Confessions of an NFT Shiller

Shared by Denman Rooke on Twitter, the above meme, while controversial, represents a lot of art enthusiasts who associate an artist’s transition to NFTs as an illegitimate descent into the meaningless fast-fashion capsule collections of digital art, in other words, ‘selling out’…

Oh, and hurting the environment while they’re at it. Of course, art supplies and paper also wreck the environment… but the goal is to move toward green solutions, not further away.

As an art history major who’s also worked in fashion, I’ve seen trend vs. tradition play out in multiple contexts.

A dear friend of mine was director of exhibitions at the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation, an influential art gallery in NYC that represents the work of a deceased artist who sparked revolutionary discourse surrounding the systemic oppression the LGBTQ community faced during the 80’s rise of AIDS (among other subjects). His art can be interpreted as a tragic memoir of the harrowing history of a community neglected and still recovering from traumatic disenfranchisement. As the political context shifts, so do the meaning of the art in direct conjunction with the viewer and the space.

In the whole year+ that the Growth Agency I work at had gotten their hands dirty shilling NFTs, I seldom heard heartfelt talk about them in a way that convincingly romanticized their efforts to raise awareness around a pressing global issue or instigate change that would make this world a better place.

Now tell me… is it really about ‘Art’? Or is this about making the floor price go ‘brrr’…?

Supposedly the Creature World NFT was based on an internal world its artist had created as a refuge from anxiety. That’s a good start. But are these beautifully tasteful PFP NFTs a cry for help by artists suffering from mental health issues? A rallying of the people against an increasingly powerful and overreaching big Pharma who indiscriminately over-prescribes?

We don’t always need ultra-ambitious movements.

Nor lofty purposes that bore the dopamine-addicted adolescents and irk the jaded who inevitably dismiss such ideas as naive… but we do need something; an inkling of meaning and hope that our personal NFT portfolio says something more about us than just our fringe financial intuition.

Of course, many NFT artists are creating intricate digital designs with impressive backgrounds and layering, wonderfully contrasting color palettes, and nostalgic references to contemporary pop culture.

There’s no denying that there is some ‘Art’ happening here.

However, valuing NFTs based on their artistic merit is highly subjective. Factors such as complexity, effort, and skill prove extraordinarily hard to measure and track — much like in the traditional art world, where connections, community, and influence continue to dominate.

There’s nothing wrong with bringing cheerful aesthetics into crypto trading and investment.

But if we’re just window dressing stocks, adding personalized wrapping paper and ribbons to our shares, shall we, just maybe, reconsider saying that it’s primarily about the ‘Art’?

If anything, it could be about freeing the Artist from a system that exploits their value and restricts ownership over their work — empowering them to spread their message as they deem fit once free… but we’ll park this tangent here for now.

Granted, my journey through the meandering woods of NFTs has only just begun.

The dwelling must go on until I am to paint a clearer big-picture concerning the state of all things DeFi. Perhaps I drank the wrong cup of Kool-Aid tonight and need some good reverse-brainwashing.

From where I’m standing, it feels as though many NFTs could use a rebranding as far as calling themselves a ‘collective of artists’ goes; the generic copy-paste fictional fluff isn’t going to cut it as a backstory.

But then again, I may be completely off the mark, entirely missing the point.

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