🎙pplpleasr | layer zero

welcome to layer 0. layer 0 is a podcast of unscripted conversations with the people that make up the ethereum community crypto is built by code but is composed by people and each individual member of the crypto community has their own story to tell cypherpunks understood that the code they write impacts the people that use it and layer zero focuses on the people behind the code because ethereum is people all the way down and it always has been today i'm talking with the artist people pleaser who is the renowned artist behind the uniswap x times y equals k

animation that sold for almost half a million dollars and 100 of that revenue was donated to charity uh people pleaser is also the inspiration for pleaser dao which has just become a gargantuan of just a dow that is sucking up all the cool cultural artifacts of the world and people pleaser has really led the charge into what it means to become an nft artist but also an nft artist that resonates with some of the ethos and the culture of the cryptocurrency space and has truly become focused on

generating nft art and using that skill that that artistic talent to direct uh money into charities uh throughout her collection of work she's donated over two million dollars of total value into various charities from uh from her from her work and really believes in making sure that we instantiate some of these values for the long term of crypto and not just focus on this whole moon boy number go up 100x bag culture so i really appreciate that that angle from from people pleaser and overall had

a ton of fun finding out what it was like to be an artist before crypto uh what it was like for her to get into crypto and now become a very prolific hard worker in the world of crypto art in nfts so i hope you enjoyed this conversation with a people pleaser before we get to that conversation a moment to talk about some of these fantastic sponsors that make this show possible arbitrary is an ethereum scaling solution that's going to completely change how we use defy and nfts and now it's live and has over a hundred projects deployed gas fees on ethereum l1 suck too many people want to

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what are you even waiting for go to ledger.com grab a ledger download ledger live and get all of your defy apps all in one space hey people pleaser what's up hi how's it going not bad that's i was literally just thinking about how the last time i did one of these was also the first time and it was the first time we had ever met and it's crazy now because what it's been like eight months or something yeah eight months since uh the unit swap x times y equals k drop uh and then that

was my like introduction into me realizing i very much missed out on joining uh pleaser dow before pleaser dad was pleaser dao uh and so yeah for the for the listeners the backstory is uh x times y equals k people pleasers uh very famous um animation of uniswap v3 that came out around the same time made a bunch of storm because a bunch of people got into it into a group together pooled their funds to buy this thing and really the story was really really cool so i pulled people pleaser into a quick interview uh as well as leighton cusack

and that's where i met matt people pleaser and now i've met her in real life a number of times and so a lot of these relationships that uh people listen to on podcasts they're actually people are watching them form in real time which is kind of cool yeah no i think that's super cool and yeah i mean so much has happened i feel like in the past eight months yeah yeah especially in the world of nfts and definitely your career which is definitely something that we're going to uh tap into here on this layer zero but but first before we get there uh people

pleaser what what's up with that name how'd that come about um it's funny because this name actually came before i was sort of involved with crypto um and it was um you know recently i guess like in august or something that i revealed in my sort of like op-ed that had been published was that uh why i sort of got to d5 last summer and everything was because i um during the pandemic was supposed to go get a job or i got a job at apple but

then um they rescinded it because of the pandemic and then so i ended up basically unemployed uh and needed to look for a job and stuff and so during this time well this was like probably in early 2020 and then so i sort of just to fill my time um like my free time while i was job hunting i created um an art instagram and then at the time i was just looking at all these like cool artists online and they all had like i guess like cool artist names and then

you know my real name is not particularly interesting or unique and then so i thought that i needed also an artist name i mean i never thought that it was going to go anywhere when i created this i was just like i'm just going to create something you know almost like it's kind of like the equivalent of being on ct and creating an alt or like an and on account right and then so um i was looking for a name and my personality just i guess um in general is very much a people pleaser type and then so it just kind of came to me on the spot

and i just thought that oh i can always change it later anyways if i wanted to but i guess that didn't end up happening i didn't have like time to do that um but yeah and the way like the way that it's spelt is like super weird and people get it wrong all the time and the reason for that is literally just because at the time it was really trendy to do like names that didn't have any vowels in it and then so i wanted to just do like ppl plsr but then that one was already taken on instagram so then i just slowly added vowels back in until

