Bye Bye, Bored Apes? When a crypto winter comes over the world, celebrities have calmly started deleting their NFT profile pictures
The relationship between the NFT community and A-list celebrities has been a confusing relationship for most people. In January, the uninitiated scratched their heads over Paris Hilton’s performance of Jimmy Fallon, who plugged the Bored Ape Yacht Club. “We are part of the same community, we are both monkeys,” she told Fallon in a completely unhappy voice.
But times have changed, and we are now in what is being called a crypto winter. When the art world tries to unite what the relationship with the crypto space is, there are also celebrities, and both Hilton and Fallon have changed their Twitter profile photos from Bored Apes that once united them. Although, to be fair, both maintain the “.eth” suffix that keeps them part of the conversation, and Hilton still makes their own NFTs.
It was not until January that Twitter first launched the feature that enabled NFT owners to make their chosen digital artwork their profile picture, with their own in-house verification system. Many followed. But several months later, many celebrities have abandoned their non-fungible avatars, including Serena Williams, Reese Witherspoon, Shonda Rhimes, Lil Durk, Travis Barker and Meek Mill.
Fallon’s change came unannounced, and no tweet addressing his sailor-made monkey was replaced with an old-fashioned, analog selfie by the comedian. There’s an extra sense of irony in the timing as well, since the NFT NYC conference is currently taking place near Times Square, just around the corner from his stage at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
There is reason to believe that the NFT environment is aware of this seismic distance. According to a viral tweet from NBC News reporter Kevin Collier, the convention may have hired a Snoop Dogg look-a-like, “Doop Snogg,” to attend the festivities and inflate the convention’s prestige.
“I’m at the NFT NYC conference again in Times Square, and Snoop walked by, flanked by security. I grabbed his dealer, said I was a reporter, would love a few minutes, “Collier wrote. “The guy actually said it’s an imitator, legally can’t say it’s him, they hired him to drum up excitement.”
The question remains whether this is further evidence that the cryptosphere is becoming more polluted from other cultural facets, or whether it is just another symptom of the greater mood change?
Follow Artnet News on Facebook:
Do you want to be at the forefront of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest news, eye-opening interviews and sharp reviews that drive the conversation forward.
