elegant bullshit ✨

welcome to issue #07 of moments, our bi-weekly newsletter. if you’re new here, this is the space where we share product updates, news from our community, and a curation of the best things we’re seeing online and offline. and if you’ve been around for a while, thanks for being a member of our community. you’re among a select group of cherished friends, family, and early supporters.

the past two weeks have been packed: we released two big new features, have been heads down collecting user feedback, and spent a lot of time thinking about app development 👀

so much to share – let’s get into it :)

our featured creator this week is billie fabrikant, better known by her alter ego (and primitives username) @elegantbullshit. to say billie is one of our favorite people would be an understatement. she’s a graphic designer, innovative thinker, and unafraid to express herself online.

tell us about yourself

i’m billie, born & raised in nyc. i consider myself a purveyor of bullshit and an amateur ‘pataphysician, but in practical terms i’m a freelance graphic designer. i pirated a copy of adobe cs5 when i was 11 and have been teaching myself digital art ever since.

how did you build your creative career?

i decided to go to college to learn how to be an actual human instead of learning “marketable career skills” and/or building a portfolio. for four years i studied philosophy, literature, and western classics in santa fe, nm. I wrote my thesis, covid hit, i was sent packing, defended my thesis over zoom, and graduated in 2020 with no job prospects.

i applied to literally hundreds of jobs and got maybe half a dozen “no thank you” emails back. nothing else. meanwhile, i’ve been selling my artwork in a small art shop — stickers, pins, and small accessories i’d ordered in bulk for my peers’ graduation presents before the pandemic hit. at the same time i’m reverting to my middle school coping mechanism of poster design. the more i return to photoshop, the more i realize … oh, i have a crazy ass set of skills and an eye for design that is pretty unique. let’s use that. so i’ve been freelancing since then :)

what brought you to primitives?

i randomly got into web3 last year, sold a few matisse-inspired nfts, got caught up in the hype and bought an expensive fad project. when i started asking questions in the discord about promises made at mint i was BLOCKED from the discord.

when i found primitives i was nervous to rejoin the nft space but primitives is literally designed to prioritize community building and the actual sharing of aesthetics over hype/profits/etc, which has been so beautiful.

want to own one of billie’s moments? head over to her profile on primitives and request a few to add to your collection.

we’ve been listening to your feedback and shipping lots of new features and improvements over the past two weeks! three recent new launches you should know about:

• requests 🤝 – a new way to collect moments & make friends - visit any creator’s page and hit request to start collecting their work

• profiles 🖼️ – one place to show off your creations and connections – link social handles, add custom backgrounds, and organize your moments and albums

• albums 📚 – bring your favorite moments together into shared folders — remix, curate, and organize all our your favorite things

it’s been really special to see how much these updates are resonating with the primitives community. you’ve started making incredible profiles that go beyond what we could have imagined when we started dreaming up the feature. and – our notifications are blowing up with requests for new moments (in the best possible way.)

as usual, this was a true team effort with our lead designer elira and engineers ricardo, paul, and nick working to bring it to life. we’re so excited to have requests, profiles, and albums live on primitives. try them out and let us know what you think :)

our work building an online home for creators is often informed by going to see art in the real world. this past week our team took a gallery walk in nyc’s meatpacking district stopping in at some of our favorites: david zwirner, hauser & wirth, and taglialatella.

this spring, we’re gearing up our irl event planning with a few exciting things in the works, including an nyc-based gallery show. want to get involved? shoot us a dm :)

what else have we been thinking about? the body as mixer, underrated hits from the 90s, an explosive and luminous dance experience, and ✨analogs✨.

p.s. want to vote on the best moments of the past week minted on primitive? head over to our ig stories to pick your favorites from the weekly exhibit.