What's the deal with NFT and vaporwave art?

Vaporweeb

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Not Blank Banshee, BlaCk Banshee. It's an obvious parody alias by either him or someone from Dream Catalogue.

One of the Black Banshee albums was uploaded to Vapor Memory after he gave access to labels to upload albums while he's dealing with some personal stuff, and he was angry to find out that the album was being uploaded there as he didn't want any "meme albums" on his channel. Both HKE and Shima then started a whole rant on Twitter about censorship, which they did eventually resolve with VM privately.

After that, HKE talked about how "controversial" Black Banshee is, calling his music "post-vaporwave" as it was using techniques that were never used before, like sampling Michael Jackson (bruh)
He even interviewed him on his podcast (which was an Australian dude with the low pitch anonymous voice filter and ear-damaging glitch sound effects)
Whoops, misread it lol. :SmoothKirb:

But yikes, those are some hot takes for what seems like a non-issue.
 
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IlluminatiPirate

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Not Blank Banshee, BlaCk Banshee. It's an obvious parody alias by either him or someone from Dream Catalogue.

One of the Black Banshee albums was uploaded to Vapor Memory after he gave access to labels to upload albums while he's dealing with some personal stuff, and he was angry to find out that the album was being uploaded there as he didn't want any "meme albums" on his channel. Both HKE and Shima then started a whole rant on Twitter about censorship, which they did eventually resolve with VM privately.

After that, HKE talked about how "controversial" Black Banshee is, calling his music "post-vaporwave" as it was using techniques that were never used before, like sampling Michael Jackson (bruh)
He even interviewed him on his podcast (which was an Australian dude with the low pitch anonymous voice filter and ear-damaging glitch sound effects)
His George album is pretty good. Oh and take a look at this LOL
Screenshot_20210329-085417_Twitter.jpg
 
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netdenizenlain

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Hey, I'mma chime in for a moment on NFTs to kind drive in a dead point here and expose a bit of my personal life.

I am an engineer by trade, I design data centers. I have for the better part of 5 years, and the company I work for has recently become a subsidiary of a larger multinational called WSP. This may seem like a bunch of needless tidbits about myself in regards to NFTs and crypto, but I want to drive in the point that I am not talking out my ass when I talk about the energy consumption issue revolving NFTs.

So the entire issue with NFTs, for the most part, has to deal with how it has exposed crypto as being one of the dirtiest means of monetary transaction. There are some other philosophical quandaries that are also involved, but I won't get into them at the moment. I am sure most of you are aware, but for those who are not, NFTs are a non fungible token (basically an address) to prove discrete ownership of a single piece of digital media that is tied to the Ethereum blockchain. On the whole this seems harmless, what is wrong with being able to prove ownership. Largely, it would be harmless, if it were not for the glaring issues with cyrptocurrency mining. Now I will focus mostly on Ethereum because it's the information I am mostly readily familiar with. A single Ethereum transaction as of 12:17 EST on 3/29/2021 consumes 65.06 kWh of energy and produces roughly 30.91 kG of CO2. That is roughly the energy used by the average American household in 2,2 days. A single Etherium transaction produces nearly as much CO2 in one transaction at about 68k Visa transactions or 5150 watch hours of youtube videos. This is a SINGLE transaction. To mint a NFT and sell it there can be dozens or hundreds of transactions.

Now this issue is not a unique feature of NFTs. To be honest, NFTs aren't really the thing to be blamed here (once again, throwing out any existing critique of how digital art was previously produced and sold, as well as any philosophical issues). The real culprit is crypto. Crypto has not only failed to become a widely adopted currency, instead existing in the space of a commodity, but has also become the dirtiest means of financial transaction. The only thing that could be potentially more dirty is the system of petrodollar transaction system that the USA uses to maintain it's oil trade. Theoretically, we already exist in a system where all currency and be financialized into a digital ledger. Our banks have abstracted our money into just 1s and 0s in their records that can be ticked up and down with respective transactions. While the idea of a decentralized system is and interesting and potentially noble one, it has proved disastrous for the ecology of the world. Crypto is no longer a "mom n' pop" operation where individuals mine with their PC or even build small rigs to mine crypto. It has been standardized into a commercial industry with cowboy developers running around and trying to pop up data centers wherever and however is cheapest. You'll see companies building data centers with no redundancy on power grids that are supported by coal fired plants. Some people have even just bought shipping containers, loaded them with GPUs and a few transfer fans, and hooked them up to a private generator and fuel supply. The issue here is that in a mad dash to make cash, people are generating more and more CO2 emissions.

