#dotmeow

WELL

A few friends and myself have decided to apply to ICANN (the corporation that runs these kinds of things) for a new gTLD (generic Top Level Domain, yknow, like .org or .com) that isn’t for-profit. Instead of paying your money to a digital landlord like GoDaddy and their shareholders, that money is being funneled straight back into the queer community, queer projects, queer charities, etc…

To do that, we need to apply, and to apply, we need money.

The bad: it’s €80,000.

The good: we already got half.

The better: we got half in under ten days.

We’re not there yet, though. There’s two ways to get this money. The first is to promise to sell user data. Since literally our whole thing is paying back into the community, selling user information to governments rapidly spiralling into full-blown fascism or some billionaire who mostly wants to just get even more billionaire…der… We decided not to do that.

So the alternative:

Kickstarter.

I know, I know, it’s not cool to ask for money, but if it’s any consolation we literally can’t get rich off of this and when it starts to make a profit, that money is going to be going into your local queer communities, they will have but to reach out and ask for it. :)

We are trying to build an internet by us, for us.

If you want to support us, the basic (above the lowest) Kickstarter gets you a voucher for a year of a .meow domain, when we go live. If you’re like “okay, cool, I don’t do computers, I’m literally dictating this to my cool cousin” then you can still support by finding your local nerds and sharing this with them! Anyone can help, anyone can support, and you’ll have the knowledge that by having a cool .meow url you’re also helping queer and lgbt communities around the world.

So yeah, it would mean the world to me if you’d share this, if you clickied the link, reached out, talked about it, made noise, ask questions… whatever you want or are able to do to make .meow happen.

Remember: Names Have Power.

Hey guess what

WE ARE LESS THAN 24 HOURS OUT, SO!!!

Tomorrow, for 12 hours straight, I'll be streaming on twitch. We will be talking about online community, digital infrastructure and what it means to make a living on platforms that could flip on you at the drop of a hat.

The stream itself is a fundraiser with the goal of supporting the dotMeow organization, a nonprofit that seeks to create the .meow gTLD (you know, like .com), the proceeds of which will go to queer creators, programs and charities.

In the meantime, I'll be playing Celeste in the background because I'm bad at platformers, and I'm a trans woman who's never played it so that'll give you something to look at in the meantime.

First off: it’s not too late yet! If you support us now, you still have the chance to get your hands on up to ten vouchers for your own .meow webdomain, each valid for a year! Please consider supporting us if you haven’t already, because every penny over the pledge goal will go towards operating costs and makes it more likely that my lovely coworkers get to sleep the coming two years :p

It has been a WILD couple of months. When we went live in December, I’ll admit to a degree of… not skepticism, but maybe pessimism. I thought the whole thing would peter out and the dream would wither on the branch then and there.

We hit 20K in the first day. 40 in the first couple of weeks. Things have gone from cool to wacky since then, and were topped off by last weekend’s 12-hour livestream featuring some truly outstanding guests. Game developers (Brian Bucklew, creator of Caves of Qud, and Kevin Van Ord, writer at Larian), voice actors like Gianni Matragrano, youtube essayists like Sarah Z and Noah Caldwell-Gervais and even a surprise appearance by Abigail Thorn, playwright and creator of Philosophy tube. You can still catch the vod here, if you want to catch the chaos.

The chance to connect to the community, and how excited that community has been, has been nothing short of awe-inspiring. Any denizen of the internet who we tell about the project sees its value and that brings me just… so much fucking joy.

So, in case you don’t know what I’m talking about… let’s do this one last time.

dotMeow is a nonprofit that aims to seek the funds and rights to create our own gTLD (or generic Top Level Domain), like .com or .org. Our goal is to take back a piece of the internet away from soulless corporations too big to fail, and to put it back in the hands of the queer community, the weird communities, and the cats. An internet where you don’t need to worry if your website will be taken down because you have the wrong flag next to your name.

But as a nonprofit, we wouldn’t be pocketing the money. Instead, our “profits” will be going back into the community, with a very heavy focus on supporting queer projects, organizations, and charities. Instead of a larger company taking the proverbial $20 out of rotation, we put it back into the community.

So, one last time:

If you want to support us, now is the time. Yes, we’ve hit our goal, but every cent will go to operating costs and every dollar (or Euro) above our target will make it easier for us to make it happen and actually make a living doing it.

Not only that, but supporting us gets you a voucher for a year’s worth of a .meow domain when we go live (we’re aiming for 2027), and if you get ten you can daisy-chain them so you have a guaranteed .meow domain for a decade.

Please, consider supporting us. .meow means the world to us. We have the chance to actually make the internet a better place, an opportunity and a chance that doesn’t come along very often these days anymore.

Thank you, everyone, for all your support so far, and we hope to see you all with us in the future, making the internet more fun, more open, more queer, safer, more whimsical, and filled with many, many, many more cats.

.meow