it like wasn't taken and that's literally why it's felt super weird and i've seen like every possible different combination of like the wrong spelling now on twitter like up to date so that's and when you were coming up with this uh pseudonym this was pre you were not in crypto at all this was you you are pre-adventuring into crypto right um i mean well i actually had like bought and you know was investing in crypto since 2017 but um i guess i wasn't in crypto in the sense that i

wasn't like an active like contributor or a participant i yeah it's true like at the time when i created my instagram account i didn't even have a crypto twitter account i just had like a regular twitter account from like you know 2012 that i used to like occasionally complain to companies to or something that's pretty funny so let's keep on going backwards because a lot of your skills that you are now injecting into the crypto world came from you know your at your actual career so what was your

career like before crypto um so when i graduated college i immediately just started working as a like a visual effects artist or like in 3d animation um and so i worked for a bunch of different like either feature animation studios or um visual effects studios and i worked on some movies um like batman vs superman wonder woman star trek beyond um and then yeah a bunch of other like animated movies so what would you actually do for these things or were

they like were you and what were you what part of these movies were you animating so i was in this um department called lighting and composing which is um as everybody knows like 3d animation or like computer graphics is extremely laborious and very very like um specialized in every every single department and then so you know you have something like let's say you need to create godzilla right um so you start with like the model so somebody you know just like modeling something in real life with clay will literally go and

like sculpt godzilla or like you know what they think is a godzilla and then that's the model that's created and then it'll go to you know sort of like either um texturing and shading which is um where somebody determines like um i don't know like just how sort of like like what godzilla's like skin texture is gonna look like you know what colors um that kind of stuff and then it's gonna go through all these process of like rigging um animation which is where you like fit a skeleton on the model and then suddenly like godzilla can make moves and then the animator will then go

and keyframe all those moves so that you know let's say godzilla's like throwing a punch then like the animator will do that and then they pass it to like um sometimes like there's like effects which is um the department that does like all the smoke and debris or like explosions whatever and then after that all of that is done um they pass into somebody called in lighting which is like what i did where um when they pass it to me it doesn't really have like you know how if you see like 3d programs and everything is like all like gray and

stuff like that's basically what it looks like when it comes to me and then so i would be the type i would be the person who first renders um the scene and also determines like what the mood and setting and everything of the scene should look like um and then so i do that and then i send out the renders so then all of that 3d becomes 2d again because it becomes like 2d renders and then just rendering frames like you know typically at 24 frames per second and then however many seconds a shot is and then after all those frames are rendered out

then it goes through the last um department called compositing so sometimes i do that sometimes other people do that and it's just sort of like putting on all the like finishing touches so i'm just kind of like the person who grabs everything and like puts it together make sure it looks good and then we ship it out yeah so i was doing that for um many many years um and then before like i got into crypto my last job was at blizzard um on their cinematics team and then i was working on the diablo for um game sim and map not in game

cinematic but like the ones that like look like movies yeah the cut scenes the diablo cut scenes yeah and blizzard is also like famous as a company for making really really elaborate like lore and and cut scenes so and also as a fan of diablo and i think there's a lot of uh crypto people that are get like use diablo 2 as their like crypto gaming metaphors like oh my god what if what if diablo 2 had in-game assets i think there's like a large like overlap between like diablo fans and and crypto fans so

having you is like working on the diablo cinematics and then coming over into crypto is actually kind of uh fortunate i would say i mean i would hope so it's funny because i i wasn't a huge blizzard gamer i do play games but i didn't play that many blizzard games it's mainly just because they're kind of hard and i'm like not good at games so when i was interviewing with blizzard they're like so what which games do you play i was like uh i mean i don't really play any of them um but obviously you know i do know about the

games i have also played diablo 4 which apparently is really similar to up to diablo 2 but you've played diablo four huge flags i i have it it was scheduled i had it on like the month january 2022 it's like blocked off time off my calendar and then i realized that they they canceled it or they didn't cancel it but they they kicked it out oh yeah i'm not surprised i don't think i'm coming out for a while oh no oh no breaking the alpha sadly here on the

