 22:10 Adam Ilenich on hiring and investing
8. 24:58 Benny Or on occupying space in the metaverse
9. 30:08 Lee Knight on giving space
10. 40:07 Iara Dias on support beyond June
11. 48:29 One Pride wish for next year

Speakers

• Adam Ilenich, Head of Community, Rarible
• Benny Or, Creative Director, 0.xyz; co-creator, The Meeting Place
• Lee Knight, Technical Community Manager, SuperRare
• Iara Dias, Producer, Decentraland; lead of Metaverse Pride
• David Cash, Curator, Decentraland Foundation (host)

Key topics

• Hiring LGBTQ people and handing them the microphone
• Rarible buying NFTs from queer-led and women-led collections to give back to the community
• Education and occupying space in virtual worlds
• Giving space as the foundation of support
• SuperRare's Icons and SuperTrans shows and its donation to Out in Tech
• Benefits, healthcare, and inclusion roadmaps for queer employees
• Corporate power in countries where being queer is illegal
• Pride wishes for 2023

In their words

"while a retweet can be really important on Twitter, a retweet is also free." (Adam Ilenich)

"just giving space is the most foundational element" (Lee Knight)

How to cite

APA: Cash, D. (2022). Pride and Corporations | Decentraland Pride 2022 [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/0v-I1Z6CjVE

Chicago: Cash, David. "Pride and Corporations | Decentraland Pride 2022." Recorded June 13, 2022; aired June 15, 2022, Decentraland. YouTube video, 55:04. https://youtu.be/0v-I1Z6CjVE.

Recording details

Recorded: June 13, 2022, Riverside.fm; aired June 15, 2022, Decentraland

Format: Panel recorded for Decentraland Metaverse Pride 2022

Length: 55:04 · Language: English

Curated and hosted by David Cash for the Decentraland Foundation

About the series

Decentraland Metaverse Pride 2022 was a month of programming in Decentraland in June 2022. David Cash, then Curator for the Decentraland Foundation, curated and hosted this panel series. The panels were pre-recorded and aired on the rooftop of the Cash Labs gallery in Decentraland. Five panels are archived here.

About this record

Presented as edited for the original 2022 broadcast, with captions added in 2026. Captions were machine-transcribed and reviewed by hand, with names checked against speaker introductions. Speaker roles are as of the recording date and may have changed since.

Shared for educational, research, and archival purposes. For corrections, name spellings, or removal requests: david@cashlabs.io

Transcript

Machine-transcribed and reviewed. Timestamps link to the moment in the video.

[0:05] Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the main stage at Decentraland Pride. This is our fourth panel here. We welcome you back. I appreciate you joining us here in the Cash Labs Gallery. And we are joined today by a fabulous panel of experts and representatives from a variety of companies in the space. Today, we have a very interesting panel topic. We're going to be exploring the idea of corporations and pride, typically a taboo subject, but in Web3, something that we like to do is simply talk about things, be as transparent as humanly possible, and figure out what we can do and what we can do better. So that is very much the purpose of today's conversation. We have representatives from a bunch of amazing Web3 leaders companies that I know, you know, and that most of us love very much. So excited to dive in today and talk a little bit about what various corporations and partners and folks in the

[0:58] space are doing right now and what we'd like to see, hopefully in the very near future, both during Pride Month and 365 days during the year, because as we always like to say, the LGBTQ+ community is not just here during Pride Month. We are here all the time. And we have to make sure that there are, you know, implementations put in place to accommodate us and to allow for safe spaces to exist, especially in the metaverse, which is a topic that has come up a lot in our conversations here during Pride Month. So to kick this off, we'd love to introduce our fabulous panel today. Up first, at least as I see these incredible people before me, we have Adam. Adam is from Rarible. Adam, would you like to introduce yourself really quickly? Tell us what you do at Rarible and let us know a little bit more about yourself and what brings you into the Web3 space. Yeah, absolutely.

[1:46] And thank you so much for having me, David. So my name is Adam and I am the head of Community at Rarible. I look after our social efforts, after Discord, but also our broader community efforts across events, new business, partnerships. I have an amazing job here where I get to interact with so many of our community members every single day. What brought me into Web3? I was working at Twitter before my role here at Rarible and I was really excited because I had seen all of these different tweets about blockchain, about NFTs, about DAOs. And I was like, okay, this is where the world is going. Regardless of whether we're there yet or not, I still think there's a lot to do. But I was like, this is where the world is going and I want to be a part of this emerging technology. So I decided to make the shift from traditional Web2 tech into Web3.

[2:35] Rarible, of course, is an NFT marketplace. So we're focused on supporting projects, supporting collections, supporting developers who are building on top of our protocol and really just engaging with our community in those really awesome ways. So that's a little bit more about me. Awesome. Thanks so much, Adam. I appreciate you joining us here today. I'm excited to chat a little bit more about what Rarible's doing and as well what you'd like to see in the space moving forward. Benny Or, who I see in front of me next, creative director at zero .xyz, a very mysterious but very exciting metaverse project coming very soon. And also an incredible artist and curator who's done a lot in the space, currently leading things at The Meeting Place as well. Benny, would you like to introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit more about yourself and let people know what brought you into the Web3 space.

