DARKVOID HAS ALREADY SUCCEEDED!

DARKVOID / AFTER MIDNIGHT TRANSMISSION 001

02:07:13 AM

● SIGNAL ACQUIRED

“O DARKVOID já deu certo. Deu certo pra mim. Deu certo pra drk-witch.”

BEFORE WE TALK

DARKVOID was born after midnight.

There was no business meeting. No market research. No carefully calculated plan to create an underground culture platform.

There was a designer working on his personal portfolio, a cigarette, a call with drk-witch, and one question:

“What if we made a site that brought together everything we're into, putting underground culture first — but with our identity, done our way?”

That was enough.

What started as a spark in the middle of the night quickly turned into something that was hard to walk away from. Design, music, underground culture, tools, publications, experimentation, mistakes, successes, and an ever-growing number of ideas started occupying the same space.

In this first transmission of AFTER MIDNIGHT, we talk to DTRZ, one of the people behind DARKVOID.

Not about metrics.

Not about growth strategies.

About why build this in the first place.

02:07 AM — THE BEGINNING

Do you remember the moment when DARKVOID stopped being just an idea in your head and you realized: “I'm actually going to build this”?

Yeah. It was late at night. I was smoking and working on a personal portfolio because I'm a designer.

Then I got on a call with drk-witch and this idea just hit us:

“What if we made a site that brought together everything we're into, putting underground culture first? But with our identity. Done our way.”

And that's where it all started.

What was missing from the internet that made you want to build a place of your own?

Honestly, we just wanted to leave our mark.

Do everything our way, you know?

Our design, our ideas, our successes, our mistakes.

Build something we actually like and have fun in the process too.

Was there a moment when DARKVOID stopped feeling like simply “our project” and started feeling like something alive, with an identity of its own?

Within the first month.

We couldn't leave it alone anymore. The urge to create and add new things became our motivation to keep working on it day and night.

And watching it evolve with every new addition, right before our eyes, through our own hands.

“Diante dos nossos olhos, através das nossas próprias mãos.”

02:51 AM — THE PERSON

When you get into that almost obsessive state of creation, what happens to the rest of your life? Can you switch your mind off, or do you keep thinking about DARKVOID even when you're not working on it?

It's hard, but we always find a way to balance things.

I haven't been in a very good place psychologically lately, so I kind of see DARKVOID as my escape.

When I'm working on it, that's when I can switch off from life's problems for a while and feel proud of what I'm managing to create.

Finally doing something I genuinely love and that has my signature on it.

DARKVOID has an aesthetic deeply tied to darkness, the void, and the macabre — but building this dark place is also one of the things that makes you feel good. Is there something of yourself hidden inside DARKVOID's aesthetic?

Definitely.

All my tastes, inspirations, and references are, in some way, scattered throughout the site.

The obscure, the “less popular,” the niche, the hidden — those are things that fascinate me and genuinely spark my interest.

Both in my personal taste and in my art.

03:24 AM — UNDERGROUND

If DARKVOID grows a lot over the next few years and becomes genuinely well known, would you be afraid of it no longer being underground precisely because it succeeded? Where is the line between growing and abandoning what made you create it in the first place?

DARKVOID will never stop being underground just because it became successful.

Success will only make it even more underground.

And underground will never stop being underground just because it became successful.

Success is the consequence of good work, dedication, investment, conviction.

If you don't pursue those virtues and qualities, you'll never understand what it means to be underground.

O underground nunca deixará de ser underground porque fez sucesso.

03:41 AM — ALREADY SUCCEEDED

What's your biggest fear when it comes to DARKVOID? When you think about this project carrying so much of who you are, what would actually hurt to see happen to it?

I'm not afraid of that.

DARKVOID has already succeeded.

It succeeded for me. It succeeded for drk-witch.

It's already become a stronger bond between us. It's something that brings us even closer and makes us want to dedicate ourselves even more to seeing how far the potential of building this site our way, with our identity, can go.

Maybe reaching places we never imagined we could reach before.

That feeling and that bond already make it impossible for DARKVOID to “not succeed.”

O DARKVOID já deu certo. Deu certo pra mim. Deu certo pra drk-witch.

When you disagree about DARKVOID, how do you reach a decision? When you look at the site today, can you still separate what feels more like you from what feels more like drk-witch, or have those two identities already started forming a third one — DARKVOID itself?

There has to be a middle ground.

Our tastes are really similar, so it's rare for us to strongly disagree on something.

But when one of us wants something the other doesn't, if we can see that the other person really wants it, one of us gives in so we can make it work.

And next time, the other one gives in.

We always try to keep that balance, adding everything we're into and see potential in.

04:12 AM — THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SCREEN

Imagine someone you've never met. They're alone, late at night, they stumble across DARKVOID by accident, start on the Home, tune into a radio station, open a post, and end up staying there for hours. What would you want that person to take away from DARKVOID when they finally close the site?

I'd want them to have had an experience where they learned something and had fun exploring the site.

Read the posts, tune into a radio station, mess around creating something in the Lab, interact on VOID Social.

If they genuinely enjoy the content, maybe stop by the shop and support us by buying something they want — if they really think it's worth it.

04:31 AM — THE LINE

What would you never accept DARKVOID becoming, even if that change could make it grow much bigger or make much more money? At what point would you say: “If that's what it takes to get there, I'd rather not get there at all”?

Losing its underground essence.

Losing its design, which carries my signature.

Losing sight of what DARKVOID was originally created to be.

An underground culture project with its identity leaning toward the dark, the obscure, the occult.

UNDERGROUND. DESIGN. DARK. OBSCURE. OCCULT.

04:47 AM — RAPID SIGNALS

DAY / NIGHT? NIGHT.

SILENCE / NOISE? SILENCE. But if we're talking music, the more noise the better.

ANALOG / DIGITAL? DIGITAL.

CREATE / CONSUME? CREATE.

MAINSTREAM / UNDERGROUND? UNDERGROUND. 100%.

ORDER / CHAOS? CHAOS. Always.

PAST / FUTURE? Neither past nor future. Present.

FAME / FREEDOM? FREEDOM.

PERFECTION / PERSONALITY? PERSONALITY. Always chasing perfection hahaha.

WHAT ARE YOU STILL LOOKING FOR IN THE VOID?

My sense of fulfillment.

Reaching the right audience.

Continuing to leave more and more of my mark on it.

05:03 AM — THE LAST QUESTION

Many years from now, after all the changes, people, ideas, and versions this project may still go through, what would need to remain for you to enter DARKVOID and still be able to say: “This is still ours. This is still DARKVOID”?

The connection to the underground.

The design that carries my signature.

The obscure.

The feeling that this is actually becoming something that can reach and change a lot of things.

Not just for me.

AFTER MIDNIGHT / 001

DTRZ DARKVOID

Some things are built to succeed. Others succeed the moment they become real.