The Emmy Built on ETH: Emily Yang aka pplpleasr on the Future of Storytelling

It's the first crypto project to ever win an Emmy. Why Rabit? When we first released it, it was an animated web series, but we also built an innovative, interactive mechanic, choose your own adventure model where to do so, you would have to purchase an NFT at the time. The main character's name, Mirai, was literally voted on via snapshot by our community. Crypto is obviously really good for efficient capital formation. Oftentimes, it can extend beyond just financial instruments. Shibuya is really about trying to create a platform that enables permissionless creativity. Quite frankly, White Rabit wouldn't have existed without this technology. Emily, so we met four years ago. I had reached out asking if you would want to illustrate the cover of Fortune Magazine. I was working at Fortune Magazine at the time, working on a big package about crypto and DeFi. That cover definitely changed my life. And I think that it was just sort of symbolic at the time because it really captured a very specific cultural moment, which was so meaningful to everybody who was in the crypto space. And so everybody looks back at it quite fondly. I actually don't even have a physical version anymore. Well, you're into the digital stuff, right? So-- Actually, I don't even have a digital version either. But it's OK. It lived in my heart and on other people's walls. That definitely, I think, kickstarted my career and to bring a lot more eyeballs within the crypto space onto my work, which I'm deeply grateful for. So thank you for that collaboration. Since then, I've been just kind of following my gut and my heart about what feels true to me in terms of both myself as an artist, but also an entrepreneur and trying to just combine any sort of new technology with my values and also my creative pursuits. Since then, obviously, I've started Shibuya. Shibuya is really about trying to create a platform that enables permissionless creativity, as I like to say, because crypto is obviously really good for efficient capital formation. Oftentimes, it can extend beyond just financial instruments, but also for work that could be culturally defining. And so thankfully, recently, we were able to sort of demonstrate that that model can work when they won the Emmy for a White Rabbit, which was our first project at Shibuya. Or a recognition. Is that true? Yeah. I hope that it won't be the last, and that it will be the first of many. It's kind of like a beacon of hope to others building in the space as well, that something that could be grass-rooted or considered independent and started within the crypto space, which was considered niche at the time, can then go on and create waves and receive mainstream recognition when we made our acceptance speech on stage. We did give a shout out to Ethereum, because quite frankly, White Rabbit wouldn't have existed without this technology. Same more about that for people who haven't seen White Rabbit or aren't familiar with what you're doing at Shibuya. What is it? Why should they watch it? Why should they pay attention? And how does it involve crypto? So White Rabbit was started in 2022. It was two and a half years in the making. When we first released it, it was an animated web series, but we also built an innovative, interactive mechanic, which was kind of like a choose your own adventure in browser player kind of model, where users or viewers could view it and then pick an alternate ending, but to do so, you would have to purchase an NFT at the time. And then also stake it in the sort of ending or outcome that you want to see the series continue on. And when we release it in chapters based on this, so the purchasing of the NFT would basically function as crowdfunding for the anime series. And then the staking or involving the audience was basically us crowdsourcing information creatively, but also letting our audience go from being a passive viewing to actively engaged community. And so building that community organically as well and sort of involving them and letting them have a canonical outcome or impact on how the story is written going forward. And for all of these reasons, because it is both unique, but also innovative and helped make White Rabbit, ultimately not only just get made, but also build an organic community around it. And then so that's what we won the Emmy for. The specific category was outstanding innovation in emerging media. I think it's really cool that they're basically recognizing that new models can exist. And we want to just be an example of like paving new paths for creating or doing things within filmmaking. And you know, not necessarily having to go through the traditional models like pitching to a studio. And that's really what we're about here at Shibuya. So hopefully we can inspire more. And the story itself, I think, is obviously interesting and resonant because I myself am really interested in talking about technology stories. And so White Rabbit is a reference to the matrix-- - Outro and Android. - Outro and Android. - And the matrix. One of my alternate days. - Same. And so it talks about the main character who is embarking on a journey to sort of discover herself and then spoiler alert at the end she discovers that she's actually an AI entity that was created by her father's grief tech. But along the way, there are a lot of themes that touch on the story of entrepreneurship or sort of like listening to yourself, how do you not be affected by the masses, which many people encrypt or resonate with. And if you zoom out, can really just be a story about like going down the crypto rabbit hole as well. So I think people who are interested in that type of like technology-related storytelling will also enjoy