[3:23] Absolutely. Thank you for having me, David. As always, I'm Benny. I guess historically my background has always been about storytelling. So I spent the last 10 years developing my career in entertainment, creative directing and production design for sort of live concerts, anything in a stadium, in a arena was kind of what I was working with. And simultaneously I started building a platform on social media where I made art accessible, talking about art and sort of traditional fine art world in a casual, personal way. And it was my way of kind of getting people to discover art for themselves. And the way that I entered Web3 was kind of a spontaneous thing because Spatial, I'm sure a lot of people have heard of the metaverse platform here, reached out early or mid last year, and they were like, we'd love for you to curate an NFT exhibition.

[4:14] And at that time I was like, I know fine art very well, but the NFT world was all very new to me. And so I was like, look, I'm interested in the technology. I'm interested in the platform. Let's figure out what we can do, you know, to really exercise what my creativity is about, which is about spaces and designing and experiences. And so out of that came The Meeting Place, which I co -created with a French artist named Cyril Van Slan. And at first we were kind of just thinking of it as a exploratory digital architecture, you know, project. But since then, what we realized after we built the space was that we now have a venue that we can then program to do whatever we wanted to do with it. And so actually one of the projects we worked with David, you know, and the Rarible team was their first LGBTQIA virtual NFT exhibition. And so even since then, we've worked with QMoDA, the Queer Museum of Digital Art, to host an exhibition

[5:09] for a drag queen artist, her first show ever, solo show. And so now in hindsight, we're actually thinking a lot more about like, what is the creative potential for community for virtual spaces, right? And I think this will tie back into how brands can begin to, you know, see themselves within this space, not only through financial support, but also activating within the metaverse environments. And then finally, as David mentioned, it's all kind of cumulated of thinking about storytelling through design, through architecture, through the metaverse comes zero. So I'm the metaverse platform that I'm currently creative directing with for Krista Kim and Peter Martin, an incredible team. And I'm excited for everyone to see what we have in store.

[5:57] Amazing. Thank you so much, Benny. I appreciate you joining us. I'm excited to dig in deeper on what it means to create safe spaces in the metaverse and in virtual reality. Up next, once again, as I see before me, Lee Knight, Lee Knight from SuperRare. I really appreciate you taking the time to join us. Would you mind telling us a little bit more about yourself and what you do at SuperRare and what brings you into the Web3 space? Yeah, most certainly. Well, first off, it's a pleasure to be joining you all here today and, you know, happy pride, everyone. And so I first came into the whole Web3 space, or just like basically my career in tech got started. I was a software engineer and I was a front -end developer, and that was my trajectory.

[6:44] And then I learned about the Web3 space and about blockchain and cryptocurrency. And I realized that there is an opportunity there. Like, there's two opportunities that I was able to see. The first was that this is technology that is absolutely revolutionary and can completely change the trajectory of how we are able to interact with each other. And then secondly, the power of what is possible with the space and what it can do for artists. And so when I was in school, I studied, I was double major in music and art history and started my master's in art history. And so being able to combine, you know, these two worlds of music and art history and the first project that I worked on in the space was Ujo.

[7:45] And so just the power that was being given back to musicians was incredible. And so I wanted to support artists in creating a new future that wasn't necessarily conceivable, you know, years ago. And then I also got involved, and I still am involved with ETHDenver, and helped create this diversity track to bring in new minds into the space that wouldn't necessarily have, I mean, because really, at the end of the day, it is difficult to just grab a wallet, download, and start interacting, and people want help. And so that was one of the initiatives that I had set out to accomplish with ETHDenver.

[8:39] But in the greater scheme of things, with the complications that arise with interacting with the Ethereum network, I was also seeing how developers were talking to artists and musicians and, you know, with all this very convoluted language that is hard to stomach and understand. And so that's what kind of led me to becoming a technical community manager so that I could kind of be the liaison between both sides so that we could have greater success with our onboarding practices. And so I kind of set the coding aside to reach out to people, to talk to people, to get more people interacting and exploring and just having fun and, you know, setting the sky's limit for what is possible. And so, yeah, I came into SuperRare as a technical community manager and I've kind of branched out a little bit. And so I definitely help out with digital art curation for the SuperRare platform and some of our events and just making sure that we are meeting

[9:47] and creating more diversity initiatives so that, you know, we can have more people involved and can have a greater spectrum of creativity in the space. I love it. You're so cool. I'm so happy that you're joining us here today. First of all, I love ETHDenver. Also love SuperRare. And very excited to dive in a little bit more into all the things that you do and also see some of your perspective because I think that bridge, the onboarding, I agree, is incredibly important. And also how can we make these technologies, these incredibly transformative, as you mentioned, and poignant, important technologies available to more people in the queer community. And I think that's also something that I'm, you know, very interested in and actively try to push forward whenever possible, as does Benny, as do many of us.