And this is just the surface. For every crypto cowboy building a shit data center, there is a building out there that supports a major company like Amazon, Google, or Facebook that is doing the same exact thing. We need to interrogate the entire system of our data and power infrastructure, because if we do not things will rapidly get out of control. The issue with NFTs isn't one that is limited to NFTs, or even crypto. It is systemic. This is what needs to be addressed. Why do we allow new data centers to be build in places that have the dirties energy grids? Why do we allow data center to consume more and more power from the grid? Why do we allow just about anyone to buy a industrial scale generator and run it with no repercussions?

This is what we need to interrogate. NFTs just exposed this to more people. I have being saying this for years to all sorts of people, but no one has listened. The chickens have not quite come back to roost yet, but we will see it within the next decade as climate change gets worse and worse.

On a side not for the philosophical end of NFTs, why should any vaporwave artist support NFTs? Vaporwave is an intrinsically anti-consumerist genre, which only has thrived off of the back bone of plunderphonics. Why should we support something that does not promote the free exchange of art? Why should we support a system that says a single person owns a certain copy of something? Especially when it is so trivial as being only a token representation of ownership. Is this not what we are trying to escape when making and enjoying vaporwave? Vaporwave is the art of the commons, where no one person is the owner nor creator. It should be collaborative all the way up and down.
 
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On a side not for the philosophical end of NFTs, why should any vaporwave artist support NFTs? Vaporwave is an intrinsically anti-consumerist genre, which only has thrived off of the back bone of plunderphonics. Why should we support something that does not promote the free exchange of art? Why should we support a system that says a single person owns a certain copy of something? Especially when it is so trivial as being only a token representation of ownership. Is this not what we are trying to escape when making and enjoying vaporwave? Vaporwave is the art of the commons, where no one person is the owner nor creator. It should be collaborative all the way up and down.
Thank you very much for giving actual numbers in your post instead of just saying "NFTs bad." And, thank you for blaming crypto as a whole instead of just NFTs. Your criticisms of crypto's pollution are essentially the same criticisms I've been levying against bitcoin for years -- it's expensive to send money! The larger it gets and the more coins get mined, the more insane the fees are going to be, and the fees are only there because of the sheer amount of power being used.

However, I have a different opinion on vapor overall. You say it's intrinsically anti-consumerist, but I believe that's only a portion (and "entirely optional") of vapor. I understand the argument that it's "recontextualizing hit songs or muzak" or however people want to word it, but what comes along with that is an actual aesthetic and nostalgia; people are legitimately nostalgic for the consumer products of their past, and are not merely criticizing the products nor their own enjoyment of those products.

To top this off, many artists will go out of their way to press a limited number of copies of some of their most sought-after albums. They become a rarity, and they trade hands for exponentially more money than they were originally purchased for. This has been going on since the first vapor vinyl was pressed. An NFT at least allows the artist to create a piece of "art" (I know that the NFT isn't the art itself, and I'll address that soon), and allow the public to determine its price. The difference here is that the artist actually gets that money, instead of scalpers or savvy collectors. Overall, I don't like the argument that artists shouldn't receive compensation for this type of thing, since we all know that the "vapor collecting" scene is easily making more money than the person who created and sold the art in the first place. And, maybe NFTs will gain in value and make NFT collectors rich! Maybe! But at least the artist has a chance to make a substantial amount of money -- that's up to the consumer, at the end of the day.