watching it. - What I love about what you've done and what you're doing is it sort of formalizes a tradition that has been the case in commercial media, commercial art for a long time. You've got screenwriters and filmmakers, they'll read subreddits, they might change plot points or change the direction of a show based on fan feedback. And even if you go back to like the serialization of stories, Charles Dickens publishing his books, one chapter at a time, doing things serially enables you to get that feedback from the crowd. And then you might change directions, you might choose to do something different. And that might really shape the ultimate product. - Yeah, it's definitely a delicate balance, but there were a lot of really interesting outcomes that resulted from this type of engagement from the community. So one example of this is the main character's name, Mirai, was literally voted on via snapshot by our community. So they literally named the main character. We had like an NFT casting for a specific character. And then the one that one kind of looked like a spirit goddess. And then so we wrote that character around how that NFT looked. And then it became quite sort of like a central character. So I did find an interesting challenge, but also a creative one to basically involve the decisions that way and also sort of organically spin out the story as a result to that. And I think the audience found it really cool also. - Speaking broadly about art and media, what opportunity is there in crypto four creatives like yourself? - First and foremost is the efficient capital formation because for any creative or anybody trying to build anything do anything you need resources. So there's the resourcing aspect of it where people want to just contribute to see this thing through. But then there's also the community aspect or like the networking aspect of it. Is there quite a lot of curious minds and highly skilled people that are drawn to crypto? And I think what makes it unique is that it's from all kinds of industries, whether it's like fashion or tech or finance. You know, you have people from all kinds of skill sets coming to pay attention to crypto. And so through that way you can also recruit people from like a skill level as well. I think those are what makes it so unique to be in this space and that it is a really exciting time. And I do feel really lucky. And I hope that many other creators or creatives can also experience the same. - Who or what are your creative inspirations? - David Lynch for sure. I love the way he tells stories. Of course, I think Studio Ghibli or Mizaki, whether it's the artistic style or also specific storytelling style too. - If you didn't know Studio Ghibli before, if you've been on the internet, you've definitely seen it since with-- - The Ghibliification from the OpenAI Tatch-A-B-T. - Exactly, we might have to make this podcast Ghibli-Five. (laughs) - Yeah, I think those are just a few to name many, but I think specifically around IPs, I'll always love technology related stories. So the Matrix, Black Mirror, Ghost in the Shell, Love Death in Robots, recently there was this really, really amazing series called Pantheon that is now in Netflix. It's about a uploaded intelligence so in the future where we're all kind of living in a virtual world and very, very mind-blowing. So, highly recommend people watch that also. - That's so cool. You have time for a lightning round? - Yeah, let's see. - What advice should founders ignore? - I think founders should ignore any kind of advice that doesn't feel like it resonates with your gut, even if it's something that's been written a book or it worked for somebody else. I think you yourself will always know what's best for you and everybody's paths are different. So you should ignore the advice if your body feels like something doesn't feel right about this. - I've heard a lot of people say the exact same thing. It seems to be a very common theme. What book would you recommend? You mentioned some films already in shows, so. - Okay, recently I've been reading this book called Reality Transurfing. It's not a new book by any means, but it's a book that's basically about controlling your own destiny, which I'm sure many founders can resonate with. But it talks about how every single parallel universes or every single possibility is happening at the same time. And you can change the lifeline that you're on through different decisions that you make or different intentions that you set. And it's a pretty practical slash woo-woo type of book that I've been really enjoying. And I think that has definitely changed my life since I've started reading it recently. So I would recommend people read that one. - So choose your own adventure as applied to your own life. - Exactly. - What's your biggest productivity hack? - Start. as in procrastinate. - I think it's a creative thing. Fortune Magazine, for example, I remember I had a whole month to make the cover and it wasn't until the last three days that I started actually coming up with the concept and then really rushing out the final product and something about that stress really makes me ultra productive. So that would be my advice. It's probably not a great one, but it works for me. - It was all marinating. You know, you were doing the work. - It was just internal in your mind. - I like the whole meditating and soul searching until the very last minute and then you panicked. - I have a routine. - Finally last question for you. What is the smallest hill that you will die on? - Pineapple is the worst pizza topping ever. - That has no business being on pizza. - Exactly. Yeah, it should just be a fruit. - Yeah, come on. All right, Emily, thanks so much for your time. - Yeah, thanks for having me. (upbeat music)