(2022-02-03) Mapping The Celebrity NFT Complex

Mapping the celebrity NFT complex. Have you seen this profoundly unsettling video of Paris Hilton and Jimmy Fallon discussing their purchases of "Bored Ape Yacht Club" NFTs on The Tonight Show?

Fallon and Hilton are only two of the many celebrities who have purchased BAYC NFTs: Gwyneth Paltrow, Logan Paul, Eminem, and the dreaded Chainsmokers all own apes. Justin Bieber has one.

Who is recommending that they buy one? Is this really the best thing any of them can think to do with their money and fame?

If you pay attention to both the Hollywood trades and the crypto press, and smoke enough weed, you can begin to pick out the contours of an expanding, interconnected, celebrity-based web3 financial-cultural complex.

you can even begin to make a corkboard map of this emerging web of ownership, business relationships, and incredibly bad art

Is it a … scam? A dodge? A conspiracy? One of the funny things that the world of web3 seems intent on revealing is the extent to which the boundaries between concepts like "Ponzi scheme," "pyramid scheme," "multi-level marketing," "conspiracy," and "just regular old financial capitalism working as intended" are not really as clear as we might like or hope.

maybe it’s just … a bunch of rich people and companies in the same couple businesses forming close ties?

Celebrities are a natural fit for the web3 world: More than anything else, the value of a given NFT is a function of its perceived exclusivity, coolness, and prominence.