AI Summary
This conversation explores the “Normies” NFT project on Ethereum, where each pixel is fully on-chain and intentionally incomplete, allowing holders to become artists. The discussion covers the project's minimalist black-and-white aesthetic inspired by Leon Harmon, its open API and CC0 ethos, and the vibrant builder community that has grown around it.
- Normies are fully on-chain pixel art on Ethereum, with every pixel stored on-chain, enabling anyone to customize or reimagine the NFTs they hold.
Transcript
change anything because it's a it's the programmable count last on the
Ethereum blockchain. It's a fuller on chain even pixels. Each pixel in the
count was our fuller on chain. So we give everyone to reimagine the NFT
they hold and customize them, pull your on chain using the blockchain because
that's why we are here. You know, everything we do in NFTs and WebTree is
related to blockchain instead of having some JPEGs and giving people imaginary stuff to put
an narrative around their JPEGs. We decided to give them incomplete pixels which created by AI
and you can be the artist of your canvas. You can be the pixel artist even today. You can use
our canvas which is a public for everyone and you can do whatever you want in the Ethereum
blockchain using normies as a canvas. So we just here to build something on top of those kind of
black and white pixels. There's no color because there are too many colors in life. So we wanted
to focus on the least thing in the artworks like black and white even they are not even colors.
There are shades. So let's start the space and we will talk about more details in the next
minutes. Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, I wanted to say that you know I'm a proclaimed
normie maxi that's how I call myself. It gives me peace of mind. This is what gives me peace of mind
in WebTree. I hardly ever experiment since I've been into normies with anything else. I'm just
focused 100% on this project mainly on its culture mainly on its lore creating music,
creating stories, creating this foundation, the cultural foundation that attracted me to this
project because for me it started with the generator way back before the meant. You brought the
generator and allowed everyone to freely experiment with what is coming and that was an explosion,
explosion not only in my life but also in a timeline. Everybody was just raving, representing,
putting the normies as their PFPs and the art itself which you mentioned is minimal only two
colors, only two shades black and white and the simplicity, the minimalism of this was first
of all very surprising but also like that gave me from the start this amazing you know connection
with minimal art which I'm a lover of and I'm a big big fan of. So those first months those
first weeks actually were something about which you didn't mention you opened the APIs for everyone
and you started, I'll say normies started this new trend in NFTs in the new wave of PFPs also
like everybody can build on our APIs and the project is CC zero and that took us to a place
where everybody started creating different applications, different websites, cancunos, 100% yeah
he's here one of the biggest builders in the space so tell me sir how you remember those first two,
three months when you saw like everybody just building on top of what you created and I have to
say that you created together with EGIT something that was functioning without a glitch from the beginning.
Salute to EGIT who is our developer and tell us a little bit about the integration I'm seeing
you bringing up Leon Harmon this is important for new holders the API open source
character of normies and the inspiration coming from the legendary artist Leon Harmon himself.
