Last weekend, the Idyllwild Arts Academy (IAA) campus was the site of FWB Fest 2022, a tech and culture gathering for members of “Friends With Benefits.”

Readers may think they know what “friends with benefits” means, but as times change, words take on new meanings, and in this case, FWB has two meanings: It is both a company providing professional services connected to non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and blockchain, and a social network adjacent to the company. Although blockchain is associated in the popular imagination with crypto currency, the intention here is more social than financial.

One becomes part of an online community of like-minded individuals, that also meets up in real life. People become members by filling out an application, and, once approved, buying “tokens” allowing them to access content online, participate in a “Discord Channel” (something like a chat group, blog and news site) and attend events in the physical world. Previous events have occurred in Miami, New York and Los Angeles, but were single night affairs attracting mostly local members. This event, for the first time, brought the digital tribe together from across the globe. The post-pandemic conditions gave a special atmosphere of joy to the fest.

Andrew Leeson, IAA faculty member, was busily “liason-ing” with the event production team. He took the time to tell me he found everyone easy to work with, the FWB people, the production company (FORM), security, the other groups. He was “very impressed with the level of professionalism. They are all very good and very nice.”

The main production team, FORM, is based in Florida and was responsible for the Arcosanti Festivals in Arizona, another site, like Idyllwild, requiring cultural and environmental sensitivity. Riverside County Sheriff was on-site during the event, and Idyllwild Fire Department had a contingent there keeping a watchful eye on the proceedings.

Understanding the acronym-laden underlying themes of the group may seem daunting. Non fungible means each token (NFT) is unique, unlike currency or crypto currency. The NFT is a way of recording a payment and providing proof of ownership, which information is recorded in a blockchain, which is a ledger distributed among participating computers. Since it is distributed, it is not controlled by an individual or corporation. We read about NFTs as digital artworks traded and used as speculative assets, but they can be event tickets, or the buy-in to a community, raising money for a cause or goal. DAOs are Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, groups again not controlled by a corporation but by members. Old timers can relate this concept to store-front churches or Alcoholics Anonymous and its offspring.

The festival was full of articulate and chatty (mostly young) people who were happy to tell the Crier about themselves, FWB, and the underlying issues that concern them and their community. Many attendees spoke of participating in the Discord channel and attending their (mostly) Los Angeles (LA) based events, meeting up with “internet homies” or “internet family.” The atmosphere, as the young people say, was “all very chill,” and it was an exceptional place to meet people.

Idyllwild was very much part of the appeal for the attendees I spoke with. Friday night, already several hundred had shown up at the Holmes Amphitheater for a roster of artists. The attendance was capped at 500, but there were also lots of event people, the organizers and production team, and the numerous and professional security.

A man who identified himself as “Ruby” from New York City (NYC), described FWB as “the new frontier of digital communications, an attempt to bring the digital to a physical space.” He is a product manager at FWB, an employee. Ruby explained that FWB has two product lines for the web: a gatekeeper that allows people to get into events by showing the content of their virtual wallet, and a membership directory product, a layer on top of a Discord channel, that allows members to build profile cards that are searchable.

Raihan Anwar is a co-founder of FWB. He thinks of it as “a creative community first.” I asked if that was confusing, a company that is also a social network and community. “In the early days it felt like a group text message connecting a variety of artists and creatives who were affected by the pandemic,” he said. He framed the group as “creative people using new tools. Technology makes things possible. In the early days of the cellphone, no one was ‘evangelizing’ for the phone itself. You could just talk on it. Now when you think of the iPhone and all the things it replaces … we feel the same way about the entire crypto-ecosystem. We can see [only] the early use cases of this technology [now.]”

David Rudnick a British web designer based in Ghent, Belgium, was one of the speakers in the Friday afternoon Lowman Hall talk titled “Design on the Edge” along with Eric Hu. The talk dealt with artificial intelligence (AI) and image creation. As Rudnick broke it down for me, the talk was “drawing attention to the fact that there is a lot of curiosity, excitement and interest in the new tools and products and their capabilities, and we’re both very concerned that the impact will be significant and at scale, and will affect not just the people who create images, but the viewers of all images and the social spaces in which we all live and in which images circulate and play such a large role in our lives.” (The artwork for the festival was created using AI, and can still be viewed at fest.fwb.help.)

I asked Rudnick if he had ever been to Idyllwild. “I came a month ago for a site visit. My studio designed the identity of the fest. This includes [wrist] bands, logos, signage and the website.” When asked for his impression of the locale, he said, “I love the town, I love the environment. I get a sense of the unique spirit of the place, it’s creativity and strong sense of community. I think these values really fit the ethos of FWB and its community.”

Eileen Skyers was visiting from New York but is originally from Florida. She had been to Palm Springs before, but this was her first trip up the Hill, describing Idyllwild as “a hidden gem.” She was “really interested in the community aspect, and in learning more about Web3 and NFTs, and I thought being a part of this community would help out.” When asked about her professional trajectory, she said, “I actually come from a traditional art background. I was working in galleries and museums. When the NFT boom started to disrupt the art world I became intrigued.” Skyers is currently “helping the MOMA in New York decide which NFTs they bring into their collection.”

She had been to previous FWB events in New York and Miami, single night affairs, “but this is our first destination event.” Like many I spoke to, she feels that coming into a town like Idyllwild “we really want to be a good neighbor.” Like others she also said the fest had exceeded her expectations.

