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This NFT is not "The Brooklyn Bridge", this NFT is "Remember when John Cleese sold the Brooklyn Bridge NFT". Do you think nobody wants the bragging rights of ow
by koonsolo 6y ago
This NFT is not "The Brooklyn Bridge", this NFT is "Remember when John Cleese sold the Brooklyn Bridge NFT". Do you think nobody wants the bragging rights of owning that? I certainly do, but not for $50k, which it already has.
- lisper 6y agoc.f.: http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/ http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/
- pmlnr 6y ago> Do you think nobody wants the bragging rights of owning that? It would be nice to believe that eventually we evolve beyond bragging about being an idiot. > I certainly do ...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- leokennis 6y agoExactly. There’s little I’d like less than bragging about having spent my life savings on a JPEG that everyone has but that I “own”...
- koonsolo 6y agoI don't think the person spending $50k does it with his lifes saving. You don't buy a jpeg, you buy the unique item that John Cleese sold. Same for movie props. You can buy a nice lightsaber below $200. The ones that were used in the movies... a bit more.
- AddisonRyan 6y ago"item"
- Igelau 6y ago> You don't buy a jpeg, you buy the unique item that John Cleese sold. A NFT is not an item. > Same for movie props. You can buy a nice lightsaber below $200. The ones that were used in the movies... a bit more. Those are things. There is no correlation. NFT is selling you a pointer. It's a hash that on one software platform says "that thing over there". When Bob buys a NFT, he isn't buying a lightsaber that he can display, loan out, or hold . Bob is buying a number.
- freeone3000 6y agoRight, but in this case, you're buying a number provably owned by John Cleese, as part of a performance piece where he sold a token representing the Brooklyn Bridge, as a commentary on the entire concept of selling numbers. It's meta, it's brilliant, it's popular, (it's absolutely going to devalue the other Brooklyn Bridge NFT I own because mine was minted first but this one's more popular), it's ART.
- Igelau 6y agoThat's a good point, and I think you're right for this one instance. It's an exceptional case and the artistic statement literally can't be made without NFT. He's telling a joke and the fact that someone will buy the NFT is itself the punchline.
- Talanes 6y agoIf Bob buys a movie prop lightsaber for $10,000 and a fully quality replica costs $200, then Bob has only bought $200 worth of something he can display, loan out, or hold. The remainder of the price is made up of the intangible connection to the film and artists.
- patcon 6y agoThis is just giving regular ppl like you (or any meme culture creator) a similar sort of markup that was reserved for the Ralph Lauren's or any stupid designer item whose raw materials were mostly just vapor. Luxury and self-image and [silent] bragging rights were always part of the economy, now it just also includes lulz, which happen to be much more accessible to create :)
- barry-cotter 6y ago> Maybe NFTs will not endure, which is a risk for anyone playing a pioneering role in a new genre. That is why the price was not $200 million or more. In any case, this is a world in which Marcel Duchamp’s urinal sculpture still is exhibited in major museums, regarded by many critics as a masterpiece of the 20th century, and it sold at auction for $1.6 million in 2002. Canvases painted a single color, and other forms of abstract and conceptual art, remain a major part of recent art history and can sell for tens of millions. > The point is not to argue over what qualifies as “art.” It is simply that it is a mistake to assume that NFTs will fail in the art world. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-03-17/the-nft-craze-actually-does-make-sense?sref=htOHjx5Y https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-03-17/the-nf...
- xyzzy123 6y agoPeople doubting that a thing is actually art at all seems to be a fairly consistent marker of something being good art. It's fresh, it's pushing boundaries, it's making people think and wonder, it's generating snark and discussion. If readymades are art, if a blank canvas is art, then art is just a scam! Not sure if it will stand the test of time though (I mean technically in terms of the artifacts persisting, and conceptually, aka whether it will still be interesting in 10 years or seen as a fad).
