The Emmy Built on ETH: Emily Yang aka pplpleasr on the Future of Storytelling

**Emily Yang** (0:00)
It's the first crypto project to ever win an Emmy. White Rabbit, when we first released it, it was an animated web series, but we also built an sort of innovative, interactive mechanic, choose your own adventure kind of model where to do so, you would have to purchase an NFT at the time. The main character's name, Mirai, was literally voted on via snapshot by our community. Crypto is obviously really good for efficient capital formation. Oftentimes, it can extend beyond just financial instruments. Shibuya is really about trying to create a platform that enables permissionless creativity. Quite frankly, White Rabbit wouldn't have existed without this technology.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:41)
Emily, so we met four years ago. I had reached out asking if you would want to illustrate the cover of Fortune magazine. I was working in Fortune magazine at the time, working on a big package about crypto and DeFi.

**Emily Yang** (0:54)
That cover definitely changed my life. I think that it was just symbolic at the time because it really captured a very specific cultural moment, which was so meaningful to everybody who was in the crypto space. Everybody looks back at it quite fondly. I actually don't even have a physical version anymore.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:12)
Well, you're into the digital stuff, right?

**Emily Yang** (1:15)
Actually, I don't even have a digital version either, but it's okay. It lives in my heart and on other people's walls. That definitely, I think, kickstarted my career into bringing a lot more eyeballs within the crypto space onto my work, which I'm deeply grateful for. So thank you for that collaboration. Since then, I've been just kind of following my gut and my heart about what feels true to me in terms of both myself as an artist, but also an entrepreneur and trying to just combine any sort of new technology with my values and also my creative pursuits. Since then, obviously, I've started Shibuya.
Shibuya is really about trying to create a platform that enables permissionless creativity, as I like to say, because crypto is obviously really good for efficient capital formation. Oftentimes, it can extend beyond just financial instruments, but also for work that could be culturally defining. And so thankfully, recently, we were able to sort of demonstrate that that model can work when we won the Emmy for a White Rabbit, which was our first project at Shibuya. It's the first crypto project to ever win an Emmy or a recognition.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:20)
Is that true?

**Emily Yang** (2:20)
Yeah. I hope that it won't be the last and that it will be the first of many. It's kind of like a beacon of hope to others building in the space as well, that something that could be grass-rooted or considered independent and started within the crypto space, which was considered niche at the time, can then go on and create waves and receive mainstream recognition. We made our acceptance speech on stage. We did give a shout out to Ethereum because quite frankly, White Rabbit wouldn't have existed without this technology.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:48)
Say more about that for people who haven't seen White Rabbit or aren't familiar with what you're doing at Shibuya. What is it? Why should they watch it? Why should they pay attention? And how does it involve crypto?

**Emily Yang** (2:58)
So White Rabbit was started in 2022 It was two and a half years in the making. When we first released it, it was an animated web series, but we also built an sort of innovative, interactive mechanic, which was kind of like a choose-your-own-adventure, in-browser-player kind of model where users or viewers could view it and then pick an alternate ending. But to do so, you would have to purchase an NFT at the time and then also stake it in the sort of ending or outcome that you want to see the series continue on. And we release it in chapters based on this. So the purchasing of NFT would basically function as crowdfunding for the anime series. And then the staking or involving the audience was basically us crowdsourcing information creatively but also letting our audience go from being a passive viewing to actively engaged community. And so building that community organically as well and sort of involving them and letting them have a canonical outcome or impact on how the story is written going forward. And for all of these reasons, because it is both unique but also innovative and helped make White Rabbit ultimately not only just get made but also build an organic community around it. And then so that's what we won the Emmy for. The specific category was Outstanding Innovation in Emerging Media. I think it's really cool that they're basically recognizing that new models can exist and we want to just be an example of like paving new paths for creating or doing things within filmmaking and not necessarily having to go through the traditional models like pitching to a studio. And that's really what we're about here at Shibuya. So hopefully we can inspire more. And the story itself I think is obviously interesting and resonant because I myself am really interested in talking about technology stories. And so White Rabbit is a reference to The Matrix.