We Them Media began in 2021 as one man's attempt to answer a simple question: what is crypto, and why should anyone who isn't already in it care? Maceo Whatley, a scholar turned journalist, carried that question through the Bahamas, England, Germany, Switzerland, Brussels, Thailand, Japan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, California, Denver, Washington DC, Detroit, New York, and more, interviewing people of color in each place and putting the same question to them in different words. The trip only happened because of a patron, C.Y. Lee, and it became something bigger than the original premise, a chance to put people across the African diaspora in conversation with each other.
That footage is now becoming the network's first release. We Them Media has grown past a single reporter's project since. Interviewers are now working in Mexico, Nigeria, Kenya, and the United States, and community members are invited to bring their own local stories into the fold rather than wait for one person to find them. The reporting itself has grown past crypto too, into subject matter journalism on the streets, covering the military draft, gentrification, and the politics people are actually living with in their own neighborhoods, alongside continued coverage of the Ethereum ecosystem at events including ETH Ethiopia, ETH Safari, ETH Accra, ETH CC, ETH Enugu, ETHConf, and ETH Denver.
Behind the reporting is a research background that shapes how the work gets asked. Maceo's academic work on hope, solidarity, and anti-colonial theory, done alongside Elena Cuffari and George Fourlas, is now aimed directly at crypto, examining how the technology connects to the neocolonial structures already built into the global monetary system.
We Them Media runs on a remote production team built to carry work from the first shoot through to going live on social media, and on a Discord community of more than 700 creatives, technologists, and founders in web3 from around the world. That same team is now also working with outside clients on social media marketing and content production.
Learn More: https://www.wethem.xyz