This is the final installment of a three-part series in which I’m exploring why NFTs look the way they do, and how these aesthetics shape and reflect the discourse around them. If you missed part I, you can find it here, and part II is over here.
All thoughts and analyses are of course my own, skewed by my experiences of life on Earth.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been deconstructing some of the most prominent aesthetics in the discourse around NFTs, and would be most likely to show up to the everyperson sleuthing round the internet. This is about the works that have sold for the most money, inspired the most headlines, and drawn the most hype: the top images that show up on Google, and the minters/creators/artists that are mentioned on Wikipedia.
Last week, I unpacked the top two spaces in this mapping, outlining the role that sincerity plays in NFT imagery:
If you want a full breakdown of the mapping, head back to part I, and if you want to read about all the stuff above the x-axis, head back to part II.
In this final installment, I want to unpack the final two spaces – ‘Capitalist Cosplay’ and ‘Subversion as Status’ – to explore the role that satire plays in this space, and what it tells us about our relationship with society / tech / etc.
3. Capitalist Cosplay
NFTs (and their predominantly Millennial advocates) are creating a safe place for irreverence and experimentation amid a wider set of broken systems.
Some of the most high profile NFT collections feature heavily anthropomorphised animals or other non-human entities that are based on a single illustration, but have been algorithmically replicated thousands of times to wear a multitude of expressions, clothes, etc. FLUF World is home to 10,000 animated bunnies, while the Bored Ape Yacht Club and the Mutant Ape Yacht Club respectively host 10,000 bored apes and mutant apes. No Brainers is an NFT collection of 2,500 big-brained aliens. All are reminiscent of the little dice icon used to randomly generate your character on The Sims 4. Buying from any one of these collections comes with access to a Discord server and community perks, creating a sense of collective power that straddles online and offline planes.
The fact that these animals are so often in costume feels pertinent. It implies playing pretend: dressing up as something that you're not, trying a new identity on for size. Bored Apes / Mutant Apes are the most on-the-nose example of this – buying into the group implies aping as a high flying investor while not *actually* being one. In a recent partnership between collector Jimmy McNelis and Universal Music Group, four Bored Apes (all owned by McNelis) literally ape as musicians for a Gorillaz-esque, metaversal supergroup.
The vibrant colourways of these collections indicate playfulness on a spectrum: while the pastel tones of CryptoKitties imply naivety, the bold apes and bunnies imply boisterousness. No Brainers’ swoll-brained avatars sit somewhere in the middle of this spectrum, some adopting the infantile air of a ‘smooth brain’, others giving off a distinctively boyish ‘my brain is bigger than yours’ energy. In both cases, they look like they’ve been created by Adult Swim: characters whose sweetness and innocence would make them look fit for kids’ TV if it wasn’t for the odd cigar, dealer’s visor or sullen expression.
This juxtaposition between innocence and maturity is key. Cuteness is pushed to new extremes across the board: big eyes and humorous expressions imply total harmlessness. But these communities aren’t harmless. They’re responsible for huge amounts of capital and by extension, power. Critics are calling them out as Ponzi schemes that are broadening financial inequality. They’re proven to have a detrimental impact on the environment. The prevalence of aesthetic codes of innocuousness in a space with so many real-world implications is at best a crude means of catharsis for a predominantly Millennial audience that feels existentially disenfranchised. At worst, it’s more than a little sinister.
Aesthetics you’ll recognise:
Vibrant colourways indicate playfulness, from naive through to boisterousness
Animals dressed as people (apes, kittens, bunnies, etc.) imply dressing up or playing pretend, aping as someone or something else
Extreme codes of cuteness (big eyes, small faces, humorous expressions) imply total harmlessness and a sense of safety
Brightly coloured sans-serif fonts (as in a lot of the No Brainers’ communications) also suggests a sense of childlike spirit
4. Subversion as Status
NFTs (and the web 3.0 rebellion they represent) are being used to signal anti-establishment ideals as a new kind of status symbol.
Rebellion has been a central theme in the NFT discourse, and subversion has been a primary means. Artist Mason Rothschild’s subversion of the iconic and hyper-luxe Hermés Birkin bag – check out his Metabirkins – is a rebellion against cultural gatekeeping. The communities around NFTs are rebelling against existing financial systems by subverting conventional notions of wealth. The format itself is a form of rebellion against elitism in the art world, and a constant cause for controversy: Wikipedia recently classified NFTs as ‘not art’, only serving to cement their relevance in the conversation around what constitutes art.
