Kanye wants to buy the crypto-friendly social media platform, Parler.
Imagine getting so many speeding tickets that you get banned from every major car rental business in the country.
...so in response, you buy your own car rental company.
This is kind of like that.
Ye, formerly know as Kanye West ( when did that happen btw? Have we been living under a Web3 rock?), has agreed, in principle, to purchase the social media platform Parler.
Considering Kanye was suspended from Instagram and Twitter, for what the platforms called “antisemitic comments” earlier this month, this purchase starts to make a whole lot more sense.
(For those of you playing at home, Parler is pitched as the 'free-speech-friendly version of Twitter').
The reason we're writing about this potential purchase is: it's also a crypto friendly platform.
So could this be the first major Web3-based social media platform?
Anything is possible, but our guess is 'no.' Here's why:
Social Networks typically gain momentum off the back of new functionality, and the more networks that exist, the more niche these functions become.
For example: Facebook let you share thoughts/photos/videos. Then, a bunch of platforms came along and unbundled these features...
Twitter let you share thoughts, Instagram let you share photos, TikTok started reading our minds and feeding us short form videos.
One key factor to bringing in as wide of an audience as possible, is giving the platform the appearance of being politically agnostic.
Parler flipped this model on its head, opting to mimic Twitter's functionality, but market itself to right-leaning users.
Our guess is they'll most likely sustain a small and impassioned audience as a result, but won't be able to scale beyond that.
Because the vast majority of social media users have more interest in sh*tposting and interacting with communities outside of any political realms (for us it's the Web3 community) and Twitter already nails that.
But hey, maybe Kanye has some big plans we're yet to see.
He's surprised us before.
