Thread by Shavonne Wong ✨(NFT Asia/Bloom)

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  • Jun 8, 2022
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1/ The technology behind NFTs was never exclusively made for art. 🧵
2/ I've been seeing more and more tweets of artists being disgruntled about how the space has been focusing money on where they deemed to be "wrong". And I empathise with where they are coming from.
3/ As artists, especially as artists who were only able to do personal work for profit due to NFTs, it is hard to see the space that started from what seemed to be a really wholesome supportive art ecosystem giving way to rugpulls, animal pfps and copy-paste scams.
4/ Every technology unfortunately attracts bad actors. You can't have a useful thing and that thing not be used by both good and bad people.
5/ However, the existence of pfp projects, collectables, and even the request for utility comes from the natural growth and expansion of this space...and growth is a great thing! Honestly, they probably make use of the tech better than art.
6/ And the space will continue to grow! As it goes into fashion, music, games, real estate, legal areas etc, it will move further and further away from the focus of just art.
7/ And it is *not* a bad thing because it means that the technology will become more and more widely accepted and therefore bringing in a wider audience and possibly becoming actually mainstream. A bigger pie for us all to enjoy.
8/ "The art at the top is not the kind of art I like!" Yes, I get it, and I can't say I totally disagree. Of course, art can be subjective and yadda blah blah but there's definitely something to be said about both social proof and the meme culture.
9/ There is a shift in who influences culture and you can complain about the "crypto bros" all you want but you cannot pretend there isn't a shift. Culture is always defined by those who have the most influence.
10/ To complain that crypto bros have influence is 1) a disregard for the fact that every period of history has its concentration of power in general and with repect to art as well and 2) complaining doesn't change anything.
11/ Decentralisation is a spectrum in the underlying tech and also a lowering of barriers to entry. Decentralisation is not a reality where everyone wins simply for participating.
12/ I would go further to suggest that this is still an improvement as historically that barrier to entry and the platform we operated on is not accessible to most people.
13/ Crypto does not promise success. Crypto promises equal opportunity on the base assumption that you have the time and equipment to participate.
14/ You can create your art without permission, you can network freely, you can jump into discords and more so you can do so as yourself or an anon regardless of who you are.
15/ We as artists should acknowledge that this industry like every other industry has its flaws but through experimentation and through hard work from those who believe in it, the industry can evolve into something better. Certainly far better than what we had before.
16/ As mentioned the growth in use of this technology also means that the growth of art will occur alongside it.
17/ Finally, we do art to express ourselves to the world. We all aspire to sell and succeed but ultimately art is art. Just like we want our buyers to buy it cause they love it, we should continue to do it cause we love it.
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