[10:36] So very excited to have you in this conversation today, Lee. Last but most certainly not least, we have our brave representative, the spokeswoman of Metaverse Pride here in Decentraland, Iara. Very excited to have you back here on the main stage. Appreciate you taking the time to join us. I know how busy this month is for you. Would love for you to introduce yourself once again for anybody who may have missed your last panel here with us and let people know what you do here at Decentraland. And yeah, what brought you to, you know, producing Metaverse Pride this month? All right. Well, thank you very much for the warm intro. So I'm Iara Dias, producer at Decentraland. And well, I'm queer, so I think that was a natural thing. I actually asked to produce Pride.

[11:29] I'm usually more focused on music events, per se, in DCL. But like, as soon as I got, like, I started my job, I asked Sam, you know, our creative director, if I could, you know, just participate somehow. And he was like, oh, you know, you lead the Pride because otherwise it would be like cultural appropriation if we're like doing everything, you know, like we straight people and so on. I was like, yeah, okay, cool. So I'm really honored and obviously like humbled as well and feel like responsible to be facilitating this to happen in Decentraland. Obviously, you know, I'm not a creator or anything. I'm just kind of really bridging people together to create like amazing experience for the community.

[12:22] So yeah, I'm really happy and, you know, to be in this. And I really love what Lee said about, you know, this whole music industry in tech, that how you bridge them, like how you actually translate things in a more digestible way for the music industry to understand. And I feel you because that's what I've been trying to, we've been trying to do here in Decentraland, kind of to bring artists and explain, especially like the majors, they're like really, like it's really hard for them to understand. Like DIY artists, they're really into Web3 already. You know, they're more like entrepreneurial.

[13:11] And I guess it's like when you, I don't know, like it's a big vessel, you know, big ship to turn. It takes like a long time. But then if you just have a jet ski or something, you know, or a kayak, it's quite easy to turn around and so on. So I see like the majors, big labels. They are really trying, but it's going to take a while. And I hope there is no Titanic on this analogy that I'm trying to do here. But in any case, yeah, so I'm really happy to be here. Also like worked as a product manager in music tech as well. And I'm now like in Web3 before I worked in blockchain companies, like in music, basically trying to pay the songwriter faster using blockchain.

[14:03] And now like I'm in this content creation, also previously worked in VR experiences for music related as well. And yeah, really happy to be at DCL because it's amazing like how the community, you know, work. And we basically just watch things, you know, or we try to kind of inspire them and they create amazing things together with us or independently and it's just beautiful. And one thing that you asked about being busy this month, that's a fact. And I think for every queer is a fact, but I want to ask, don't hire us just in June or end of May or whatever, you know, you have to hire people like all year round.

[14:54] Don't paint your logo in, you know, in the rainbow colors and that's done. You know, you need to have representatives of all sorts in your company. If you want to build products for other people, if you only care about profit, you know, if that's the only thing, even that, then you should actually have people representing of all sorts of walks of life and, you know, and everything because you want to sell your product for as many people as possible. But if you're a decent person, that's the right thing to do as well, you know, and that's it. I love it. Great notes to end the introduction and I love it Iara. Thank you so much for joining.

[15:44] And yeah, really happy to have you leading things for Pride. Love that Decentraland has been pushing things forward in terms of at least Pride Month for years now, you know, even when nobody else in the space was really doing anything Decentraland was. And, you know, I think that one thing that's always worth mentioning is any virtual space, Decentraland included, Spatial included, you know, these are spaces primarily built by, you know, and occupied by a lot of queer and gender nonconforming people because virtual spaces present, you know, the option to present yourselves in ways that you may not be able to in real life. And I think it's a really exciting, you know, opportunity. So really happy to have you here and happy to have all of these incredible Web3 builders here. And that's actually usually how I like to kick off these panels, especially during Pride Month.

[16:31] I want to start with the accomplishments of the incredible queer people in the community of Web3. And one thing I want to do just before we dive into today's conversation is I quickly just want to jump into each person's pronouns. So I'll just quickly introduce myself and mention my pronouns and then we can run through everybody else, your pronouns and how you identify, I should say. So, yeah, just in case anybody's missed other panels, my name's David Cash. I am the curator here at Decentraland. I also run a company called Cash Labs and work with a whole bunch of other lovely people in the space. I personally identify as a queer, gender -nonconforming individual. I go by all pronouns. They'll principally they, them, and he, him. But if you look on any of my social medias, you'll see they, them, he, him, she, her, because I do go by all pronouns. Adam, would you like to introduce yourself in terms of

[17:17] your identity, whatever you'd like to mention? You know, obviously no pressure and your pronouns. Absolutely. Gay, cisgender man here. He, him is absolutely fantastic. Thank you. Thanks, Adam. Same question to you, Benny. The same here. I am a gay man and my pronouns are he, him. Thank you so much. And Lee, up next. Yeah. As you all know, I'm Lee, and I use they, them pronouns. I am a, I identify as a non -binary. Awesome. Thank you. And finally, Iara. [unclear], bisexual, queer, she, her. Thank you.

