Last weekend was an absolute onslaught of celebrities and companies announcing their new NFTs. Troy Baker, Matthew Lillard, AP Photo and even the USPS all announced new NFT projects, leading to frustrated backlash.
For those who haven’t been keeping up – Non-Fungible Tokens are unique digital items bought and sold with cryptocurrency (like Bitcoin or Ethereum). The idea is that you’re buying something that no one else can, even if it’s just a link to an ugly picture of a lion. The problem with NFTs is that they rely on blockchain technology, which uses up a lot of electricity and generates greenhouse gas emissions. The computer parts needed to mine bitcoin (mining is how you generate bitcoin and involves supercomputers running calculations) have led to tons of e-waste and have made it harder for people to find video cards and RAM sticks (you need RAM for your computer to run). They’re also not great for the art community. Several artists, some deceased, have had their art stolen and sold as NFTs.
Despite this, celebrities and companies keep deciding to sell NFTs, and seem to be surprised by the backlash every time. Baker announced a collaboration with VoiceVerse, which promised an AI-based voiceover and text-to-speech platform using celebrity voices. Purchasing their NFTs with Ethereum “provides you an ownership to a unique voice in the Metaverse.” After a wave of backlash (especially after the “demo” VoiceVerse shared on their Twitter turned out to be made with 15.ai, an already existing AI text-to-speech program which has no connection to Voiceverse), Baker stated that he had “a lot to think about” and encouraged his followers to “resume the conversation.”
Lillard, meanwhile, doubled down, changing his display name to include “Will block. 0-F’s-given (sic)” and insisting that people who disagreed with him just didn’t understand. (He has since deleted the tweets those conversations were on, not the responses.) He claimed that he wouldn’t attach his name to a scam and said that “it’s not just a money grab.” Lillard announced a collaboration with Midnite Movie Club, which claims to be a community for movie lovers that will “use funds from the community wallet to produce feature length genre films” and features a Discord server for the community which hosts movie nights and chatting. To join MMC, you purchase one of their NFTs, which consist of tokens on the Ethereum blockchain that lead to images of cartoon popcorn boxes.
AP Photo and the USPS have not responded to the backlash yet. AP Photo’s scheme is a Xooa marketplace where people can buy NFTs, which include photos and “original metadata offering collectors awareness of the time, date, location, equipment and technical settings used for the shot.” Users will also be able to resell their images and print them for personal use, though they will not receive copyright for the photos and must delete all content from their devices if they resell the NFT. AP claims that “the NFTs will be minted on the Polygon blockchain, which is…environmentally friendly,” and that proceeds will fund AP journalism.
Meanwhile the USPS has partnered with VeVe (which has also released NFTs from Marvel and other brands) to create…stamps. Their NFTs are just stamp art. Sold in blind boxes for some reason. VeVe claims they’re “committed to 100% carbon neutral NFTs” but they use Ethereum, which is notorious for being bad for the environment.
The thing that gets me about all these NFT schemes is that they could all work on their own without NFT involvement. You can just HAVE a Discord server or a movie studio or AI text-to-speech or photo sales or stamps. You don’t NEED to mine bitcoin for those things. But for some reason, these people and groups have convinced themselves and their cryptobros that a technology that uses more power than actual living people is necessary.
How have they not done the research on the environmental impacts? How have they not seen the backlash countless others have faced for so much as potentially announcing NFTs (like Shonen Jump last week)? They have just as much access to the internet as we do. Do they not care about the consequences as long as they make a quick buck?
I don’t see NFTs going away anytime soon, even after the cryptocurrency market price drop last Friday. But I think it’s bizarre that a celebrity or company can just jump into something like NFTs without any visible consideration. And I hope I don’t see any Howl NFTs pop up any time soon.
Categories: Opinion
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