show um what was your favorite part about making the diablo cinematics there's any part about the cinematics that really stuck out to you have you seen it yeah um so it's the one that yeah debuted at blizzcon in 2019 and um i mean i think it's just i i really like working on that one because it was so gory um it was just so dark i think they actually they changed it so that it became a little bit less um messed up because the original version was even more dark and gory um

they were like okay this is maybe a little bit too much but i mean i really liked it because yeah i kind of brought it back to the whole um sort of vibe of diablo ii of like the very dark lore um and uh lilith was one of the main characters at the end um she looked really cool um so and i just liked how the entire um it was about like nine minutes i think the sort of like the short film i guess the entire short film like all the way up until the end was just like this constant ramp up um you know just like very dark and weird and at the end

there's like this mega grand entrance of lilith and um the music is pretty crazy so i think yeah i mean obviously it was really interesting to work on the aesthetics of it but nothing could compare with like the feeling of watching it on the big screen for the first time at blizzcon because you're actually just sitting in a crowd of people who are so like passionate about this stuff and like hearing their reaction to like the whole thing was just it was pretty pretty cool how have uh have you been able to find similar

experiences with your nft art in crypto um honestly i think yeah like um with x times y equals k specifically you know a lot of people always say oh like it's so cool that it sold for you know however much and i mean yeah definitely you know that and everything about pleaser dot was super cool but i think my favorite moment of you know sort of like that moment i guess um didn't even have anything to do with the fact that it sold as an nft because earlier that week

before i even announced that it was going to be an nft when um unisoft just tweeted it out without any contacts just to read everybody's um comments and responses was a similar feeling to watching i mean obviously it's not like a premiere or whatever but it's like the virtual version of like watching something at blizzcon and seeing everybody's reactions right um and so that was really rewarding i thought that was definitely the coolest part do you have any sense of like the differences between what the reaction of what crypto twitter

was versus the crowd at blizzcon like what were what were the crowd of people at blizzcon really focused on that they really liked and then what were the crowd of the crypto twitter people focus on were there any differences there um i think it's just well obviously crypto twitter being online um you're watching all of the reactions happen in real time and all of the comments and stuff and i think and also the animation is just so much shorter so um people were really really um i mean i i think it's the funniest so

people are like oh what did i just watch or like what does this mean because it was like so vague at the time um and then watching people pick it apart like you know looking for any tiniest hint of like easter egg and definitely really cool that people spotted the v3 at the end in the stars um whereas the viewing experience for the blizzard cinematic was way more like almost like watching a movie or something where everyone was very very quiet and focused you know the entire way through and then at the end they're like whoa and then you know they stand up and i was like standing innovation or

whatever um so yeah so with uh your time working at blizzard uh it you the way that you illustrated it kind of made you feel like you were very a part of a very specific team that does a very specific job but my gift with uh the universe v3 animation is you are much more of like the the total end-to-end like conductor of the whole entire art uh so what what what about uh v3 and your first introduction to you know being your your own uh artist being the end-to-end

artist i know there were other people that worked on the v3 animation with you but i think with this one you just had a lot more control what was what was it like to like take the shackles off of your your nine to five five corporate drop and start to actually do art for art's sake well i think it's really nice because it's just like um you don't have to gain anybody's trust right like and also you know the unisop team were also just extremely um trusting in my vision and they were just like uh do your thing and you know

because of course like the animation itself is uh like i said before was pretty vague um at least at first glance right so um it's it's cool that people would just be like because you know maybe somebody who's more conservative might watch that and just be like i don't even understand what this is promoting or you know and i'm really grateful that they don't try to push that kind of you know old school like very narrative literal type of art direction on me you know to make it like a commercial because i really don't like that because really to me it was more

about creating a piece of art right um and so yeah i mean there were three other people who worked with me on it um but i i'd say i probably did like you know closer to like seven like 70 80 of it um you know the whole thing was just night vision but it's just more of like the execution of it um given the time constraints and everything and then there's maybe yeah like i was saying within animation there's specific very specific parts that um you know somebody who's a professional in that field would do a lot better than me so for example