Brennan Schloo, from LA, is “web creative,” project manager and creative director of Bean.la, an LA web design shop. He described FWB as “a community of fast-paced, intense creative minds looking to shape the future of the internet.” FWB members form a “nice, resourceable community of knowledgeable, trusted individuals.”

Máuhan M Zonoozy, head of Innovation and Market Intelligence at Spotify, claims to reside “in the metaverse,” and is a “huge fanboy of the Web3 community.” He described FWB Fest as “a bunch of hyper-intellectuals obsessed with culture who like to, from time to time, get dumb together.”

Makayla Bailey, originally from Corona, now resides in NYC. She was one of the moderators in a roundtable conversation on Saturday titled, “Where do NFTs go from here?” “My affiliation is through this organization called Rhizome, founded in 1996. We are the premium organization supporting the presentation, preservation and promotion of digital art. Now I’m part of a leadership team, making sure Rhizome is gaining new audiences and contributing meaningfully to the field.”

Sebastian Bean is the founder of Bean.LA. He spoke of “micro communities,” but qualified that, since to him any real community can only be a certain size before it loses its essence. He spoke of the pros and cons of an out-of-the-way destination like Idyllwild. “It creates a barrier to entry. It’s not Coachella with lines for everything.” And the people have something in common. “Everyone I have talked to I have some random connection to, or could have, there’s something to click on.” He likened the vibe to “Burning Man” with its “radical acceptance.” There is a “momentum” to crypto and it feels easy to create hype and energy behind it.” But an event like FWB Fest creates a tangible benefit that is not just an entry in a ledger, and he is quick to differentiate: This is “unlike the sh-tcoin buddies who ride the waves of pump-and dump.”

Jacq Vaca of Los Angeles is an artist who “saw in NFTs a way for artists to earn money on secondary sales. That, to me, completely changed the paradigm.” A long-discussed idea is now a reality. “Artists have been historically abused by this; no one made a dime off of secondary sales.” Now, if her works are resold, she receives another payment. (Her works can be found on an NFT marketplace called Foundation, under the name QUIVACA.)

About Idyllwild, Vaca said, “I thought it was important that we came to a place grounded in nature because we are surrounded by technology every day. Nature allows us to have a primal connection, breathe the fresh air, see the full moon.” Stargazing was one of the planned evening events. “I’ve met so many inspiring people doing beautiful stuff. Maybe they are idealistic, but they are putting some effort into it; we’ll see where it goes.”

Taylor McKnight, from Savannah, Georgia, spent over a decade in event production. He said, “Honestly, the location helped sell it to me. I was at Lollapalooza a couple of weeks ago. This is the complete opposite. I loved Lolapalooza, but this is different. There is something special about people expending effort to get somewhere …” Like many other attendees, he flew, rented a car, booked an AirBnB, and then took the complimentary festival shuttle. “So much of the people’s [lives] here, and my life, is online. But you don’t actually get to know somebody” that way. “I’m a big believer in I.R.L. [In Real Life.]” He pointed to the fellow behind him, a friend he hadn’t seen in five years.

The cultural side of the fest included a gallery show of digital art premiering work commissioned by sponsor (crypto trading platform) OpenSea, who provided $100,000 to this end. The musical end was heavy on hip-hop-adjacent electronica, but there was a variety. An eight-speaker outdoor “immersive” listening area, set up by software and event company Envelop, was furnished with bean bags and inflatable pillows, and hosted a series of multi-channel sound sculpture presentations. Saturday’s program at the Holmes Amphitheater ended with a solo piano set by James Blake. (Think Keith Jarrett singing “Starry Starry Night.”) He has collaborated as a producer with mainstream artists like Beyonce, and his free-roaming improvisations cover the ground between deconstruction and familiar pop songs.

FWB events often have included high-profile artists you would not expect at a “tech conference.” This event brought a number of names familiar to the intended audience, but also a “household name;” Russia’s own Pussy Riot. Conceptual artist and activist Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has created a global feminist protest art movement, and has spent over a year in a Russian prison for her efforts. Accompanied by two dancers in trademark white balaclavas, a live drummer and backing tracks, she provided a provocative spectacle; they turned “exotic dancer” moves and costumes into an athletic, aggressive, defiant and humorous affirmation of life and freedom and feminism.

Tolokonnikova’s presence was on topic: she is an advocate of NFT-powered DAOs, and has participated in panel discussions on them at venues including SXSW. Pussy Riot was one of the movers behind UkraineDAO, which raised over $8 million this March for people affected by the Russian invasion. CoinTelegraph quoted Tolokonnikova as saying she entered Web3 to “find better tools for activism.”

FWB Fest has been another profile-raising event for Idyllwild; online it has already been laughably referred to as “Crypto-Woodstock in Idyllwild.” At one point I found myself trying to interview Taylor Lorenz, the tech journalist for the Washington Post. Watch this space.

Idyllwild Art Foundation President Pamela Jordan said, “This is the first time Idyllwild Arts has allowed an outside group to rent its campus. FWB has proven to be a socially conscientious and environmentally friendly community of people. Upon exploring a potential partnership between Idyllwild Arts and FWB, we found that their values were closely aligned with our mission.”