Introducing Polymorphic Pride Flags
A dozen flags in one, fully on-chain and released into the public domain.
Here at smol farm, we are launching my first interactive NFT project. With this, you have the ability to change your NFT’s appearance — and it does not link to any external image files to boot. Everything is served up as an SVG directly by the on-chain code. We selected a dozen LGBTQ+ pride flags that are in the public domain. These were all then combined into one NFT, where the owner can change which design is displayed at any time, only paying a few dollars in gas, making them truly Polymorphic Pride Flags.
Recently, the United States has witnessed a huge uptick in unhinged hatred directed at the LGBTQ+ community — especially trans people. As a trans woman and a lesbian myself, it is important to stand proud and defiant against such attacks. I am proud of who I am, and I tried to embody it in this project. Love will win. There will only be 1969 flags available — chosen for being the year of the Stonewall riots. Each will be “woven” (minted) for 0.03 ETH each, which can be done in bulk with ERC721A’s amazing optimizations on that front.
Despite this scarcity, we are releasing all parts of this project into the public domain, so anyone who wants to make their own Polymorphic Pride Flags — or tinker with it and create something new! We want to help encourage on-chain innovation and are confident that our contributions to the growing public commons of resources in web3 will be appropriately rewarded. And, after all, there will only ever be one set of Original Polymorphic Pride Flags.
Much like these flags can be “woven,” they can also be “morphed” — our term for changing the displayed flag on-chain. The project’s website enables you to morph your flag in a convenient way, only paying the gas fees to update the information on the blockchain. Those who like interacting with smart contracts on Etherscan are also able to tinker with their flags directly there through the morphFlag() function.
Previous smol farm NFT projects, Dastardly Ducks and Yo Kitties — our two cute crews of critters — can be randomly assigned pride flags, which the person minting has no way to control. This is the norm in many NFT projects, but we had many people express a desire to be able to have a different flag with an otherwise similar NFT design. While we cannot go back and change how already existing NFTs work, that sparked the idea for a pride flag on an NFT that can be changed.
When new flags are woven, the purchaser has their choice of initial designs — and can morph each of them into whatever they want at any time later. Given some people also have a bit of a journey of self-discovery before finding their final identities, we additionally hope this project might benefit people who may, for example, think they are bisexual and later decide they are a lesbian or a pansexual. They can then update their flag without having to purchase a new one!
Despite just being the two of us, we are determined to turn smol farm into a formidable, innovative web3 studio where our pride as queer women can be woven into the DNA of what we do. Flags represent a weaving of more than just threads — also of identity and community into our lives. And ours are built with an understanding that even those overlap and have fuzzy boundaries.