And, really, take your argument to its natural conclusion: no more t-shirts, no more vinyl, no more CDs, no more cassettes, no more of anything that keeps the scene alive (or at least funded). An NFT, in my opinion, is almost the equivalent of an artist auctioning off the master record used to create vinyl; it's one-of-a-kind and its value entirely comes from what the market is willing to pay for it. Now, what makes this almost the equivalent instead of the equivalent? The obvious answer is that it's physical, but the not-so obvious answer is that someone who didn't pay a single cent can also have and enjoy the art. We're talking JPEGs and GIFs, here. It's fundraising for the artist, and free art for everyone else. Can't afford the art? Well, you won't get a "voucher" saying that you own it, but you can enjoy it just the same as everyone else. If you're unable to enjoy the art without some arbitrary token saying that it's yours, I think that has more to do with your consumer tendencies than anything else.

As usual, this is all just my opinion and I'm happy to discuss further. My bias should be very obvious: I believe in capitalism, but I also believe in utility. I would personally only purchase an NFT in order to directly fund the artist, and I would consider it to be an extremely risky investment. I prefer plain black vinyl because I read somewhere (lol) that different color vinyl affects the sound, whereas collectors typically prefer the different color variants due to their (sometimes) increased resale value. And, for what it's worth, I've never resold an album or a piece of art that I've purchased.
 
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giphu

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This kind of approach to the woke vs. anti-woke dichotomy, or culture war, does not only read as immature, but also ironic in the way how this line of thought seems to only create new bubbles with their own hardcoded set of values and "acceptable thought", instead of legitimately challenging the dominant values in mainstream discourse. Now, a leftist myself, I somewhat identify with the anti-woke tendency and above all find the critiques presented legitimate, but the state of conversation in that scene, as also seen in HKE's tweets, doesn't seem to do build better mutual understanding in communities, but instead deepens the gap between opposing sides.

This is my view on the woke/anti-woke discourse, and I feel like the same applies to how HKE presents the blockchain crowd as somehow legitimately challenging "Silicon Valley". First of all I don't think that Silicon Valley types and crypto enthusiasts are two completely different groups, it's pretty obvious that there is move overlap than HKE would like to admit, but even if we only consider the more "establishment-friendly" techbros and only the most subversive crypto enthusiasts, I don't believe that these alternative spaces as much function as actual alternatives to status quo, as much as only another circlejerk for already like-minded people, completely impotent at furthering any actual systematic change.
 
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Vaporweeb

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This is my view on the woke/anti-woke discourse, and I feel like the same applies to how HKE presents the blockchain crowd as somehow legitimately challenging "Silicon Valley". First of all I don't think that Silicon Valley types and crypto enthusiasts are two completely different groups, it's pretty obvious that there is move overlap than HKE would like to admit, but even if we only consider the more "establishment-friendly" techbros and only the most subversive crypto enthusiasts, I don't believe that these alternative spaces as much function as actual alternatives to status quo, as much as only another circlejerk for already like-minded people, completely impotent at furthering any actual systematic change.
The fact that people like Musk are peddling these should be proof of that, but all it does is reinforce the notion that these are just another type of plaything for the people who can afford it to screw around with.

Also, I've seen Denny's and fucking Pringles make NFTs, and I still don't know if that makes me want to laugh or cry. Beyond absurdity.
 
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giphu

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The fact that people like Musk are peddling these should be proof of that, but all it does is reinforce the notion that these are just another type of plaything for the people who can afford it to screw around with.

Also, I've seen Denny's and fucking Pringles make NFTs, and I still don't know if that makes me want to laugh or cry. Beyond absurdity.
Yeah exactly. There's nothing inherently subversive in cryptos, and big corporations participating it is an example of recuperation, not of any kind of liberatory change happening.
 
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Vaporweeb

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netdenizenlain

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Vaporweeb

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Even so, why do this instead of literally any other form of fundraiser? You know, besides it being trendy.
I have a hard time believing they could generate this much hype around a fundraiser. Look at the likes and retweets on the tweets leading up to the NFT announcement and the NFT announcement itself and compare those to all of @Teletubbies prior tweets.