- Igelau 6y ago> People doubting that a thing is actually art at all seems to be a fairly consistent marker of something being good art. Survivorship bias. The successes are highly visible, and we never hear of the failures. > If readymades are art, if a blank canvas is art, then art is just a scam! Ceci n'est pas une pipe. All art is a kind of deception.
- tinco 6y agoThe success is part of the art. A highschool kid scribbling "this is not a pipe" next to a pipe in his notebook is not the same as an accomplished artist convincing a gallery to feature it in an exhibition.
- asiachick 6y agoI don't like NFTs but your comment triggered a counter argument in my head. People buy and collect all kinds of worthless tuff. I know several people that spent between $3k and $10k on Magic the Gathering cards. From a non-player's perspective it's ridiculous. The cards are worthless and you could just print out images of the cards on a printer or copy machine if all you cared about was playing the game itself. And yet people do it. Is a NFT really any different? Is it wrong for people to spend their money on whatever they want?
- bradleyjg 6y agoWizards of the Coast are making a game. I don’t doubt that the secondary market eventually changed how they operated but at base, they are a game company. That’s ethically different from someone that sets out to create a Ponzi scheme.
- ilikehurdles 6y agoI don’t think anyone will disagree that money will be made by keen NFT creators and collectors, much like money is made by anyone peddling collectibles. The part of the argument where I depart is when proponents argue that this is somehow a transformative technology. It’s digital baseball cards and pet rocks, “but crypto”. I also remain convinced that NFTs are a fad in their current iteration. To use a rough analogy, NFTs are taking the record store into crypto when the future lies in building Spotify/Netflix in crypto.
- pmlnr 6y agoCollecting is fine, buying is fine - as long as the goal is not bragging. The problem is bragging.
- mypalmike 6y ago*Edit: Too late to delete, but my sarcastic comment is likely against site rules. Apologies
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- moistly 6y agoI suppose one can “brag” about most anything. Seems to me, though, that a brag about “owning” an arbitrary sequence of bytes is pretty damn empty. Overcome a challenge that presses your personal limitations? Worthy of a brag: you took up the task, persevered, and conquered. Open your wallet to purchase something? I just don’t see that there’s any legitimate boasting to be had there: any damn fool with the same money could do it. There is no challenge, there is no accomplishment, there is nothing to be proud of at all. It’s such empty bragging. IMO people who brag about owning things have deep personal insecurities and would be better off putting the money spent towards therapy.
- koonsolo 6y agoHaving a unique and quirky item is worth a brag. Bragging with an expensive Rolex is very different than bragging with the NFT of a terrible image of the Brooklyn Bridge by John Cleese who sold it as a joke.
- dexterdog 6y agoExcept there is nothing unique about it.
- evilDagmar 6y agoJohn Cleese has done how many pieces of architectural art now?
- moistly 6y agoNor anything unique about a Rolex. Can’t see how a purchased watch qualifies for bragging. It takes no skill, no dedication, no smarts, no gumption to open one’s wallet to purchase a watch. The person who built the watch might have something to brag about.
- dexterdog 6y agoA Rolex is an actual thing with a function and an intrinsic value. It can be copied, but only at a significant cost.
- remram 6y agoI will remember this. I even bookmarked that tweet, and it cost me nothing.
- jljljl 6y agoThis isn't really convincing. If NFTs are only valuable when celebrities sell them as part of a fad, then they have absolutely failed to meet the "correspondence to ground" point.
- basch 6y agoHow about if somebody sells NFTs and then becomes famous? Maybe they become famous for NFT art, maybe not. Chances are most will expire worthless, but a select few may be early works from people who go down in history.
- eqvinox 6y ago> This NFT is not "The Brooklyn Bridge", this NFT is "Remember when John Cleese sold the Brooklyn Bridge NFT". You certainly seem to be right, but where's the authority for that observation coming from? Or what would the actual Brooklyn Bridge look like as an NFT?
- predictmktegirl 6y agoIt's like you get to pay to be part of a joke with John Cleese. I think it's worth something too.