With NFTs, cultural and regular currency get a little closer


Yesterday, NBC News ran a story about a Miami man who lost significant sums after investing in Bored Bunny NFTs at the advice of Floyd Mayweather. The same day, Bella Hadid made headlines announcing her own collection of 11,111 âunseen spirits, hearts,â and 3D scans of the supermodelâs own body. From NFL players to electronic musicians, everyone wants a piece of the profiteering NFT action. Intermingling the influencer economyâstill in its nascencyâwith digital commodities bordering securities has been messy, to say the least.
Another article by Wired circa February 2022 starts with Mila Kunisâs live-cast video chat with Mark Zuckerbergâs sister Randi to discuss Kunisâs own NFT project, âStoner Cats.â In what Wired calls âa surprising admission,â Kunis offhandedly mentioned that fans should regard NFTs as art rather than investmentsânot only on facts and principles but also because the government could get her for insinuating otherwise.
Instagram and descendants like TikTok have blurred the lines between paid spokespeople and soft influencersâbetween billboards and native advertising. Web3 and crypto add new layers. Pseudonymity remains a question on the blockchainâwhatâs to stop a celebrity from investing in the products they go on to pump? Whoâs to say they haven’t already? And by the way, is an NFT an item or an investment at this point?
In a hypothetically cut and dry world where people tell the whole truth, Wired imagines another potential situation: âsay a hypothetical celebrity were to accept a free NFT in exchange for promoting it. If this is the case, the Federal Trade Commissionâs current guidelines about social media promotions should apply.â They quote Truth in Advertising executive director Bonnie Patten on the exact policy: âThe law is clear that if you are gifted an item that you then promote, you are required to clearly and conspicuously disclose that material connection.â
The fan in NBCâs story thought he was getting sound financial advice from Mayweather, who was likely among the many celebrities Bored Bunny paid to artificially hype their cultural currency for sake of earning real currency.
Some people are doing good work tracking all these shenanigans. Wired cites a blog called Dirty Bubble Media thatâs examined some of Justin Beiberâs recent activity with BAYC, while Substack‘s Max Read has not only penned a succinct exploration but also created an enlightening flow chart. Read asks hard-hitting questions about celebrities and NFTs: âWho is recommending that they buy one? Is this really the best thing any of them can think to do with their money and fame?â

âYou can begin to pick out the contours of an expanding, interconnected, celebrity-based web3 financial-cultural complex,â Read continues. âDid you know, for example, that Jimmy Fallon is represented by CAA, which is an investor in the NFT marketplace OpenSea, and which recently signed a deal to represent the NFT collector 0xb1, who owns NFTs from Bored Ape Yacht Club and World of Women? Did you know that another CAA client, Ashton Kutcher, is also an investor in OpenSea, through his company Sound Ventures?â
If you read Metaverse Post, by the way, then you also know United Talent Agency has recently invested in DeFi platform Syndicate.
It would be fun to let Read go on conspiracizing longer, which he does in his own piece, but itâs really all in the flow chart. Crucially, though, he closes by saying the boundaries between illicit activity like pyramid and Ponzi schemes âand âjust regular old financial capitalism working as intendedâ are not really as clear as we might like or hope. In which case, maybe itâs just ⊠a bunch of rich people and companies in the same couple businesses forming close ties?â
That is probably whatâs happeningâthe same old financial patterns rushing to replicate and fill empty space. Thatâs why it matters that each individual part of the larger whole plays an active, intentional, and examined role in building the Metaverseâfrom DAOs to ARâso itâs truly the decentralized new iteration of the internet so many people claim it will be. Making waves starts from withinânot from Floyd Mayweather. Real successes always take time.
NBCâs piece breezes through the heartbreaking point that their storyâs subject has abstained from providing his last name lest he faces ridicule from Twitter trolls mocking failed NFT investors, but who can blame this person? Celebrities are out here using their means for a quick buck. Maybe it doesnât work like that for regular people. Then again, celebrities are regular people tooâjust those weâve lent our own cultural currency. Thereâs an adage in marketing Iâll paraphrase: If you think youâre immune to advertisements, you are in fact most susceptible.
Read related posts:
- Madonna Joins the Metaverse with a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT
- U.S. military is designing its own Metaverse
- HTC and OpenSkyBlue debut Vermeer NFT museum in the Metaverse
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Vittoria Benzine is a Brooklyn-based art writer and personal essayist covering contemporary art with a focus on human contexts, counterculture, and chaos magic. She contributes to Maxim, Hyperallergic, Brooklyn Magazine, and more.
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Vittoria Benzine is a Brooklyn-based art writer and personal essayist covering contemporary art with a focus on human contexts, counterculture, and chaos magic. She contributes to Maxim, Hyperallergic, Brooklyn Magazine, and more.