[18:08] Awesome. Thanks so much. And the reason that I do this is I really like for especially us when we're highlighting folks in the queer community here in the Web3 space. I like to lead with our accomplishments, lead with who we are, and then mention, you know, our identity, just, you know, as we lead into our conversation for, for means of being respectful to each other. So yeah, I mean, I mean, that's just the way I like to open up this month, especially when we're considering, you know, doing these panels for the Web3 space, which is for the most part, still, you know, a cis white male space. So, you know, for people watching, I know there's a lot of very progressive minds in the space on all levels. So I really hope that, you know, being that it's Pride Month, being that these conversations are meant to push the narrative and push the conversation forwards, I hope that we can take some things away from these

[18:51] conversations and, you know, push for a more progressive future, especially in the Web3 space, because I think one of the beautiful things here is that we are decentralized and we are all sovereign beings. And, you know, not that we have to push some, you know, and I don't think this way, but liberal ideology, as some people might say, but I think that it's more important that we, we share our experiences so that other people can, you know, learn from them and, you know, deduce their own points of view. And, you know, I do think there's a lot of power and representation, especially for young people and for young people exploring the metaverse, if they can come here and they can see people, you know, leading at major companies in the space, you know, they can see the Web3 space as a welcoming front and somewhere that they can hopefully thrive in the future. So with all of that being said, I'd love to kick off the

[19:37] conversation with a bit of a prompt. Today, as we all see, the topic is, you know, corporations and pride. Traditionally, as I mentioned before, a bit of a taboo topic, but I do want to delve into this and see how we can make this more of a progressive conversation. I myself have worked via pride on many different levels. I worked with Pride Toronto as their, one of their media directors for a few years. So I was doing a lot with different corporations, dealing with sponsors, et cetera. And it kind of, you know, gave me a good idea of exactly how corporate pride can be from a certain perspective, at least in terms of a funding perspective. But then now, you know, having worked in Web3 for a couple of years, I think that, you know, queer people in this space have a different way of creating community. And I think there actually are some really beautiful communities that I've happened upon, just putting myself

[20:26] out there, you know, as a queer person in this space, creating and trying to push things forward. And there definitely is a great community, be it niche, of other queer people, you know, creating and doing it and innovating. And I will actually say there's a great representation, at least from my perspective, within that very small queer community of trans and non -binary people, which I think is also very exciting. And the rationale, at least, I've had for this is because, you know, queer people inherently have, you know, come to terms with their identity, at least personally, and therein by, you know, they've had to spend some time online researching, for the most part, at least in the recent past. So a lot of the time we find that queer people are also people who, you know, at least are more tech -savvy or, you know, have a better view of technology or, you know, are more, you know, in tune to being able to

[21:16] access, you know, communities or online spaces. And I think there's a reason why there's so many of us here who are community managers or, as we say, bridges between different industries because we ourselves have had to learn so much about so many different intersectional spaces and figure out how those, you know, dictate our identity. So anyway, that's my kind of heady intro. But the question I'd like to pose to all of you is, you know, working at each of your companies or just with your work in general, what's something that you're either doing right now or that you're seeing that you think is great or maybe not so great going on right now during Pride Month. It could be something you're proud of, maybe something you'd like to see more of. But yeah, I would love to kick it off with a bit of a general question of what we're excited about seeing from each of our own respective, you know, let's say desks this Pride Month.

[22:07] Adam, would you like to kick it off? Yeah, absolutely. You know, when I think about what I expect to see from, you know, we can call them corporations, we can call them brands, we can call them just like any sort of these larger capitalistic entities. There's like really two main things that I'm personally looking for. One is just hiring and uplifting LGBTQ voices. I think that is so important for brands to take a step back and just for them to realize like, hey, our voice in this conversation is not actually the voice that matters right now. We're going to take a step back and listen because the voices of the people that this month, and well, you know, the entire year, but this month celebrates, they're the ones who need to speak and specifically diverse voices within that larger community.

[22:56] So that's one thing that I expect to see. The other is just investing and taking action. I think it's really important for brands to sort of like open their purses and not just have that lip service because like, while a retweet can be really important on Twitter, a retweet is also free. And so what I want to see is like investment back into the community, investment back into the space. And so one of the things that I've been doing at Rarible is we are actually purchasing NFTs from women -led collections, from queer -led collections, and we are going to, we're amassing those within our company wallet, and then we are going to be giving those back to the community. So in a way, we are not only supporting these collections through volume, through those like creator fees, through the royalties, that's what they're called.

[23:45] But we're also giving away NFTs to the larger queer community, many of whom maybe haven't purchased an NFT before, maybe they don't have the expendable capital to get an NFT before, but they're interested in the space. So I'm like very serious about using my company's money to like give back and to get some people onboarded into this space, specifically people who are in our community. So that's one thing that I'm specifically very passionate about and I've sort of been leading that charge, and so I've also been very proud of that work. Amazing. Congratulations, Adam, that's awesome. Excited to see the fruits of that labor. Amazing. Up next, Benny, you're always doing so much. I feel like you are the embodiment of somebody who does not just, you know, represent the queer community during Pride. You know, you're always doing things year -round, especially in The Meeting Place.