I think it's safe to assume that their social media is run by millennials and they pitched this idea as generating a lot of interest, and I bet the people who run their social media will get a pat on the back for coming up with this. Additionally, people like to get "something" when it comes to fundraisers. Some evidence that they gave. Using an NFT, they just need an artist to throw together a JPG of their April Fool's joke and voila, it's a unique representation of someone's giving, and it'll sit next to the rest of their NFT collection. I'm sure they can sell it if they'd like as well, and probably make back a fair portion of how much they paid (if not for more).

And really, when have these social media accounts not been trendy? Remember when Wendy's was one of the first to hire someone to basically shitpost on twitter, and millennials/gen z ate it up, improving a fast food chain's public image for a generation of young people who were supposedly more conscious about their diets? Now all the social media accounts are run by these folks. I never thought I'd see it in my lifetime; I always assumed that businesses would want to always appear professional on the outside, but I've been proven wrong 100x over. Hell, in one of our division-wide meetings the other day, it was brought up as a serious topic that they were adding the equivalent of giphy memes to our communication software. Before starting with this company, I was reading up on how to write professional emails and the like, and now I'm shitposting both at work and at home... lol
 
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Vaporweeb

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I have a hard time believing they could generate this much hype around a fundraiser. Look at the likes and retweets on the tweets leading up to the NFT announcement and the NFT announcement itself and compare those to all of @Teletubbies prior tweets.

I think it's safe to assume that their social media is run by millennials and they pitched this idea as generating a lot of interest, and I bet the people who run their social media will get a pat on the back for coming up with this. Additionally, people like to get "something" when it comes to fundraisers. Some evidence that they gave. Using an NFT, they just need an artist to throw together a JPG of their April Fool's joke and voila, it's a unique representation of someone's giving, and it'll sit next to the rest of their NFT collection. I'm sure they can sell it if they'd like as well, and probably make back a fair portion of how much they paid (if not for more).

And really, when have these social media accounts not been trendy? Remember when Wendy's was one of the first to hire someone to basically shitpost on twitter, and millennials/gen z ate it up, improving a fast food chain's public image for a generation of young people who were supposedly more conscious about their diets? Now all the social media accounts are run by these folks. I never thought I'd see it in my lifetime; I always assumed that businesses would want to always appear professional on the outside, but I've been proven wrong 100x over. Hell, in one of our division-wide meetings the other day, it was brought up as a serious topic that they were adding the equivalent of giphy memes to our communication software. Before starting with this company, I was reading up on how to write professional emails and the like, and now I'm shitposting both at work and at home... lol
Fair enough.

Still not keen on the entire idea of an NFT, though. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how this works out in the long term.
 
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Fair enough.

Still not keen on the entire idea of an NFT, though. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how this works out in the long term.
Also fair, assuming you're criticizing it mostly for its somewhat needless energy use. I would really like to see some sort of an improved, widely-adopted blockchain technology that uses significantly less power; I recall HKE (not exactly a reliable source, lol) tweeting something about how ethereum 2.0 operates under a "proof of stake" rather than "proof of work" model, which is supposed to use significantly less energy than the current system does.

But otherwise, I compare NFTs to something like buying vinyl, CD, DVDs, etc. -- you can get "the same thing" by burning your own copy of a CD (or simply downloading the animated NFT).

I know this probably sounds stupid, but I would really like to see a "pirate" NFT site pop up, where you can build your own NFT collection consisting of works that others "own." I like that idea, even if it is a little pointless, but I still find myself visiting 2814's NFTs (2 more here) and watching them loop through for a bit, and I enjoy looking at the latest drops on NiftyGateway just to see what people are up to.

All of that said -- one of the $1000 NFTs that 2814 minted last week just sold for $888, and there's a 15% seller fee, meaning that someone bought it and held it for less than a week, and then sold it for a $250 loss, while 2814 and Kidmograph made out with somewhere in the neighborhood of $1000 in profit just from those 2x transactions (there's been closer to 300 transactions total). Maybe you don't particularly like HKE, telepath, or Kidmograph, but this is obviously a viable way for artists to make money on their digital art.

