Lina Seiche (The Little HODLer)

Tselly interviews Lina Seiche (The Little HODLer)

By Tselly

Tselly: When did you first come across Bitcoin and what was your initial reaction?

Lina: I came across Bitcoin in 2017, so it was the ICO time. At the time, I was working in marketing. I was a freelance marketer basically and I was assigned to a project and it was a shitcoin project, let’s say it as it is. I had no idea what this industry was all about. Before that, I actually had never heard about Bitcoin, had no touchpoints with Bitcoin whatsoever. It’s completely new to me, and actually at first, I would say almost year or so, I still had no touch points with Bitcoin because I was just doing like social media, PR, community management, those kinds of things, like these kind of jobs that just popped out of nowhere around the time for all these “blockchain” things – I was doing meetups and events and conferences around the world and I started traveling to a lot of these events. Most of these conferences were again, quote “blockchain” conferences, meaning it’s the kinds of events that people like guys in suits would shill each other’s coins, and I don’t know, then you’d have like, one guy shilling supply chain coin and the other guy shilling weather.

Were you always in illustration? What did you do before The Little HODLer took off?

So, I have not studied illustrating, graphic design or arts or actually I haven’t studied anything. I never went to university. I was always on the creative side so I have a lot of creative hobbies and passions. Drawing was something I did a lot as a kid but I never thought to make it a career. It was more a thing that I did on the side and I also never learned how to draw on an iPad for example; that just kind of happened with Little HODLer. Before Little Hodler I was as I said I was in the bitcoin space I was doing marketing so I was doing marketing for lots of different companies um including then later on bitcoin companies and I just started doing Little HODLer on the side. Then, on my twitter and then it just took off. It became a hobby that became so popular that I saw the opportunity to make it into a job and then I switched over full-time into Little Hodler.

How did your past career influence your stance on bitcoin?

I don’t think it influenced me at all because well, I had no career to speak of. I was a freelancer, I was traveling the world just you know, everything I did was just to finance my traveling lifestyle. So I wasn’t  at a point where I was like doing a job and thinking ‘oh I’m gonna do this for the rest of my life! This is my passion!’ I didn’t feel that way and I didn’t need to feel that way too because I was not at the age where you think that far into the future. Like my prefrontal cortex wasn’t developed enough to plan that far so I was doing freelancing. I was marketing and making money. I was paid in bitcoin working in the space, so I very rarely bought bitcoin which is interesting and I still very rarely buy bitcoin. I just got paid in bitcoin wherever I could because with the companies I would work with this was sort of an option and the norm. It was easier for me than telling my bank why I’m sending money to a crypto exchange, So, I don’t think it influenced me at all. It was like a hard cut, and I got into Bitcoin as my first real career I built in this industry.

How did The Little HODLer come to life, how did it start and how did it evolve?

How does bitcoin influence your art? What other influences play a part?

Well, bitcoin influences my art in the sense that it is the inspiration for my comics. So it’s massively influenced in that sense. Literally, most of my comics are about bitcoin, not all of them though, and I’m actually making a concerted effort to create some content that is outside of bitcoin because I think there’s more ground to cover. But yeah, a lot of it is bitcoin so that’s how we’re going to influence it, right? I take concepts that you would think are actually very complicated and I try to simplify them down to like literally one to six panels. That’s sort of the thing that’s sort of the niche I found, that works really really well because it is very technical but at its core, the things that we deal with as bitcoiners are very interesting. Like human and social experiments in a way. So I focus on these things and that is how I bring the concepts around bitxojn closer to people. I’d say I run very well with that. Other influences… obviously I am heavily influenced by Japanese pop culture, by manga, by anime, by all the cute stuff because I am a longtime Japanese fan. Actually, from the time I was 12 until I was 18, I planned out my entire school career that I would finish school and then move to Japan – I was so into everything Japanese I even learned Japanese! I learned a lot about Japan so that’s what I did. I spent some time in Japan and that’s where a lot of my influences come from.

I saw that you were initially from Germany and have migrated a few times since. What was it like in Germany and what inspired you to move?

