What might it mean to take a "slowcore" approach to attention in a Farcaster channel? The default approach… would involve pursuing growth and further attention in the form of more followers, subscribers, page views, etc. But slow culture values deeper attention. Quality attention. Refinement. Contemplation. Taking things in at leisure. Pondering. Reflection.

One IRL element I rely on every day is restful, quiet places designed for humans to sit, relax, meditate, and allow the mind to wander uninterrupted. I call them slowcore rooms or incubation spaces. […] What if we built slowcore rooms... onchain?

"Attention is both given and paid. [...] Both verbs are necessary. "Give" reminds us of the freedom of our choice to attend, or not; "pay" reminds us of attention's costliness, and of the value of that to which we attend." ~ Alan Jacobs

As I think through this design space I note that deep attention, a sense of time spaciousness, and creative flow states are among the most valuable things in the world to me — so important that, to the best of my ability, I arrange my life around them. Without them, I cannot produce work of the sort you're reading right now. But extractive economic systems of chokepoint capitalism treat the time, labor, care, and attention of artists and writers like me ("content creators") as an afterthought at best.

As I've written elsewhere (cf. Lewis Hyde), writers and artists are wealth generators. We make the world more beautiful, relatable, and valuable by using our skills and gifts to bring attention and care to what we create. Yet even in web3, a space that ostensibly values "creators," significant up-front expenditures of time, attention, and unpaid maintenance labor still default to those whose resources are appropriated by extractive "creator economy" patterns. What if the path toward thriving Farcaster channels begins with measures to address these attentional value leaks?

(Excerpt adapted from “Slowcore Nerd Notes: On the Value of Attention” by Danica Swanson. Originally published at A Digital Incubation Space on Paragraph, June 15, 2024. Thumbnail photo by Mika Baumeister via Unsplash).