[24:35] Would love to hear some of your thoughts, maybe something that you're working on right now, but also just, you know, your perspective on how companies and how organizations can, you know, create amazing experiences, such as you've done multiple times now in spaces like The Meeting Place, highlighting queer artists and actually supporting the community when they try to, you know, do good in this light. Would love to hear some of your thoughts. Absolutely. And I think, you know, there's already been a couple of topics that came up that are, I think, very pertinent to like the activation of the space, right? Like we talked about education. Like how do we demystify this new technology so that people can feel accessibly, you know, able to engage in this new reality as we kind of develop it, right? And so lately, as I'm talking to people about, you know, the future and how we envision it, I always use the word urgency because, you know,

[25:29] so much of this right now is about the occupation of space, right? Like, again, as you mentioned, like right now, a lot of the space is now run by cisgendered white, you know, tech bros, and there's nice guys there, but like, you know, that's not how history is written, right? If only one type of person gets to create this new universe and it's going to be catered to them, right? And here in this moment in time, we have the ability to kind of start from zero, you know, pun intended almost. But like we can start over and go, how do we want to build this new world? What are the, who are the voices that are going to be protected? When I think about virtual exhibitions, you know, virtual events and how do we activate these spaces, I think for me, what's really important is like how do we get people in there, right?

[26:16] Like the more people we begin to occupy the space with, the more powerful we, powerfully, we begin to occupy queer spaces within the metaverse, the more rich and engaging, and the more of a say in many ways we're going to have as we begin to like build this new world, right? And so how do we do that? It's through education, right? Breaking down these barriers between these people that want to be part of it, but don't know how to be part of it. You know, it's about supporting little known artists, like developing artists, young artists out there so they can see themselves in the space, but also really celebrating our leaders, right? So it's not just like, oh, we'll do an open call and then everyone can come in. There is opportunities for that. I think that's really important, but I think it's also very important to champion the heroes of our time right now, right? And I think, you know, an example is the duo

[27:07] exhibition happening at SuperRare right now, where the work is amazing, right? I was not only, you know, blown away by the initiative, but I was blown away by the work. And I think when people experience reality through art, through the work, and we're able to translate these conversations powerfully, that's when people really begin to understand the power of the technology, right? And I think it's the same with NFTs, right? People are so confused because there's like all these PFPs and there's memberships and all these things, but I'm always telling people just like, just like forget about what you think NFTs are, forget about what you think technology is, focus on the beauty, focus on how these inanimate objects or animated videos or GIFs or whatever they are, how do they make you feel? What are the conversations being had?

[27:56] And then we can begin to really engage in a larger conversation that is built upon art and community as opposed to this kind of, you know, like, oh, how do we insert ourselves? You know, what is it? You know, and so I would say that some of the things that I have been seeing, like I mentioned with Rarible, are these sort of powerful and, you know, taking over of space and, you know, there's organizations like Serif is popping up, a new sort of queer light organization. You've got QMoDA that I mentioned earlier. You know, there are people out there. And so I think from a branding perspective, I would encourage people to think not only investing money but in time and attention, right? You can't just throw money at a thing and expect your, you know, consumers to be like, oh, wow, thank you. You know, like you care about me because you invested. But no, it's like, how do you really connect to human beings on a real level, particularly when now

[28:53] we're even more distant in some ways, right through our digital technology. I think we need to just like work harder, dig deeper and really consider what it is we're doing and how do we bring impact in a long term, as opposed to just being like, here's a rainbow NFT. Have a good day. You know, happy pride. Happy pride indeed. I love it, Benny. Such great thoughts and really appreciate you joining us and sharing all that with us. Up next, Lee, Lee Knight. As Benny mentioned, so excited about all the amazing things going on at SuperRare. I do really think that this year you are all leading the charge at least in terms of curated marketplaces doing a ton of crazy activations.

[29:41] Love, love, love, SuperTrans. Love, love, love, Nicole's curation. We've had Yanny on here. We've had Laurel Charleston on here. Yanny, Laurel, Yanny Charleston. We've had Nicole on here, but I'm really excited to hear some of your thoughts. Being somebody who works at the company, not just during pride month, would love to hear some of your thoughts on what you're excited about going on at SuperRare. But then also, if you have any other thoughts on what you'd like to see, I would love to hear some of your perspective. Yeah, I mean, let me back up a little bit and kind of touch on some topics that Benny and Adam already brought up about things that they would like to see in this space. And I think one of the biggest things that was brought up, and I just wanted to focus a little bit more on it. I mean, yes, there are so many ways that we are able to give back and support the queer community,

[30:31] but I think that the most basic elemental or granular thing that can be done to support the queer community within the space is actually just giving space. Just giving space to build, to be seen, to be heard, and that has different forms. It might be in the form of donating to a particular company, or maybe buying NFTs and redistributing that, or letting somebody have the microphone that doesn't usually get the microphone. There are a multitude of ways that the queer community can be supported, and there are different angles of attack to sustain that. But yeah, I think just giving space is the most foundational element that we'll be able to support and build that tomorrow we all want to see.

