1930s Hollywood had a role on comedy sets called “The Wildie.” Often drunk. Only job was to pitch insane ideas when a scene felt too safe.
Laurel & Hardy are crossing a rope bridge with a piano in the Swiss Alps. The Wildie says: “put a gorilla on the bridge.” No reason for a gorilla to be in the Alps. That’s exactly why it works. It became one of their most iconic scenes.
The thing I love about this isn’t the gorilla. It’s that they created a role for it. Chaos had a seat at the table and a line in the budget. They didn’t hope for creative disruption. They hired it.
This whole space runs on Wildie energy. When Snowfro first said “what if the art generates itself at the moment of purchase,” that was a gorilla. No reason it should work. It did. When someone said “what if an AI agent holds its own wallet,” same thing. Every major leap in this industry started as the thing that didn’t make sense yet.
But here’s what happens next. The gorilla gets you to the party. Then you spend the rest of your time making sure no more gorillas show up. Committees form. Risk management replaces improvisation. The people who said the dumb thing that turned out to be right get replaced by people whose job is to make sure nothing dumb ever gets said again.
The thing that made the space exciting gets optimized out of existence.
So the question isn’t “what’s the next gorilla.” It’s whether you still have a Wildie. Is there someone in the room whose job is to say the thing that doesn’t make sense yet?
Don’t kill your Wildie.