>>53549I think that the problem with NFTs is it's essentially trying to bottle the artist which everything art related tries to do but by making it so ephemeral into an absurdity that now we see exactly the role and function of art under Capitalism fully realized which is merely a financial instrument for the storage and transfer of capital, which NFTs can do quite well, as can buttcoin or any other crypto thus enabling the wealthy international elite to carry on with greater ease than ever before. This is because you cannot physically reproduce a painting, but you can just screenshot an "authentic" digital art piece. It's kinda the problem with digital art in general which is that people want to have and to hold that art, and to hang it up around their house. I cannot imagine anyone but the biggest twats among the wealthy hanging up a $2.5 million NFT as their desktop wallpaper.
I think it's actually quite nice for the average artist though, in that it can at least in theory democratize things to where they can take a scan of their drawing and put it up but I feel like we've been down this road before and somehow it'll just centralize things further to where the people that produce nothing get a far greater share and control over art in the end. I also think it's abhorrent that they're using Ethereum. Like what the fuck, it's such an unbelievably shitty crypto. People have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars on its gas fees. I personally lost $16 on a failed transaction with ETH. It's the stupidest fucking crypto out there and I think actually relying on it for NFTs could become their downfall. Otherwise, Dutch Tulips.
I think some people are buying lots of it just because the initial wave are the crypto millionaires and that it won't spread much beyond them. Like I said, people generally want art to have and to hold but the thing with computer games as art is it's at least an actually interactive experience which is precisely why so many people have looked the other way as all these companies stopped shipping out manuals and strategy guides and wallpapers, a fact which still annoys the fuck out of me to this very day. Like I mean I have never, ever bought any "digital art book" for 90 fucking dollars nor shall I ever. Either you ship me my wallpaper for my bedroom or fuck off. The same thing goes for mp3s and whatever else. If I can download it and you're not sending me hardcopy I'm not paying all that extra, which likewise is probably one reason people tolerated the all digital switch at all which was at least it used to be cheaper back then, but now it is even more expensive buying digital only software than it was buying battlechests with the manuals.
So, there is always that. You're always going to have people like me who get pissy about no physical aspect to something. Like when all this shit is over if I still have enough money left floating around I'm probably going to try and make a trip to the bookstore. Why? Because I refuse to use a Kindle, I refuse to give a shitty corporation ownership over
my book, and because I demand something unalterable in my hand. An NFT may at least in theory bypass two of those things, but still.
Imho the only true thing which an NFT has got going for it is if somebody just focuses in creating really mindblowing gifs. This is partly because it'd be a lot more pain in the ass painstakingly making copies as opposed to screenshoting, and also because I do happen to think gif like things show a lot of artistic promise.
However that being stated it's going to be as few and far between as in vidya itself, which you will notice has largely just become a banal money making enterprise geared towards predictable mediocre returns rather than try something truly inspired and daring. This is all a real great shame because vidya has got the most mindblowing potential for not just art but also education and training since the invention of the printing press and written language before that, but like with everything it's usually squandered on complete garbage. We could be seeing and truly experiencing the hyperspace scene from Space Odyssey but instead we get Rick and Morty fart jokes and some shitty "VN" going all "kawasaki thinks you-a cutu 'w' senpai" or whatever trash speaking of which I'd really like to point out how profoundly irksome that title is to me because "visual novel" is exactly how I'd describe Planescape but I discovered it means shitty anime comic books in steam shovelware form.
So in summation, lotta promise, extremely limited execution in its potential regarding vidya, even worse potential in NFT because basically it's only great potential is if it can somehow make actual artists enough money that they can dedicate themselves to it as a living as opposed to wasting their lives making corporate advertisements, or the internet being flooded with shitpost gifs making way for more art.
I will say one final thing in favor of an NFT though, which is namely that shoppers are not in fact rational actors contrary to what any muh markets fag tries to tell you, and that includes people really paying for the
feeling of something which that includes wanting to buy some thousands of dollars jpeg just because it's the one "authentic" one in the same sense as you'd want to buy an authentic Michelangelo and not give a shit about reproductions. I have actually caught that tendency in myself when shopping for vidya and which is exactly why I tend to dislike simply the feeling of pirating games because it makes it
feel like suddenly the vidya is cheap and shitty and not as "real" in a sense. I know it's a profoundly illogical and retarded thing, but there you go. It's part of why I paid probably thousands of dollars over the years alongside refusing to rip people off and then become a blackhole in my now absent demand subtracting just a few more shekels from games I like getting made and the people who make what I like getting paid while shit companies with shit games make their money anyway. So I suppose that latter case could come into play too, to where it gets frowned upon to just download copies of some artistic work somebody likes rather than paying the artist. Whether this translates elsewhere is a different question though as it's definitely a Western and in particular American mentality about labor and markets and "I pay my own way" insistence on giving money which is completely absent from and mysterious to such peoples as Russians.
>>53549I think that the problem with NFTs is it's essentially trying to bottle the artist which everything art related tries to do but by making it so ephemeral into an absurdity that now we see exactly the role and function of art under Capitalism fully realized which is merely a financial instrument for the storage and transfer of capital, which NFTs can do quite well, as can buttcoin or any other crypto thus enabling the wealthy international elite to carry on with greater ease than ever before. This is because you cannot physically reproduce a painting, but you can just screenshot an "authentic" digital art piece. It's kinda the problem with digital art in general which is that people want to have and to hold that art, and to hang it up around their house. I cannot imagine anyone but the biggest twats among the wealthy hanging up a $2.5 million NFT as their desktop wallpaper.
I think it's actually quite nice for the average artist though, in that it can at least in theory democratize things to where they can take a scan of their drawing and put it up but I feel like we've been down this road before and somehow it'll just centralize things further to where the people that produce nothing get a far greater share and control over art in the end. I also think it's abhorrent that they're using Ethereum. Like what the fuck, it's such an unbelievably shitty crypto. People have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars on its gas fees. I personally lost $16 on a failed transaction with ETH. It's the stupidest fucking crypto out there and I think actually relying on it for NFTs could become their downfall. Otherwise, Dutch Tulips.
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