[31:29] And also, it doesn't necessarily have to be seen as something like a diversity and equity and inclusion initiative. Yes, it is that, but it's so much more than that. I think that people need to look at it with a broader spectrum that, hey, we want to be progressive and so we should have more queer employees. It's more than that. If we want to build a sustainable future, then we need to have diversity and representation that represents segments of the world that are different than from what you and I live in in that moment. That's how you actually create sustainability because if you all are just eating and drinking the exact same thing, we're all going to die even sooner.

[32:19] If you look at the brown squirrel, it lives everywhere. It's in Canada. It's in cold climates. It's in California. They're on the beach. They are everywhere, and they eat anything. And then if you look at panda bears, all they eat is bamboo. That is all they can survive off of, and they are very limited, and they are a species that is dying out. So if you look at what the brown squirrel is doing, we might want to take a note from them and say, hey, let's just open things up so that we can have different thoughts, different perspectives coming in to give us different angles so that we can actually create a future that is sustainable. I just think that that mindset needs to shift rather than like, hey, we're progressive.

[33:10] Look at us. And it's like, no, if we're going to support anything, and we want to still be here for future generations, we have to be more inclusive for survival. I don't care what chip you get to put on your shoulder and pat your best friend on the back, say, hey, look who we hired. We've got a lot of work to do just for the survival of the human race. And so a couple of things that I'm really excited about at SuperRare's, as you mentioned earlier, we have the SuperTrans exhibition that has gone up. And we knew for us this year at SuperRare's that we actually have an IRL pop -up art gallery. And so we have a few curators actually working together because it's SuperTrans and then Icons.

[34:05] And so we have these two installations going on at our pop -up during Pride. And so, yes, this is a celebration that is occurring during Pride. However, our initiatives with a combination of varying diversity tracks with different themes and curations is to continually support throughout the year different diversity initiatives rather than like, oh, hey, look, it's Black History Month. It's that time of year again. We got to do something. Or, hey, it's Pride month. It's that time of year. I go put a rainbow on it and call it pretty. This is ongoing. This is more than just one little blimp of time to say we did a thing.

[34:57] And then we also have been contributing a donation to the Out in Tech organization so that they have resources to continue helping the queer community within the tech industry build and maintain and support a future that gives resources and tooling and communication and assistance and everything to continue supporting the queer community as we continue to build within the tech industry. And then, again, I mentioned earlier that I am also a part of ETHDenver. And so just making sure that we have a space within our ETHDenver community. And I hope that you all will join me at ETHDenver this year because we had different tracks.

[35:48] And then we also had a lot of different talks. And my favorite little thing, just like a little celebration of us, is that we had our VIP section at one of the closing parties with complete bottle service. And we were thrown down. So it's going to happen again. And so just creating that space, creating the opportunity for the queer community to interact, and feel safe within the bigger space so that we all know that we are being given attention. But there's a bigger statement here in creating a more equitable future for the greater survival of the human race. Amen. Absolutely. I love that. So many good things to touch on. First of all, I'm absolutely there at ETHDenver. Last year, I was a little bit hecticly busy. I was speaking and I was judging, and I did a dinner for one of my clients.

[36:40] It was a little hectic, but it was a lot of fun. But yeah, one thing I think that's really important to touch on that you mentioned is the creating of both virtual and physical spaces. So I think it's awesome that you're doing the whole physical takeover in New York at the gallery, because it's not just a one -night event. It's a gallery space that somebody can walk by on the street and happen to wander into. And it's like a real human experience. I think that's really exciting. And beyond that, I know SuperRare is always creating a ton of amazing virtual spaces, a lot of Twitter Spaces. I know you have a great gallery in Decentraland. So yeah, really, really excited about what you're doing and very happy to see you as a part of it. And I know Robin, and I know that there is some representation on the inside. But yeah, I do see what you all are doing as extremely progressive in the space, and I hope to see a whole lot

[37:31] more of it. So I think that's excellent. And yes, yes, yes, to everything that you said. I think that we need, as I just put it, a whole lot more of it. So I hope to see it keeping on coming tenfold as we move forward. Do you mind if I jump in really quickly? Yeah, of course. Lee said that something incredible that sparked something within me that I wanted to share. So I have worked as a mentor with Out in Tech before. And so I was talking earlier during my small portion about how one of the things that I believe in, specifically from corporations and anyone in the space, is hiring diverse people, but also giving back. I think the third thing that Lee pointed out really well is also paving the way for diverse people to come into this space. And by this space, I don't mean the physical space, I mean like the Web3 space.

[38:21] So diverse people, whether that's any sort of diversity, but specifically I think here, whether you're queer, however you identify, it's telling those young queer, whether they're kids, whether they're young adults, wherever they are, saying, hey, we want you to come build. Because I think Benny said this before, if the person building the solution, if it's all one type of person, they're only going to build a solution that makes sense for them versus diverse people build diverse solutions. And so if we can tell all of the younger generation before us, hey, come into tech, come build, you are smart, we want your diverse experiences, we want your perspective, we want your creativity and your joy to help us transform the world with this technology, like that's all of us doing our jobs. So I just wanted to quickly just jump in and sort of leapfrog off of what both Benny and Lee said as really,

[39:13] really important elements here is when we think about pride, when we think about our roles as tech leaders within Web3, it's to also help pave the way for people coming after us or before us, whatever it is. So I just wanted to jump in and say that. No, that's excellent. I'm really happy you said that. Absolutely. Yes to everything. Thank you for that. And thank you for everything you said as well, Lee. Love this conversation and I hope some folks are listening because I think that this is important. Last but again, certainly not least, Iara would love to hear some of your thoughts on this conversation and also considering, obviously Decentraland is doing a lot this month, you're involved in pretty much all of it. Would love to hear if you have any highlights that you would like to mention in this conversation and then also, yeah, the same conversation around what do you like and what do you think could be done better?

