Decoding the Dumdumz craze: A play on the Arweave meme song

Have you noticed the traces of green elephants recently? Have you heard the greetings of "gm dumdumz"? Recently, the entire Arweave community has been infiltrated by Dumdumz, and the whole incident may be traced back to the rise of the "avatar changing trend".

Arweave community reappears avatar changing trend

About a year ago, the Arweave community ushered in the first avatar changing trend, and many core builders switched to the Permaweb mfers NFT series.

Permaweb mfers are of special significance. They were one of the first atomic assets (Arweave native NFT standard) to be listed on the BazAR exchange. They were sold out within just a few hours after their release, but did not attract wider market attention afterwards.

After a year, the Arweave community has once again set off a wave of avatar changes. This time the protagonist is Dumdumz. This newly launched NFT (atomic asset) has quickly been sought after by the market and the community. Every Dumdumz NFT was sold out almost immediately after it was listed. The design and concept of Dumdumz deeply attracted everyone, and they spontaneously changed their avatars.

The Dumdumz project has not had much marketing promotion, and its Twitter followers are only 200, but it has been paid attention to and loved by Arweave enthusiasts and builders since its release. This is not only the perfect UI design and the humorous and cute image, but also from the cultural attribute point of view, the slang concept of "Dumdum" is very consistent with the tonality of the Arweave community, and the element design also contains the values ​​​​upheld by Arweave.

The souls of Dumdumz and Arweave meet

Elephant prototype: the embodiment of immortality

Dumdumz uses the elephant as its prototype, which is because the elephant has always been regarded as the mascot of the Arweave ecosystem. The elephant is the largest existing land mammal on earth (second only to humans and some whales). Its lifespan can usually reach 50 to 70 years, and it has rich emotions and complex social life. These characteristics of elephants are highly consistent with Arweave in terms of characteristics.

The longevity of elephants makes them the inheritors of experience and wisdom in the ecosystem. Similarly, Arweave technology can (theoretically) store data for at least 200 years and can be seen as an immortal archive of information and knowledge, ensuring that important data can be accessed and used by future generations.

At the same time, elephants also rely on the strength and structure of their communities to survive and thrive, demonstrating a deep spirit of social connection and collaboration. In the Arweave network, it also relies on the decentralized participation and cooperation of global nodes (miners) to jointly maintain the stability of the network and the permanent storage of data. In addition, what makes Arweave different from other public chain ecosystems is that there is not too much separation between project parties in different tracks. It is more like a strongly connected global community with the same values ​​and goals, promoting the long-term stability and growth of the ecosystem in collaboration.

A Tribute to 1984: Memory Holes and Winston

1984 is a number with special meaning to the Arweave community, because it represents 1984, a dystopian novel published by George Orwell in 1949. This masterpiece describes life in a totalitarian society and has a profound exploration of information control, privacy invasion, and deprivation of personal freedom.

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." The world in 1984 is a society that is good at creating "memory holes" and can erase any information at will. At the same time, Sam Williams, the founder of Arweave, once expressed: "Essentially, we want to use Arweave to defeat the memory hole." Arweave's anti-censorship characteristics ensure that data cannot be changed or deleted once written, ensuring the authenticity of history and the transparency of information, and providing everyone with a platform to speak freely without fear of power.

What is more interesting and less well-known is that the protagonist of "1984" is Winston Smith, and Arweave uses "Winston" as its smallest unit, 1 Winston is equal to 0.000000000001 AR.

Dumdumz also made full use of the "1984" ingenuity in the design of his work. Dumdumz also used 0.1984 $wAR as the issue price, set the total amount to 1984, and printed "1984" on Dumdumz's clothes. Dumdumz is not a hastily issued NFT project, but has been carefully designed. It continues the philosophy and values ​​of Arweave.

Dumdum's banter and contrast

"Dumdum" is a slang used to describe a person who is stupid or slow, usually with a light-hearted banter. If "mfer" is a serious insult, then "Dumdum" is a milder insult. In a non-serious occasion like the community, Dumdum is more like an everyday banter between acquaintances. In the Arweave community, Dumdum has become a green elephant. It looks cute and playful, and may be a little clumsy, but it is actually full of kindness and has endless imagination and creativity. Dumdum is not just a name or image, it also represents a contrast, reflecting the diversity and contradictions of personality. Everyone can find their own shadow in Dumdum.

Dumdumz NFT is also based on Dumdum’s green elephant, but the name is slightly different. Founder Cherie explained the naming and concept of Dumdumz: "We wanted a similar name, but also wanted to distinguish ourselves from the original Dumdum to a certain extent, to show that we will stay away from the original Dumdum and its artistic style, focusing more on a cute and playful green elephant. The "z" in the name helps to distinguish us from the original, while also showing that Dumdum did not spell the word correctly due to a lack of adult-level intelligence. When I think of our Dumdum, I think more of a little child."

If atomic assets are the awakening of rights, then Dumdum is the self-mockery of the clumsy

The emergence of Dumdumz has aroused widespread attention to Arweave's atomic assets. It abstracts obscure technical concepts, allowing everyone who loves Dumdumz to invisibly own digital assets that truly belong to them. For creators, the combination of atomic assets and the UDL protocol guarantees autonomy and potential future earnings. Because of Dumdumz, we entered Arweave and atomic assets.

Follow Dumdumz and reflect on the true self deep in our hearts. We are not ashamed to expose our clumsiness, we are just doing what we like seriously. We are not idealists, we just found our ideal selves in a corner of the world. We are not pursuing progress, but there is always one thing we want to do more, even if it is lying still. Dumdum lives casually, sometimes stagnant, sometimes striving, but there is always a fire in his heart that has been ignited or waiting to be ignited. Each of us is Dumdum.