Killer Narrative

/killer-narrative4

What makes for an effective, strategic, and memeable narrative? Let's dig in together by looking at actual projects and applying narrative theory to help you build your killer narrative.

The right narrative reframes the game by rules where you are more likely to win.

One wine brand reframed wine's sophistication as complex; captured the market for those who want to learn about wine without looking stupid.
The point of the story should be the same for everyone telling it. It’s okay if it’s different for the listeners though as long as they write themselves into it.
Narratives initially fuel reflexive behavior and momentum.

But I've been thinking that even good narratives can't beat low yield, bearish prices.

Good thing, bad thing?
Verifiability and immutability are abstract concepts that will return as a primary narrative. Someday.
Narratives in crypto a composable: it's possible to build upon the momentum and credibility of another narrative.
a strong narrative supports, enables, unveils, and executes a strong strategy
We are entering a time of deeper tribalism, not just interest groups. Perhaps one category are NPCs while the rest are engaging more with a worldview that just isn’t captured by traditional politics or loose social organizations. I would like to start to come up with some taxonomy.
It’s hard to not like a good Origin Story.
Killer Narratives give people facing uncertainty safety to calm their lizard brain. The more lizards- the more the narrative can take hold. For safety, understanding, tribalism.

Conspiracy theorists do this well. And many probably are telling the truth as well.

But a positive narrative is better than fear.
“Weak” frames and narratives become theater and propaganda. Building a narrative takes time, conviction, and insight.

I think writing counter narratives is also a useful exercise.
The best narratives in crypto touch on the “primitives.” However, what those are exactly will govern the tribal effects and ultimate product adoption.

Primitives needs to be baked into the story telling. Even if they are well known, their framing matters.
Tokens plus killer narratives will be the new go to market for everything that matters in the future.

But we have to be clear on what the actual product is. Narrative and tokens are still the side dish. The product’s value to customer is the main course.
Fast opinions aren't the same as fast decisions. But without a way to show the heuristic, hard to tell the difference.
I want to understand $PEPE and how it got so big as a coin despite being hijacked in its earlier days. Related at all?
The "Algo" for every social platform is often cast as the Enemy in the social media narrative.

It's meant to be beaten. It's manipulated. It's leading people down radicalized rabbit holes.

This may not actually be true. But a narrative that positions against it can find believers.
Freedom is the universal "killer narrative."

Bitcoin tapped into this in such a compelling way; but I think a set of projects that can hook itself into this arc **in a credible way** can soar.

Credibility is essential -- otherwise the narrative becomes just a rant.
Proof Cloud advances trust-minimization via zkp at scale. The inevitability part of the story is reducing privacy leakage and trust dependencies. That Google, a centralized consumer of people's private data, is a partner makes the narrative intriguing (enemies and allies).
Narrative without a product strategy is a fable.

Product strategy without a narrative is a set of goals.
Even things that don't make sense to me start to make more sense (but still not completely) because I'm not culturally part of it. $PEPE was something I heard of early, before the drop, but I only had an intuition this would be big, but was/still too n00b. It's culture and taste.
Really like @farcaster narrative that informs product strategy by @dwr.eth . It captures a trend we *are* familiar with, the creator economy, with an *enemy* also accepted -- the platform rug pulls ala Twitter. It has a virtuous cycle of devs/creators via Frames. Smart.
A strong narrative bakes in "inevitability."

It does so not through poor logic or wishful thinking or hijacking existing narratives (like AI and just grafting onto it).

Inevitability, though, is very context specific, and getting the audience to grok the relevant trends is part of the battle.
I think strong narratives enable another crypto phenom which is headless brands. Will there be onboarding difficulty? Sure.

But the project which nails this will win big. Trad branding is centralized.
Brainstorming on the right icon or image for this channel.

Passing on these, but I like them to use for something else someday.
It's not just crafting a narrative (genesis). It's spotting the right one to ape into.

Seeking alpha in narrative hunting is an elusive skill.
Killer Narrative is just a valuable as the proverbial "killer app".

There's a narrative behind the concept, too.