[40:07] Cool, thank you. Yeah, well, as I said before, I think it's not just about painting a logo in rainbow colors and just, you know, thinking of queer people in June or like a month before when you decide the budget, marketing budget, you know. I think it's about opening spaces, but also like once you hire queer people, are you giving them support? Like, for instance, their partners can be added to the healthcare system that you offer, even though they're not married because they can't in certain places, you know, this sort of thing. It's not just about adding quota, but like what you're actually doing. For real, like having a roadmap of inclusion in the company. So I think that would be something super important. And I feel like also corporations are very powerful because, you know, they owe money, and that paves the way of like how legislation goes.

[41:12] So, and we know so many countries is actually illegal to be queer, you know, to be, so like, it's insane. It's like even like you can even have like a death sentence, you know, if you're gay or something. In corporations, they can actually do something about that because they lobby all the time for other things, you know. So why can they not like, okay, we're not selling the product in your country. If you don't stop this horrendous thing, you know, they're humans and I think, you know, they need to stand up against governments that are like basically, I'm trying really hard not to swear because I feel like angry about these things, you know, because it's, yeah, and emotional, all of it.

[42:11] I mean, yeah, you should, they should do like use their power really against what's wrong in the world. And yeah, so that's, sorry, I got a little bit emotional really here because that makes me sad and angry and - Emotions are valid, swearing is valid. I know, I was like, let it out, let it out. Thank you, thank you. That was. Yeah, no, but - I mean, I love to add - On the positive, yeah, thank you, thank you, Benny. Go on, yeah, please. Oh, oh, oh. No, I was just gonna say, I was gonna add a little bit to what you were saying is that like, what you're also pointing out is an opportunity, right? Yes, there are a lot of unsafe spaces all over the world, but one of the things that, you know, I was talking to Matthew Blaze the other night at actually SuperRare's opening, and they're like an incredible activist, but, you know, they're telling me about these stories, about how it's so unsafe.

[43:14] There's still new regulations coming out, making it even more unsafe, right? And so, an opportunity that I've always been kind of fixated on the metaverse is that we can create these safe spaces, like somebody with decent internet, which is another story, right? Accessibility to the metaverse also comes with accessibility technology. So that's another sort of conversation to be had, but for the first time, kind of in an accessible way in history, we can actually begin to create these spaces where someone in India can literally log on, and for the first time feel like they're in a gay bar or a safe space or a place that they could even find in their own country or even be able to legally walk into or feel safe to do so. And so, how do we begin to really utilize the technology, utilize the ability to connect with one another through this technology to really bring together not just independent queer communities within cities,

[44:08] but also on a larger sort of spectrum. I think the brands also have to remember that, sure, the Pride Parade in Sydney and New York and Toronto, they're big events and they're fun, but the real challenges and the real battles are actually not where we're celebrating and partying and taking shots on the street. They're actually, like in all these countries, like Iara is mentioning, where there are still struggles. And so I think that's another way that business kids can really kind of tap into that, and that's real impact. This is literally changing people's lives, right? A free magnet isn't, but giving people an opportunity to really see themselves for the first time and connect with friends and community that will give them the hope to carry on in these places where they feel like they can't is really the power in which we can all work together with brands and communities and our individual selves to bring this to life.

[44:59] But sorry to interrupt, please continue. No, no, thank you. Thank you. That was like a really, really good addition to what I was saying. And I actually wanted to turn this around on the positive note anyway. So I think it's important, as you said, it's an opportunity. And I'm already seeing like on DCL like this for Pride Month, we have, for instance, this City Hall of Love, which is like by a brand, well, Closeup. So they have this, they are allowing people to get married and they receive like an FT certificate. So basically giving the opportunity that they wouldn't otherwise have in their own country so they can actually join DCL and can display their love to each other and have like a cool NFT to prove their love.

[46:00] I think, so Mastercard has this True Name card that you can actually use the name that you would like to be called. And I think providing dignity for people, it's what matters way more, as you said, magnets are cool, but there are so many other layers that you could do something. Just basically put more effort and not just budget, but put the effort as well in creating something meaningful and impactful for people. And that's what we're trying to curate in this Decentraland Pride.

[46:48] And next year, like we're always learning, last year was something this year, something else. And next year we will learn more and do even better things. And I think if you were like also open, open to learn and listen, that's what matters as well because nobody's going to get it right at first. But if you're there like just listening to the community, really like the real people from the community, then at some point you're going to get it right and you're going to give impact and people will be grateful for you and they're going to buy your products if that's what matters for you, you know. And yeah, so that's my two cents. No, great two cents indeed.

