NFTs and their ugliness
Skipping the politics and revealing the real reason NFTs inspire such vitriol.
Do not bother clicking on the links until your second read around, it’s better that way.
The cold swamp in which NFTs are created breed them for hideousness. They are the digital culmination of the phenomenon that is modern art. Modern art has no spirit or raw intrigue, justly made to continue the cycle of “challenging”. Truly challenging art is not created to be challenging but as a sincere expression, sincre devotion to something felt inside. It does not challenge external walls for they will crumble in due time, it attacks the unknown mush behind our skin and nerves - the continous matrix that floats above time and location. Lust, rage, God, innocence, motherhood, power, rape, life, trust. NFTs do not do this, made for profit alone, they are churned out like Dollar Store decor, beautiful enough for a buck.
Why, despite all that is intuited, is so much energy directed towards them? It is not for the rationale performed: it’s environmentality, it’s threat to fiat currency, the scams, the lingo, the celebrities, the money - none. Hypnotic they are because they reflect us, perfectly. As society stands, and stumbles, we exude no spirit in our work doing it for profit alone hoping to land a job we don’t hate. We are ourselves are flat like the NFT images, our libido snubbed out in the young years with standardized tests, behavioral medication and ambient cul de sac boredom. Flatted, bleached, in wait to be slotted into the printer tray. The entirity of our selves is pixelated into digitalspace, a entity which seeks to systematically yoke and poke the worst yet most potent pimples of humanity. The profile picture, the ultimate symbol of benign egoism, all NFTs focus on the head. Non Fungible Tokens are ugly ‘cause we’re ugly. Overstimulated and animalistic we are Bored Apes; gloryless and spoiled we inspire Lazy Lions. Bureaucratic, impotent and completely digitized we can be no more than Cryptopunks.
Or not. Everything in life is an option for the human will is the most beautiful thing we possess. We hate NFTs because we hate how NFTs reflect what’s inside us but what’s inside is not forever-bound. It is mush and can be molded into something much more volitile and awely. NFTs are only a stroke in The Greater Painting, do not sacrifice any futher energy into these crude manifestations. Instead see The Greater Painting. You do so via catoptromancy (ka·top·tro·mancy), the practice of divination through mirrors. Mirrors are magical things for they present to us an image unknown to everyone else. If one stares back into a mirror for long enough, the face will morph - not into what everyone else sees but into a representation for what colors your soul. Dark mirrors reveal things that shock us which is why you are disgusted at the figure staring back at you when your screen suddenly goes dark. Face this shadow and work to change it into something of true beauty for you will know it when you feel it.
But then again, I wish I was like you - easilyamused.
Obviously inspired by Chris Gabriel's (MemeAnalysis) work btw.
great read, do write more