Benefiting From Friends with Saarim Zaman

a scene report from FWB Fest, aka “crypto Woodstock”

Welcome to another installation of nmjc’s hanging out series…as Sultans of Seshing, randa and harry talk to hanger-outters across the world about hot-button issues relating to chilling. If you’d like to be featured…hit us up!

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HK: I’m pumped for this edition. We have a bonafide scene report. You could even say we’re on a supposedly vibey vibe you’d like to vibe again….our guest parachuted directly into the Big Brain Convention called FWB Fest.

All this convention talk did get me thinking about a few things. The first was the totally fucked up time I had leaving a sales convention in Orlando when I worked for IBM in 2018. The thing people don’t tell you about the Orlando Airport departure section is almost exclusively filled with young families that are leaving Disneyland.

The second thing it got me thinking about though, is a fundamental question about hanging: What is the proper etiquette around starting big-brain conversations with big-brain people? Most of the time, the big-brain conversations I’m lucky enough to find myself in happen organically, but I want to have MORE of them!! HOWEVER…It’s harder than you’d think. Sure, with your closest friends, you can dive right in… but with big-brain acquaintances, it's not couth to just be like “Yo dude good to see you…quick q…where do you see the differences in Nolan’s atomic bomb and Lynch’s depiction…also is that a pilsner?” There is an IMPLIED FLEX in asking a question like that…ESPECIALLY…at a big brain function. I don't even feel great about implying here that I’d actually want to know the answer to that question!!

What do you think?

RS: That’s interesting you say that. I actually find it EASIER to go big brain with acquaintances. With close friends, I need to talk to them about their actual life and problems, so it takes some effort to get to big brain topics. Like if my friend called to complain about a guy not texting her back, I can’t be asking what she thinks of the latest episode of the Joshua Citarella podcast.

I have actually gotten into trouble with close friends for going too Big Brain all the time… somebody once complained to me, “I don’t want to hear all your stupid theories” which is probably the most insulting thing an Ideas Girl could hear…

Here’s the thing - when I go Big Brain, I am usually asking a lot of questions and hypothesizing, bringing my conversation partner into the fold with me. I’m like hey I’ve been thinking about this idea and wanted to see what you think. This is very different from, say, going Monologue Mode telling someone about your latest big brained interest. U gotta be careful.

HK: it’s a lot like flirting….

RS: yeah…

HK: Anyway…speaking of gigantic brains, who do we have joining us today?

RS: Please welcome Saarim Zaman.

You could say Saarim is an internet renaissance man. He is a software engineer, musician, writer, and also does other stuff I’m sure. One time he bought a sauna with Bitcoin. Also whenever Saarim recommends a restaurant to me, I have to ask him, “is it just a vibes spot or is the food actually good?”

NMJC: Saarim, please share 3-6 photos that represent your weekend

NMJC: How did you hang out this weekend?

SZ: I did something that I’ve never done before, which is I solo dolo yeeted into FWB fest all the way over on the other coast. This involved making the decision to go a day before the thing started and last minute booking everything, renting a car for the very first time, multiple Erewhon stops totaling upwards of $200, a journey to a Texas Roadhouse in the middle of nowhere for a 16 oz ribeye (cooked rare) for $24, and talking to strangers for three days straight about the future of the internet deep in the woods of Idyllwild, CA. There was all the stereotypical fest stuff too — live music, psychedelic tea, sunsets, NPC banter, whipping around town, glizzys for lunch and all that. 

NMJC: Hold on, what is FWB fest?

SZ: FWB is short for Friends With Benefits, which is an internet-native organization, aka mainly a Discord server, where the membership is gated by a crypto token. This article describes it well but makes it seem a lot more cringe than it currently is. I think as the general crypto hype has died down, the messaging has mellowed out a bit and in the process feels a lot more resolved. Disclaimer: I’m a passive FWB member, and I lurk in the Discord sometimes. They threw a festival in the woods last year Taylor Lorenz covered, and called it “Crypto Woodstock.” This weekend they threw their second one, which I would describe more as an “Online Woodstock,” a slight shift in an attempt to reach out to a broader internet audience, mostly folks who are terminally online. This year it was also open to everyone, not just members of the organization like it was last year. They hosted a bunch of internet culture influencers to give talks and participate on panels, booked some decent alt-leaning “did well on Pitchfork” acts, and a lot of people from my extended Twitter cinematic universe attended. 

NMJC: You went to a festival full of people who met on the internet. This is a somewhat new hangout precedent. 

SZ: Yeah, in a lot of ways it was the internet. As in, it’s the slice of the internet I almost exclusively engage with. This is probably both good and bad – the fact that so much of what I consider “internet culture” really just being a few hundred coastal elites does reveal my ignorance and gives a very specific form to my echo chamber, which I’ll have to work through. However, it is extremely fun to banter with people in real life that you usually engage with online. It is somewhat surprising that some of these people are chill too and you could see yourself being friends with them in real life. 

NMJC: What makes a good large-scale festival?