[47:39] Thank you so much, Iara. Really appreciate your perspective. And excited about all the things that are going on in Decentraland this month. Take a moment if you're watching this in the Metaverse right now, look at the top of your screen, look at the top left -hand corner and look for a little rainbow symbol. If you click it, you'll see the entire schedule of all the things happening throughout the month this month, including the rest of the talks that are going to be happening over the course of the coming weeks. So unfortunately, we have come toward the end of today's conversation, but before we wrap this up, I do want to pass the mic around one more time. Before we... Sorry, I'm just noticing that Adam is like out of commission, so hopefully, I don't know Adam if you can hear me, try reloading the page. I'll come to you last, but if not, I'll have to record it with him afterwards. But just, you know, I'll go Benny first and then Lee,

[48:25] just so everybody knows. So just to kick things... Sorry, so just to end things off... I was going to say kick things off. So just to end things off with a sweet note, I would love to just go around one last time, if it's okay with everybody, and just ask each of you if there's one thing, if we're thinking conceptually, we'll take a little brainstorming moment here, if we're thinking conceptually, and we want to consider one thing that each of us would really like to see, if we can make one pride wish for something that we'd like to see in the space by Pride next year. It can be something you'd like to see during Pride next year. It could be a more broader notion of something you'd like to see evolved by Pride next year, but would love to pass the mic around and just hear one, you know, bright kind of, you know, optimistic notion of something each of us would like to see by Pride next year.

[49:12] Benny, would you like to kick us off this time? Yeah, absolutely. I'm like kind of thinking what I would want to see, and I think what I would love to see is a big sort of celebration, whether physical or virtual or both, where communities all over the world, from different backgrounds, from different organizations, from different sort of platforms, can all come together and discover each other, right? So it's like the joining of everyone and all the efforts and the people and the community and the diversity of it being able to kind of like come together. There was like a queer dream verse, you know? Like, what would that look like? How much of a party that would be, and how vibrant could we celebrate that together powerfully?

[50:00] You know, I think that would be my wish list for next year's Pride for our community. Great wishes, great wishes. Lee, same question. What would you like to see by this time next year? You know, I think it would be really neat to have consecutive Pride parties going on virtually and IRL, just like, you know, we're connected to like São Paulo and then we've got something going on in San Francisco and then there's something in London and, you know, just like all over the world that, you know, whatever time we all agree on. And so that we all can just, so that there's an opportunity to create a very international IRL, but also virtual space for all of us to be able to interact with in real time.

[51:03] Yeah, because again, I just think that just spaces are so important, just space. Just space is so important. Absolutely. And I hope that we get a whole bunch more of it next year and in the immediate future as well. But great sentiment, great sentiment. Thank you so much for joining us today, Lee. Up next, Iara, considering everything that we've done this year, what would you like to see next year? Well, I agree, like more spaces, more people, you know, more queer people in the space, physical, virtual. I want to see more of them, more creators, you know, more companies completely with queer or like 100 % or 70 % or whatever, and funding available for queer -led, you know, companies.

[52:00] And yeah, so I want to see structural support, really, and education available, you know, and things like that. So I want to see more of that. And then this will definitely translate in great, amazing content if we like start on 1st of July already. Yeah, you learn everything in June, like how to support the community. 1st of July, start thinking of your budget for 2023 and then, you know, create the roadmap and it's like, how can we do actual things, you know, to support the community? How can we, should we actually assign instead of having this budget that we're going to create this big banner, actually empower queer people in somewhere that we can offer them education?

[52:53] Should we offer them living? Because sometimes they're spelled from their homes and things like that, you know? So let's think more like structural and like very serious things as well. But also, yeah, we will create the parties anyway because, you know, life, sometimes it can be bitter for, unfortunately, for a lot of queer people. And I feel privileged, but for some people, it's really hard to really open up and say, you know, who they truly are. And definitely, virtual spaces, give that to people. But also, in real life, we should somehow, you know, support them in that way. So, yeah, so those are my wishes.

[53:44] Awesome. Great closing thoughts. Thank you so much for that, Iara. Unfortunately, it looks like Adam is having some technical issues joining us right at the end. But I will say, on his behalf, please go check out Rarible. We'll follow them on Twitter and check out all the amazing pride programming they are doing on their end. I know one project that I'm aware of because I bought a few of them and he's a lovely friend and client of mine. Mike Ruiz has dropped a series of 100 one -of -one portraits on Rarible, each of a very diverse subset of the queer community within the leather community of the queer community. So there's one very queer drop that I know of that's happening on Rarible right now. So I'll say that in Adam's place. And hopefully, you know, everything else uploaded fine, which I'm sure it did. So with all of that being said, I just want to say thank you to all of our panelists today.

[54:31] You can find their socials below as you've seen in our lower thirds. And yeah, I just want to say also thank you to everybody who's taken the time to watch this. If you haven't made it all the way to the end, you're very nice and happy pride to you specifically. And happy pride to everybody in general as well. Once again, my name is David Cash here for Decentraland. And yeah, I just want to say thank you. Take care, everybody. Thank you.