maybe we could do a better job teaching poor gullible rubes that just because somebody shoved a whole bunch of words together that don’t make any sense it doesn’t mean those words must in fact make sense but only to smart people who can understand them
— kilgore trout, death to putiner (@KT_So_It_Goes) March 19, 2022
Bleeding from the ears, maybe…
I went to #SXSW for a week and saw things you wouldn't believe. Humanoid rabbits minted as 3D NFTs. I watched people struggle to explain the purpose of the NFT project they were observing. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain (i hope) https://t.co/LY5jTS6OQG
— Edward Ongweso Jr (@bigblackjacobin) March 18, 2022
It did not really hit me that I was in a special sort of hell until I was walking aimlessly through Austin for SXSW and came across a venue with a few inflated geodesic domes. There were large 3D anthropomorphic rabbits plastered everywhere, which I gathered were somehow related to crypto though it wasn’t clear how. Large screens inside and outside of the domes streamed a panel where a member of Linkin Park crafted a song that would be minted as an NFT as a discussion about the liberatory potential of the metaverse carried on. And somewhere, a loud voice rang out a cultish mantra: “This is changing the future. This is FLUF House. This is the Hume Collective, so remember why you are here. Remember the power that you have. The power of this community, and when it gets hard, remember you are not alone.”
This week, while at SXSW to speak on two panels about crypto-skepticism and algorithmic labor, I was able to check out if crypto, NFTs, web3, and the metaverse really were taking over Austin. What I found was a deeply underwhelming, mundane, and frankly pathetic series of demonstrations and setups that suggest if these digital technologies do take over the world, it’ll be because of how much money their biggest boosters have and how easy it is for that money to generate interest as opposed to anything of true social utility…
Late Night Open Thread: NFTs On the Bleeding EdgePost + Comments (73)