the movement of the unicorn and the piece looked so natural and cool because my really good friend who now i work with frequently called marion i used to work with in london and she's a professional animator and so she animated like i don't know um if you've seen like detective pikachu the movie like she animated a bunch of the pikachu shots um you know she's just like so good at bringing these things to life and just giving them such natural movements um and then i also worked with this guy her

feet who was helping me sort of do like all the simulations for particles um you know that has to do with more like yeah it's like generative simulated stuff um within the video and then obviously lastly there was isaac's leader who did the score of the music and so what happened was i originally made the animatic against this um this track by this artist named pariah that already exists and then i was like this is the i sort of like cut it to the way that i wanted it and i was like this is the kind of look and feel that we're

going for um and then i sent it to isaac and then we had some back and forth where he would send me the track and then i'd give him notes and be like okay i feel like it should feel more like this so yeah it's like on top of just making the animation i also felt like it was the first time that i was doing more of like a director role um so that was definitely a very cool experience and super rewarding but um when you're working on like real movies and stuff you know when you're in a team of like literally hundreds of people um yeah obviously it's a very different experience

at the very least i feel like with the blizzard cinematic um the diablo 4-1 it was a vision that sort of aligned with mine so the end product is something that i also liked whereas definitely that doesn't apply to every single like other movie or feature animation that i've worked on so yeah when you're working on something that you know you don't think is sort of like an aligned with your taste it's a lot less motivating and feels way more like a job did you like stepping into that director

role with swap with a x times y equals k animation or is that like okay i did it i don't really want to do that anymore again that was oh i'm glad i did that one time but maybe back to the artist how do you feel about like director role nowadays um i mean i really enjoyed it i think as long as you have a solid team and then clients that really trust you um i would totally do it again how um how did you actually convince because as far as i remember correct me if i'm wrong but like this was like you were donating your time towards you and

a swap right they were not compensating you uh and i think perhaps that's also true for the other team members uh and so is that not is that not right no that's not true um so actually unisop um did pay me for making the animation um and then uh and so and then obviously with the people that i worked with um they were paid to sort of like do the work as well um but it was very very like it's like not not a lot of money like at all

right yeah yeah it's just to just to get the ball rolling um okay so my question was going to be how did you convince all these people to like um sign up and and uh commit to the labor to to produce this thing but i think perhaps maybe some of your answer was like because it's cool maybe because uh like it's there's the clout there of like helping the uni swap team produce the animation but we want to talk about the incentive but for you and all the all the team members yeah it's funny because um i mean all of those team members and this is also why i actually was just thinking

about this yesterday where even to this date now a lot of people that i collaborate and work with are people from my past life as in like pre-crypto life let's say um and so thankfully for my i guess maybe it's either my people pleasing personality or something that i have built up really um great and solid relationships with people in the past and so um yeah when i for example when i approached them for the unisop thing uh other than isaac who is doing the music because he is um

teo's friend so teo from unisop um brought isaac in for the music but for the you know the two sort of like animators that i was working with they're my connections they didn't know what unicef was so um they were just doing it i mean obviously mary and i used to work with her so you know she's doing it because you know we have this like trust and great relationship and then hafid i found actually through like an online community i interviewed a few people um but he was just um down to do it because he liked my vision and he thought that when i described the vision

of the the piece to him he felt like it was really cool and he just wanted to do it so yeah i think i'm just blessed so blessed that you know neither of them knew how big it was gonna be or anything and they were just doing it based on trust and merit and yeah cool factor did they get cryptopilled in this process are they not crypto people as well um i think they both got crypto pilled in the process yes they are both um very much like more and more diving into crypto um nnfts and yeah i think they both like

hold crypto now which is great what do you think did it for them was it the just the recognition of the community and the appreciation of the art was it the fact that the art itself sold for almost half a million dollars like what do you think really brought them in i think um probably you know i think it's just like this world is so intriguing right now and definitely had to deal with the fact that crypto has i feel like gone a lot more mainstream this year as well um that

