What is Silknode?

Silknode is a subcultural technology company building a new social platform for your creative identity and all of your personally curated media, called “Silk”.

Designers, artists, curators — Welcome.

Subcultural Technology

One would think that during this age of mass interconnectivity, our society would be seeing profound benefits from the abundance of information, tools, and people that we have access to. However, this has not yet been the case. Instead of learning, creating, and growing together, many of us are being isolated, atomized, and coaxed into digital confines apart from one another. We are increasingly finding ourselves existing outside of dynamic cultural spaces and inside of corporate-driven echo chambers.

At Silknode, we know that lasting culture cannot be automated and meaningful community cannot be forced. Both must be given the proper time, space, and tools needed to blossom organically and of their own accord. From cavemen to hippies, the core of our cultures have revolved around shared objects, interests, and spaces.

As we continue to progress into a hyper-industrial world of efficiency and convenience, it’s important that we direct our cultural and economic resources toward the things made free of these confines — real world objects and ideas born of sovereign creativity and independent processes — and make proper space for them.

And it is for this exact reason that Silknode exists: we want to provide independents with refreshing technological infrastructure for culture, as opposed to those who understand culture as commodity.

With Silk, users can expect…

1. A personal moodboard, media library, and storefront – all in one

• Upload and organize your favorite images, videos, articles, music, products, and more on your highly customizable blog
• Curate and manage a library of your favorite archived media and products shared on other blogs
• Post things that you’ve made to your own online storefront, within your blog

2. A glowing network of community spaces

• Explore a web of community forums and come into contact with new people, media, subcultures, and products
• Create and cultivate a community forum space around your own interests
• Ask people questions, engage in discussions, share media, and even send DMs

3. Built-in market functionality

• Abandon social platforms designed with market integration as an afterthought
• Buy, sell, and auction independently made goods within a network of people engaged with your same interests
• Stop giving up your IP to exploitative retail partners for little to no financial gain
• Stop relying on biased marketing algorithms for business
• Stop redirecting your supporters to a myriad of third-party sites

4. A proper reward system for tastemakers (finally)

• Curate other Silk users’ products to your blog to assist their community marketing efforts
• Receive a share of the profits that you help enable, proportional to your role in a given transaction
• Invite people from external networks to come and shop what you’ve curated

5. A completely insular and human economy

• Transact exclusively with other Silk users and reap the benefits of insular community consumption habits
• Forget about bots and dropshippers
• Passively fund both the platform and its users with every transaction
• And still give up less in service fees than Grailed (9%), Depop (10%), eBay (15%), and Poshmark (20%)

6. A refreshing opportunity to rehabilitate creative culture

• Organically discover unique subcultures, talented independent creatives, new products, and communities relevant to your interests
• Empower creative people to experiment with unique creative processes within culturally aligned communities
• Incentivize curators and creatives alike to find and support others contributing to their areas of interest

Silk is a platform for…

• The fashion designer who makes amazing pieces but doesn’t want to spend all their time marketing them…
• The graphic designer obsessed with mid 2000s action sports ads…
• The sculptor making artworks out of found objects from the sidewalk…
• The vintagehead in your apartment complex hand-dyeing and sun-bleaching old tshirts up on the roof…
• The artist with a studio downtown and a burgeoning career in painting horses…
• The sneakerhead who just figured out you can make your own shoe soles with a waffle iron…
• The Ura-Harajuku lover who recently discovered Japanese auction sites…
• The photographer who has been experimenting with “wineotype” prints after getting bored of cyanotype…
• The metalworker who makes cute little silver charms in their garage after work…
• The Y2K fiend in your fashion course working on a pattern for “cargo bumsters”…
• The upcycler who experiments with contrast stitching and just mastered their embroidery machine…
• The raver kid who just invented the first glow in the dark binky (with spikes!!!)…
• The technical designer who swears the world needs underwear with pockets and zippers…
• The retired Tumblr user…

Roadmap:

1. Ramp up our social media presence

We will continue to curate considerately made clothes, art objects, moods, and other Silky media across Silknode socials, including our Instagram and Threads pages, with a renewed emphasis on independent creativity.

2. Publish our community magazine

We will treat the upcoming Silknode e-mag as an intermediary step while we transition Silk from what was once an independent creative project itself to a full-fledged creative network platform.

Our magazine will take great reference from the canonical Whole Earth Catalog as well as the cult ‘90s Japanese publication Last Orgy, providing subscribers access to countless works of brilliant creativity from independents alongside fun interviews, stories, how-tos, merchandise, and a Discord. Join the Silk List here for upcoming info on the magazine.

3. Platform development

In accordance with the independent-centric ethos of the platform, we are making a grassroots effort to launch the Silk beta organically, communally, and free of initial outside capital. Our beta will be rolled out sometime within the coming calendar year (2023). In the meantime, please look out for other ways to support our team!

Excelsior.