I just wanted to ping that post after launch because I was influenced by Leon Harmon by Noah LeBonansky
he's a good friend and he's doing too many research and he has too many archives and one day
maybe last year maybe two years ago he posted Leon Harmon the one on the left he's using his
technique to pixelate maybe we can call it or maybe a hundred years later we will call it the
first pixel art because he's using a different technique to pixelate a portrait of a human
and then we met pixel art with his style it's called a blog portraits because even in those times
1967 people were calling these kind of things experimental art because if you call it a digital art
people was like this bullshit art cannot be digitalized or you cannot create art in digital systems so
he was always I read a lot of about him sorry for taking it too long but yeah he was the inspiration
and the color choice I did for normies is to homage to him as well so he says like he's his first
inspiration and his first intention about this rest created artworks blog portraits he says like
if you screened your eyes or if you look at the portraits from the distance you recognize what are
those the reason we created some tools for those are normies images to make them look
if you as if you blurred or as if you are looking from distance the reason was that because
you may not see what are there or you know even the gender even the ipad if you look at it it can you
can call it ipad or if you you can call it a bird if you recognize something different because
it's open to a viewer normies are someone see a cap someone see a headband or anything else because
they're incomplete incomplete so you can make comments on it so it's open to everyone it's
open to discussion that's the video of normies I think but the thing you said launching our normies
API in the second day of the launch it was an idea by our developer Geet because he's a protocol
artist he's artist and he's art created by the protocols Ethereum blockchain and doing some I call
him Ethereum magician so he do some crazy stuff even understanding the process is really hard for me
by normal people he said like normies are fully on chain and normies even the pixels are on chain
we can create an API for normies so people can use this API to create their own apps all on games
even you know you can create anything you want using our API and so far it had over one billion
requests served so far because we hosted a hackathon which had 55 submissions 55 different
kind of apps tools and the kind of AI agent agent stuff people created around our API and we have
so far 150 apps wheels on top of normies and it gave us a vision to create some more stuff on top of
it because everyone can just create today anything even during the space you can create anything
like something you imagine about normies and everything is in our website you can see our tools
etc and everything started like this giving everyone the opportunity to create their builder
in normies ecosystem and after that we saw too many other projects even crypto pangs launched their
own API giving anyone to create tools and the apps even you can create a marketplace using
a pangs API so yeah that was the part we were inviting everyone to build together with us because
we are a small team me and heads and we are two in normies team and willing everything together with him
but we invited everyone to give us a vision give us some more tools and some more tools for the
holders as well yeah yeah you are a small team but in the same time sir Q are an enormous huge
team because there is a lot of people a lot of holders who are builders actually and we are all in
this sort of together and I was you know I was exploring this idea about the feedback loop between
the holders the builders you know people who love normies and you and since you created those
channels of communication x-chab discord you are constantly every day even on your vacation when
you have time you know and you really have to spend this time with your family to just recharge
to reconnect but still you are in touch with with the community on daily basis but those first
couple of weeks month really you were there like 16 hours a day like until NFC Lisbon which was like
outside like a peak point during this first period of time when we had this opportunity to go to
kind of Lisbon and meet everyone in real time meet holders in real time create murals that was
an amazing amazing event but what you created you created this huge body of builders believers
art lovers and we are all just giving you feedback and you are using this feedback together with
EGIT to you know to create all those amazing things and I think when you say we are a small team
this is true and that that is also like the golden you know I would say value of this that you never
really created a huge company or started hiring people but man you are so badass because you
like vibe code all this amazing things like yourself like in the evening I hear you chatting with
people or even with me you go you go like oh yeah this is a good idea and in the morning you're dropping
a bot or a new feature or a new website so you are not really waiting for anyone to step in
so yeah man before we go further let us just listen to something that will allow everybody to
retweet this space a little bit more welcome to normie we built here yeah yeah
exactly this line if not us then who's gonna build it uh when you started normies sorry you were
really thinking about you're gonna be building all of this like yourself like together with people
or you are like thinking like maybe I will hire people to build stuff for us because you are just
a machine you never stop inventing and now when you when you're talking about this new
new venture new collaboration which we had so many because of the open character of our programmable
canvas we have to mention this amazing artist that are creating some of them on daily basis like
guys people every day every day people is dropping his work on programmable canvas of normies I
thought my morning literally by going just inspecting the bot and waiting until the bot drops me
new versions people and the normified version on on one of our normies so how are you feeling about
building this every day together with with this crew man man it's crazy because uh I started
NFTs as an artist and I was an artist before NFTs like I when I was kid I was drawing I was painting and
when I was 30 and 40 years old I started street art graffiti I found my sketchbooks like I got
20 of them in my a child's memory box I checked everything like I said like there's a connection
between normies and my childhood like I was always using the similar colors and monochrome and
I'm passionate about what I am doing I was working in a company before NFTs
in as a city and I was working 16 hours a day again it's not new thing to me because if I want
something to be successful I work my ass off as literally to achieve it and I'm open to feedback
that's what makes normies really strong and giving more power in the space because one day one of our
holders came and said like there's an agentic stuff and there's an ERC 804 maybe normies can fit this uh