I find the NFT market fascinating, but there are clearly going to be a lot of losers throughout all of this. NiftyGateway's FAQ makes it clear that you shouldn't be buying NFTs to immediately "flip" (though I can't find this page anymore, lol), but a cursory glance at any of the NFT subreddits makes it obvious that a lot of folks are just trying to get in it for the money.

I know you said you were pretty much "done" with this thread, but I've been getting a bit more into it and I've found myself enjoying it a lot more than I thought. I also collect vinyl, though, so maybe I'm just predisposed to the "Ned Flanders plastic collecting" that HKE frequently whines about in his tweets. In any case, the only big negative that I see is the power usage, but I found this (2019) and this (2021) article detailing the very significant decrease in energy usage once the upgrades are in place. It's an incredibly interesting solution to the problem: rather than ethereum requiring practically the entire blockchain to validate a transaction, it instead queries individuals with a significant amount of ETH staked if the transaction should be verified or not. If they "lie," the staked ETH is lost and the transaction is reversible; in return for verifying these transactions, the "staker" collects a small fee that would normally be distributed over the entire blockchain.

I do not currently have the funds to dip into ETH, but it's been on my to-do list for quite some time. I've always considered ETH to be a better investment than bitcoin, even if overall returns prove me wrong. And I'll say, I don't personally think that vaporwave requires an anti-capitalism or counter-culture slant to be "authentic vaporwave," but it's clearly a driving force in much of the community. Given that, I don't see why crypto nor NFTs wouldn't be interesting to the "vaporwave community." Perhaps it's an anti-consumerism point of view, but at the end of the day, NFTs are funding artists and crypto is an attempt to decentralize currency and wrestle away some control from big banks and the federal government; crypto certainly hasn't done a phenomenal job of accomplishing this, but I don't see how these goals fail to align with "vaporwave." Or, at the very least, I don't see how these goals can create such a negative reaction from the "vaporwave community" (though, clearly $300,000+ was recently thrown around during the Birth of a New Day NFT drop + subsequent secondary market sales).

Maybe this joke is getting old but, thanks for coming to my TED talk.
 
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FlangerFobia

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Not that I know anything about HKE beyond his music, but that entire string of tweets was pretty aggressive.

Edit: Uh, he seems to be angry about something in a lot of his tweets in general. Is he usually like this? Again, I don't know anything about him beyond HK and his work in 2814
People like to make edgy tweets on twitter for the purpose of making other people seethe. Just dont take anything to seriously.
 
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Vaporweeb

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People like to make edgy tweets on twitter for the purpose of making other people seethe. Just dont take anything to seriously.
Believe me, if there's one website I'd never take seriously, it's Twitter. costanzayeahrightsmirk

Especially with those recent Vinesauce allegations, which have only reaffirmed my opinion of that hellsite.
 
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vaporwavemaster1

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私が正しく覚えていれば、ツイーターにある種の奇妙なテレビ浴槽ゲームがありました。取りつかれたストーカーと無力な犠牲者を扱い、赤ちゃんの顔をした太陽など、テレビの浴槽番組の多くの視覚的要素を取り入れました。
 
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Vaporweeb

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私が正しく覚えていれば、ツイーターにある種の奇妙なテレビ浴槽ゲームがありました。取りつかれたストーカーと無力な犠牲者を扱い、赤ちゃんの顔をした太陽など、テレビの浴槽番組の多くの視覚的要素を取り入れました。
Can't say I've heard of this guy, but I did some research and the only thing I can find is some sort of pseudo ARG from a twitter account called "Teletubbiesfacts."

Can't actually find any of the content though. Just other people talking about it.
 
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vaporwavemaster1

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Can't say I've heard of this guy, but I did some research and the only thing I can find is some sort of pseudo ARG from a twitter account called "Teletubbiesfacts."

Can't actually find any of the content though. Just other people talking about it.
はい、それはずっと前に起こったのですが、私はそれが起こったときにそれを見たので、それは本物です
 
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