Ask anyone on the street about NFTs in 2023, and you will likely get a grimace. Or some kind of disapproval. With the NFT “brand” so soaked in cringe, who can blame them?
If there ever was a single moment when NFTs became “cringe,” there’s a good case to be made that it happened during Paris Hilton’s appearance on Тунајт шоу глуми Џими Fallon.
It was one year ago this week that the two celebrities met to show off their NFTs. Both Hilton and Fallon had purchased “Bored Apes” from the Bored мајмун Јахт клуб (BAYC) NFT collection. A project that—even then—was synonymous with “expensive JPEGs.”
“The last time you were on the show, I asked you to explain NFTs,” said Fallon, with his usual plastic charm. “And you did so in a great way.” As a gracious host, Fallon then namedropped Hilton as one of Forbes Top 50 Most Influential People In NFTs. The socialite replied with among the most banal series of words ever strung together.
“Thank you, I’m so proud. I love being part of this community, and being a voice and sharing my platform, and just getting the word out there. Because I think it’s just such an incredible thing.”
The damning coverage was impossible to ignore: Форбс, Атлантикот, на Tелеграф, ПОИМ, Кратењето. Whether you had written about NFTs before or not, it didn’t matter. This was public interest journalism; two rich people talking about their exorbitant monkeys. It was funny, it was cringe, it was a lot of things. (According to reports, of course.)
Was Jimmy Fallon Peak Cringe?
People who knew my job would inevitably ask about that moment. (At the time, I was working in Web3 PR.) “Have you seen Paris Hilton and talking about her silly monkey,” a friend would say. Well, yes, I would reply. After all, that is my industry. Straining every sinew in my body to hide the shame. This is not what NFTs were supposed to be. It is not what NFTs се. But try telling that to someone whose first interaction with space is via a million-dollar picture of a monkey.
As one industry veteran put it to me: “Nearly every publicly known BAYC holder are the exact type of people you don’t want to be at a party with. (Except Paris Hilton, she’s a doll.) The entire brand and vibe is ick to me — the exact opposite of what Web3 and the vision of decentralization is supposed to be about. Not here for helping rich people get richer.’
That same month, reports of Justin Bieber paying $1.3 million for a BAYC NFT only heightened the animosity. By the spring of last year, the celebrity roster of the Bored Ape Yacht Club was a wall-to-wall of household names. Madonna, Post Malone, Tom Brady, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Logan Paul, Timbaland, Mark Cuban. One analysis showed this feeling was based on fact. Of all the thousands of NFT collections, BAYC was the омилена славна личност. No surprises there.
Source: https://beincrypto.com/2022-paris-hilton-jimmy-fallon-nft-cringe-bayc/