Rethinking labels: the origins of Metalabel

metalabels are startups and institutions for culture.

First, labels exist to stand for and promote a purpose of some kind. A hip-hop label exists to fly the flag for hip-hop. A jazz label exists to elevate and support jazz. A label needs to be financially sustainable, but the reason it exists is to promote a cultural point of view.

The Creator Economy is creativity in single player mode. It's every creator for themselves, with the algorithms encouraging people to perpetually make as much content as quickly as possible. In contrast, a metalabel is creativity in multiplayer mode. It's a system optimized for mutual aid and support for people collaborating on things tog... See more

One of the very first metalabels is the Royal Society, founded in 1660. The Royal Society began when a group of people in the 17th century pooled money and resources to fund experiments and publish the first scientific journals so that scientific thinking and practices would be accepted in English society.

Third, labels provide their releases a stamp of approval and a context to exist within. The best labels lift their projects up by association.

Twentieth century labels are focused on selling products and maximizing financial returns. A metalabel exists to promote ideas and encourage new ways of seeing according to the values of the label itself. Twentieth century labels are focused on owning a creator's intellectual property and exploiting it financially until the end of time. A metalabel... See more

A metalabel is like an indie record label, but for all forms of art, culture, and ideas. A book publisher, a local collaborative creative project, an online community, an activist movement, an artist collective, a record label, and other collective cultural projects are examples of metalabels: groups of people using a shared identity for a shared p... See more

A lot of journalists have spilled a lot of ink trying to make sense of MSCHF – is it a company? A brand? An art project? MSCHF is a metalabel whose purpose is to reveal how manipulative capitalism is, using the tools of capitalism and commerce to demonstrate it in new ways every other week. The metalabel structure is crucial to how they function. I... See more

Every metalabel shares four core elements that shape their behavior and output. There’s (1) a core purpose why they exist; (2) a squad of collaborators who operate and release projects with the label; (3) public releases they put out into the world to express their worldview; and (4) rules for participation, like how they make decisions, who owns w... See more

At a high level, a metalabel is a group of people using a common identity for a common purpose with a focus on public releases that manifest their worldview.