In one of the highest selling NFTs, titled ‘Replicator’, creator Mad Dog Jones subverts established notions of value. The image depicts a run-down looking photocopier, nestled in the corner of an office in a neon-lit cityscape. Referred to by the artist as an 'NFT experience', the $1.6 million asset will self-replicate into hundreds of iterations of itself that can be sold on separately. On one hand, it puts a middle finger up to the value of scarcity in the current marketplace. But it also highlights the sheer value of replication as a form of production on the global stage, described by Jones as "a metaphor for modern technology’s continuum."
The spirit of ‘Replicator’ is complemented by its cyberpunk/Blade Runner-esque backdrop. Bleakness is dominant in this space. It’s in the murky gray palettes of the cigarette-smoking, hoodie-wearing Crypto Punks, and in the bloated figure of Trump spread across pavement in Beeple’s ‘Crossroad’. Even these new virtual worlds where NFTs and crypto form the basis for a new economy (from Decentraland to the freshly-cancelled Cryptoland) are framed less as exciting new frontiers and more as necessary alternatives to existing systems. In reality, these worlds may simply offer additional planes on which people can buy, sell and consume until they die, but the ethos implies dissatisfaction with the current systems in place.
Maybe that’s why subversion here feels a little like virtual signalling. There's a fundamental contradiction between the murky, punk aesthetics or the overt celebration of self-expression (mohawks seem to be the hairstyle du jour in metaversal circles on apes, Crypto Punks, etc., as is brightly coloured make-up), and the sheer volume of financial and commercial power attached to them. Last Summer, VISA purchased a CryptoPunk and added it to its commercial collection – arguably the least Crypto or Punk thing to happen to anyone, ever. At a time when people are feeling pretty sketchy about systemic power – 67% of Millennial and Gen Z Britons say they want out of capitalism, a sentiment that’s reflected in other global studies, too – maybe it’s no surprise anti-establishment ideals have become a status symbol.
Aesthetics you’ll recognise:
The moody colour palettes are duller than most of the other territories, implying seriousness and maturity
Most of the avatars features in these NFTs feature overt modes of self-expression (Cyber Punks’ mohawks and brightly-coloured make-up, doodles on Beeple’s bloated Trump). All indicate a sense of irreverence, a refusal to conform with the norm
Neon-lit, urban settings are affiliated with dystopian futures, largely due to their prevalence in the sci-fi sub-genre of cyberpunk, and proliferated through blockbusters like Blade Runner
It’s easy to hate NFTs. They’re perceived as irreverent yet elitist, hypermasculine yet infantile: mascots for the next generation of financial elite who want to build systems that get them just as rich without the stuffiness of old boys’ clubs. But the reality is much more complex. What underpins all of this is a rich tapestry of motivations driven by accelerationism, late-capitalism, tech solutionism and shared trauma in the wake of the pandemic.
I also haven’t been able to shake the feeling that something about NFTs is distinctly Millennial – and actually, the data suggests Millennials are more likely than any other generation to both understand what they are, and want to learn more about them. In the most literal sense, many of the characters and much of the iconography that feature in NFTs are stripped directly from the childhoods of those that grew up in the ‘90s: Windows ‘95 aesthetics, pixel art, Pokémon cards, collectible avatars not dissimilar to Neopets, and Habbo Hotel-style worlds. These references aren’t just nostalgic, they’re reminiscent of an era bursting with hope for the opportunities the internet would bring us. This was a pre-social media internet: an internet where creating was paramount, and where digitally socialising was a risky thrill enabled only by murky chat rooms or grainy webcams.
Of course the first generation to turn out poorer than their parents, who have historically struggled to get on the property ladder, and have been crippled by student debt have found a way to make their stunted journey into adulthood work in their favour. They’ve taken the one benefit of being born later than Boomers – digital literacy and a subsequent penchant for internet humour – and wielded it as a weapon against the systems that have either shut them out or kept them down. What's unfortunate is that in doing so, many pre-existing inequalities are still being perpetuated, and many new broken systems are emerging that can wreak havoc on our societies and our planet.
In reality, we’ve barely scratched the surface of what these web 3.0 technologies will look like. The above analysis is built on some quick Google searches and a few articles about a years’ worth of NFT auctions. When you dig into the depths of these spaces, there’s already so much more vibrance to behold. Hopefully in the next few years, we’ll see some of these systems truly start to work for everyone. And if not? Well… at least art history grads in 2050 will have a distinctive aesthetic era to decode as they traverse the hellfire.
If you made it this far and you’ve got an opinion, please send me your praise, your arguments and your opinions. OR send me some requests for future analyses.