What was it like in Germany… they tell you Germany was different back in the day. ‘Back in the day,’ I sound so old! Germany has changed so much in the last, especially the last five years. I’d say it’s actually crazy, but that’s probably a slightly different issue. Growing up there was fine. We grew up very well – we grew up very very privileged. I just come from like a normal German household, German countryside, very peaceful way to grow up in the German system where everything is pre-planned for you. You do your school, you do university, you buy a house… well not anymore but that’s the plan you buy a house, you have a family and you are in your job for 40 years. That is the German dream. Let’s say obviously I didn’t do that. I complain about Germany a lot for a good reason. I’m very skeptical of the decisions of our government and you can tell there is a very sharp downturn in Germany’s economy, Germany’s political environment, and Germany’s societal status; I do complain about that a lot, and I also complain about the the delusion that we have fallen victim to that we are still on top of the world which we are not unfortunately. This is a very very persistent narrative – it’s just not true anymore and it’s going to come and bite us in the bum. But of course I like, I love my country. I love Germany for a thousand reasons. I just am very very sad with the direction things are taking and how our government is governing this country into ruin, and yeah it’s been a long time coming. The thing is, this happens slowly and then it happens all at once. So I left Germany not because of that at the time, I would say I probably had a hunch but wouldn’t have been able to place it. I didn’t have that awareness at the time. I left Germany because I had this urge to travel and wanted to see the world. It’s probably one of the best decisions I ever made because traveling has opened my mind and my horizon up so incredibly wide and still continues to do so. At the same time, I left Germany because of my curiosity and of course out of my love for Japan. I wanted to live in Japan and I did that as I said but then I also started traveling and going to events around the world. I saw many countries and I saw many different cultures and ways people lived – that’s just so enriching, like, it’s incredible what that does to you to your perspective to your patience and to your humanness. It was probably one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life, so that inspired me to move.

And now you ended up in El Salvador; What is it like there for a bitcoiner? What are your favorite things to do down there?

I ended up in El Salvador; it’s an absolutely incredible country. I cannot stress this enough and this is for a bunch of reasons, as a bitcoiner, I would say one of the main reasons you would want to move here is very simply that you are welcome here. You are not working against the official narrative, you’re not working against the administration, you’re working with them and they welcome you and they support you, and you’re working towards a common goal that makes a world of a difference that you cannot explain to someone who has spent their entire life not in an environment like that. So for bitcoiners, this is actually crazy to be somewhere where what you do is not frowned upon. Where you don’t get the side eye for working in the bitcoin space but you are actually, you are received warmly and with interest and curiosity and you have opportunities here, so many opportunities. This country is severely undervalued and severely underestimated which puts it in line with bitcoin and these two things go hand in hand and I am just amazed at all the things that are happening here. I myself am also getting involved in a lot of things and contributing to a lot of things and it’s just great to see.

Being a part of Bitcoin Twitter, there are many different rabbit holes. What was your favorite one? What was the weirdest one?

I find the whole sunscreen, seed oil and pan debate a bit lame. Which is not to say I find the topics lame. There’s a lot to say about things like seed oils and stuff and I am very much into healthy eating and those kinds of things but that’s not because I’m a bitcoiner. I don’t condone that forced linkage between bitcoin and all those topics. Yes, sure, as a bitcoiner, what happens is you start questioning things more. You start ‘don’t trust, verifying.’ But also not completely. Bitcoiners, too, trust a lot and don’t verify a lot of things. Which is also just human. Which is part of the reason why I don’t like this. I’m generalizing a lot here but it’s easy to slip into a bit of a superiority complex, where you’re like I know I am right about bitcoin, so I’m right about everything else. So I don’t get involved in these discussions. Not if they come from a bitcoin angle; you don’t need to relate everything to bitcoin. So I find these rabbit holes to be weird, but I find the topics generally interesting at times and worth talking about sometimes. It’s also just memes and jokes which is perfectly fine, right? But you don’t have to get religious about everything. Oh, religion is another rabbit hole. Yeah, don’t link everything to bitcoin. How about that?

During your travels what encounter with a pleb was your favorite.

This is probably super lame, but probably my encounter with the president of El Salvador, who is a very inspiring person and an extremely smart person. It is just a pleasure talking to him. So those conversations were extremely, extremely interesting. I also find it very… I don’t know if you would even classify him as a pleb. I don’t know what the criteria are there. But what I can tell you is that he has read up on bitcoin and understands it to a degree that you would never expect from somebody who doesn’t spend 24/7 on bitcoin. Which clearly he doesn’t because he’s a president. But the understanding he has is really, really impressive. 

What advice do you have for fellow artists in the bitcoin space?

I do not entitle myself to giving advice in terms of you know, how do you become a successful artist or whatever because there’s so many moving parts here, but I mean if you are an artist or you want to be an artist or you have things that you want to share your creativity, just do it! I mean that’s what I did. I just did it, and that’s really it. I mean it really depends on what kind of advice you’re looking for. Let’s say you want to make it your job. Obviously, just being an artist is not enough. You can be the best artist in the world, but you have to look into the ways that you can get your art to the people. Maybe have a platform where you can sell it so that you do some networking that you can get to the right people. That’s it!

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Note from Stackchain Magazine: No Bitcoin (or inferior monies) were exchanged for this article. This interview was conducted by Tselly our own free range chicken. Lina Seiche is nothing less than a Bitcoin Legend, her art has touched the hearts of plebs around the world and reinforced the core values of our peaceful revolution. We are so grateful that she shared her time and thoughts with us. You can find her on X @LinaSeiche and you can find everything you could ever want from the Little Hodler on TheLittlehodler.com