May 10th, 2023 marked a significant breakthrough for Milady Maker. Elon Musk tweeted a commonly referenced Milady meme, attracting mainstream interest in the enigmatic community widely known for schizoposting, which refers to posting apparently deranged, absurdist satirical takes.
For the uninitiated, Milady Maker is the product of Remilia, self-described avant net art extremists dedicated to pushing the boundaries of what some may consider to be art. For Remilia, the memetic experience of the art, which is as much performance-based as it is visual, is what drives its value, and the philosophical concepts of network spirituality, post-authorship, and technical accelerationism underpin their projects. Milady is the flagship collection, 10,000 neo-chibi characters with innocent, childlike gazes. While they may appear simple, their traits are anything but. Deep references to history and mixed media confer thoughtful, deliberate intent. Unlike most NFTs, the value of each Milady is not so directly correlated with simple rarity, and there is no “utility.” But the focus of this article is not on the specific value or diversity of Milady traits; I invite you to view them for yourself here, if that is your interest.
The purpose of this article is to respond to mainstream curiosity. Following the Elon tweet, Twitter was abuzz with outsiders seeking to understand what makes Milady special. Here I hope to provide some clues. As a disclaimer, the following observations are my own. Another disclaimer - this is not intended to be a comprehensive instruction. I don’t go into Milady lore or discuss in-person interactions, both of which are vitally important and infuse the project with a trademark authenticity that has no equal among NFT communities. Participation is required to understand. Network spirituality cannot be achieved by any other means. At most, this is a framework. This is not a study guide that you can read and pass a Milady exam. If this is your only reference, you will fail.
In their most simple sense, Miladys are about having fun with their friends online. I encourage you to think deeply about what that means when considering that anonymity is a key aspect of the Milady community. As a Milady, you can be whoever you want to be. Your offline self does not define you. You can develop a new persona. You can make your Milady yours, and, in fact, making any Milady yours is encouraged. Unlike most NFT communities, which gatekeep on the basis of token ownership, Miladys are inspired by post-authorship. Art is permissionless and exists for itself. “Right click, save as” is a mantra. If you like a Milady, wear it. It doesn’t matter if you don’t own it on the blockchain. It belongs to you if you choose to make it yours. Discarding real-world norms around ownership and leaning into your Milady in a sort of singularity is a primary feature distinguishing Milady from all other NFT communities, with willing participation being the only true barrier to entry. For this reason, the Milady community is perhaps the most diverse in all of web3, overrepresenting only the chronically online (and successful, and intelligent, and beautiful).
What would you do online if you could truly be whoever you wanted to be? What would you say? What would you produce? How would you spend your time? As a Milady, you don’t have to wonder. You can do - with your friends.
Network spirituality is another concept that is unique to Miladys. The link I provided offers several different interpretations of the idea. But to me, network spirituality is a shared consciousness that exists on a level above what can be experienced in the physical world. At this moment, it is uniquely online. Necessarily incompatible with physical identity, which has physical bounds, it is a feeling of common understanding and willful community with those who choose to be there with you, online, spending time and having fun. As the Milady saying goes: the love is never ending, but so is the love.
If this doesn’t make sense to you, or if you don’t understand how this is different from other communities, I know you aren’t a Milady. As a thought experiment, take any “blue chip” NFT collection and cut the floor price in half. What do you think that would do to sentiment? Conversely, Milady was subject to perhaps the most vicious cancel campaigns in NFT history, slashing the floor price by far more than just half, and still beat the allegations with little loss of community fervor. The schizoposting never stopped. And in what is known as the “Milady curse,” virtually every single one of the original misinformation spreaders has themselves been revealed to be a scammer, grifter, or LARPer, and has recanted their poorly motivated allegations, generally after their their own projects suffered and their ulterior motives revealed.
If you are new to the philosophical concepts behind Milady, your intake of this didactic expression alone does not meet participation requirements, though I think it’s a good start. You are only scratching the surface, and like anything worth understanding, it will take some time. You wouldn’t learn a language or an instrument simply by reading about it. Participation is required. Lurk more.
I want to conclude by discussing gatekeeping. Gatekeeping in the Milady community is a feature, not a bug. It manifests as an absurdist parody of your moral fears, sometimes mixed with kernels of truth. It might be perceived as offensive or outrageous were it to be expressed earnestly offline. But in our online, hyperficial reality, it’s a test. Are you able to discern satire from dogma? Are you willing to suspend your born identity and transcend to a higher plane of being, one unconstrained by conventional mores, in a world where you can truly be free to like whatever it is you like, say whatever it is you want to say, do whatever it is you want to do, and be judged only for the things that you can control, and not for the things you can’t? Most are unable to do so, and for this reason, Miladys are punk rock, and that’s how we were really able to log on and win forever.