SZ: I usually hate large-scale festivals, I’ve literally been to less than five. Everything feels like a hassle. People wear goofy clothes. All the lineups are usually the same. It exists to primarily serve capital, even though these types of events usually lose someone’s money. A lot of it seems deeply unserious. I went to Mutek in Mexico City with you Randa last year and I thought that it was excellent, I’ve been to Mutek a couple of times now. They gave a platform to left-field artists to present work for their fans. I felt that way about a lot of the Red Bull Music Academy stuff too. I guess something about a large-scale event not being a mass market commodity is enough for me to look over a lot of the pitfalls of large scale events in general. FWB Fest felt good too in this regard because it had a level of intimacy I don’t expect most festivals have. 

RS: I didn’t really understand the music at Mutek but I liked the earnestly nerdy audience. Another area where our taste diverges is restaurants. Please explain your obsession with post-ironic dining.

SZ: Everything in America is mid now. Mid is acceptable. Mid is even cool. Our dining choices as a society should reflect this. I’m tired of going to the hot new restaurant. I’m tired of the hot Lindy restaurant too. You’re usually eating at 5pm or 9pm because everything at a decent hour is booked up, at which point no bite will prevent you from feeling somewhat “cucked” and experiencing feelings of “mid.” I want to normalize going to chains like Fogo de Chao, Hillstone, Texas Roadhouse, all of it. You’ll probably get in at dinner time, and you might even enjoy yourself stepping outside of the Overton window. 

NMJC: Randa and Harry are some hanging experts…do you have any hanging out related questions for us?

SZ: Ok so like, the really new thing I underwent intense training on over the past few days was talking to strangers. This used to be a huge internalized fear of mine and I kind of feel at ease doing it now, and I think this will make me a step function better at hanging. What else makes someone good at hanging? I have some ideas but this one’s for the hang experts to weigh in on. 

RS: A friend was recently describing why she was breaking up with her boyfriend (see above), citing that he wasn’t willing to “risk boredom.” I have some friends like this. They aren’t willing to just be along for the ride no matter where it goes. They want a guarantee that it’s going to be a good or crazy or memorable time. I think that’s wack. To be good at hanging, you have to be willing to risk boredom.

HK: I mean this is the million-dollar question isn't it? In no particular order:

-Loud and willing laugher (this can really get you so so so mind-bogglingly far)

-Seen lots of 3.5 / 5 movies (she’s out of your league, 5-year engagement, white house down)

-played at least one sport in high school

-willingness to leap of faith style move to a second location

-take artist (“actually, it’s good”)

-not self-serious

-excellent phone etiquette

-no dietary restrictions¹

-gossiper

-low (but crucially non-zero) appetite for beer / drinking-related jokes 

-seen the sopranos 

-seen other good tv shows

NMJC: Song of the weekend? 

SZ: I’m going to have to cheat here and say it was the entirety of the Yves Tumor set. I’m so into their hair metal revival aesthetics. It is extremely fun, a 10/10 recommendation for everyone to go to their shows. It also makes me want to go to check out some OG hair metal live, probably like somewhere in New Jersey –  Poison, Motley Crue, Def Leppard, etc. It could be a massive hang vibe.  

NMJC: Craziest feeling? 

SZ: I actually had an insane thing happen to me on Friday night. I started getting all these random spammy texts, like upwards of 50. I had just finished drinking a couple of these adaptogenic kava-kratom drinks in a can so I was a bit too calm to realize what was happening in that moment. Turns out I got sim swapped, all the spam was meant to bury the confirmation text that my phone number got transferred to a new device. The fest had really bad cell service and barely functioning wifi so I couldn’t really do much in the moment. I ran to my cabin and spent the next four hours locking everything down and cursing at T-Mobile technical support. Luckily I made it out alive without losing anything but it felt extremely violating in the moment. Now I have reporters in my DM asking me if it was because I attended a “crypto event,” everyone needs a scapegoat I guess. 

NMJC: Confession? 

SZ: I went in with low expectations. Generally the aesthetics of crypto tend to be pretty “normie” with a scent of “don’t tread on me” libertarianism - lots of corporate puns, quips, and one-liners. Things tend to lack real substance. But thankfully, I got to befriend so many hot and cool bicoastal elites doing really interesting things both within the context and outside of their day jobs. I'm back in NYC feeling way less jaded and actually excited to link and build with some of these folks in real life.  

NMJC: Most romantic moment?

SZ: I’m so used to people in positions of power at events doing a hard othering of the attendees as if they were the peasantry you need to lord over. Like you go to your homie’s event who you’ve known for ten plus years in a city and they will still make you feel less than because you participated as an attendee as opposed to being in the organizer’s inner circle. You see this at festivals all the time too, there is a whole meta game around collecting wristbands to get further and further to the symbolic “front of the train,” kinda like that movie Snowpiercer. They’ve literally implemented a Vedic caste system at most live events, it’s insane! There was none of that goofy nonsense here. Everyone was hanging, the organizers, the musicians, the speakers — that’s Caroline Polacheck standing next me in the sunset photo. I risk sounding cheesy but there was something real intimate, romantic, and special about that.

NMJC: Who was the Most Valuable Stranger of the weekend? 

SZ: I made a lot of friends over the course of the weekend, maybe that’s a stretch, some will probably only be acquaintances, but I’m going to be pulling on that thread for a bit and see where it goes, so I’ll get back to you on this one. 

1. sorry to Seth, Dora, Yates, Dave (bananas weirdly), and my other DRGH