you can't help but just pay more attention and look into it right um and obviously you know with me talking about it i think it brings a lot more things to attend to their attention as well um whereas you know maybe like surfing the web you would see that a little bit less um yeah i don't know i feel like it's just sort of like it definitely wasn't like overnight it wasn't like after the unison video and they're like all right i'm in how do i get involved it was definitely more of like a transitional process um so yeah i think

it's like a slow red pill when was the decision made that all the revenue from the unit swap animation would go to charity how was that decision made uh beforehand i i had made that decision so i literally i remember i was so i was like so nervous because i mean at the time actually it was just like wait i was just going to make this animation because um you know anybody who had been familiar with my work before was just i would make these animations for different d5 protocols and then pretty much all the utility was just they would post on twitter

um and that was it right and then so around this time was when nft started sort of like really blowing up and um because i had been so busy because i did sort of like list and sell nfts like even back in defy summer and stuff but um it was never really my focus because i guess i wasn't really like famous then so it's like harder to sell nfts um and then so my main sort of like stream of income was just doing these commissions for d5 protocols and then so at the time i felt a little bit of fomo thinking about like oh i had

spent all my time like making all these animations for d5 protocols but i had missed out on the whole like nft wave um or at least i just i didn't commit much time or like resources into developing myself as an nft artist or a brand things like that and then so i just like thought of oh what if i sort of like uh double purposed this video by you know obviously the original purpose of making it for unisoft so that they could tweet it out with the v3 announcement but also if i could drop it as an nft and then

um some like multiple reasons um first like my family sort of like values and stuff that i grew up with um my parents are pretty big on charity or volunteer work so that's just something that i've always liked been used to and then also that um i had always wanted to do so when nfts even like you know first was like came into my radar i was just like oh i would love to do like charity drops or something but being that i wasn't famous at the time you know let alone feeding myself i don't think i had enough sort of like

firepower to be doing any kind of like charity drops and then so that was just something that i wanted to do and also because of the fact that unisoft had already paid me um to do the work so i felt like there was no purpose for me to take more money from this piece and then so i just kind of like was really nervous but came to them with this proposal like hey i think it could be um cool if we drop this as an nft and then donate it to charity and then um you know i was like really nervous the night before because i got what if

they say no blah blah and then i mean they were just like cool yeah let's do it and then so that's like how it happened do you think that how much this is going to probably be an impossible question to answer but how much do you think that the hype around and the ultimate price that was discovered for the x times y equals k uh animation which i think was 430 thousand dollars i think so a very large number do you think that how much do you think of that that price that value is added because it was uh ultimately going to be donated to charity do you have any

speculation on that um i actually don't it's so hard to say um i i almost feel like maybe it added a little bit but you know at the end of the day i think that a lot of the value came from um sort of it was a combination of like all these people in the d5 community who i had like previously worked with or were familiar with my work um who just sort of like wanted to i guess like support me

because it's almost like they feel like i'm like one of them and then at the time i think the nft space was also very much like still kind of a separate community right and then so they were like kind of like i was like they're i don't know like poster child or something and then so it was really nice that i think everybody wanted to support that and also combined with the fact that the the video had gone so viral like literally within 24 hours that it came out um it was over half a million views on twitter it's like um like you know i think even to the state

it's like uh unisop's accounts like most engaged tweets so you know like obviously things that like have this sort of element of virality you know also suffer a lot when it comes to like nfts and um but i feel like the sort of like the charity aspect is sort of what put it in the stratosphere in terms of like um the impact um afterwards like after the sale people were like oh like

why is this girl just donating all this to charity and i don't um a lot of people were like oh she's like probably doing it for attention or something but like yeah like i was pretty saying like this is just something that my family you know has been sort of like largely believed in and just like values that i was raised with and yeah and just in a time where i'm just going transitioning from like last summer where i was totally jobless and like worried about affording rents to being grateful that i just had some kind of income by

creating these commissioned animations for defy um like that was already so sufficient for me that this like crazy irrational influx of like nft money just didn't even feel right for me to just be taking or milking at the time um so it just made a lot more sense for me to share it with others and um yeah i don't know i feel like probably for that multitude of reasons is like but i definitely didn't think that it was going to go for that much like so