Last year, I posted an editorial cartoon about Melania Trump cashing in on the dubious and now quickly-fading NFT fad. To refresh your memory, NFTs are to actual art what cryptocurrency is to real money — a few hundred bits of computer memory, backed by no authority whatsoever, which supposedly denotes ownership of an item of value. You can read about how NFTs are supposed to work, and why they exist, here.
But the point of this post is not that NFTs are exploited by savvy grifters like Melania, which they certainly are; rather, it is that NFTs reveal just how lazy such grifters are, laziness being the essential quality that defines people like the Trumps. Donald J. and Melania and Don and Eric and Ivanka — they all have trained themselves to look for the lowest-hanging, most-readily-dropped fruits to gather into their bottomless ego-baskets. NFTs were practically designed for people like the Trumps. Whom I wish were rarer.
As a point of evidence, here is one of Melania Trump’s NFTs, titled Melania’s Vision and touted thus by the so-called NFT “broker” that offered it:
Melania Trump’s personal journey has been enlightening; from Slovenia through Europe and into the United States of America — including as First Lady. The beauty and hardships of individuals, majestic landscapes and profound architecture have entered her lens and remain in her heart. Marc-Antoine Coulon’s breathtaking watercolor embodies Melania Trump’s cobalt blue eyes, providing the collector with an amulet to inspire. Melania’s Vision provides the collector with strength and hope.
I’ll give you a moment to catch a fresh breath after that inspirational floe of rotten algae.
[Inhale through your nose, draw the breath into your belly… hold the breath a moment… now exhale slowly through your mouth… it’s okay if you make a soft, cleansing sound.]
According to the NFT trading site OpenSea, this digital rendition of Melania’s eyes is going for 0.o2 Ethereum (the second-most-popular cryptocurrency) or $38.o6.
May I venture that $38.o6 is pretty generous for this piece of flotsam. One needn’t look very closely to see that this image signed by PERSON WHOSE SIGNATURE HAS DENSE VERTICAL STROKES JUST LIKE DONALD’S is less an original watercolor than a Photoshop creation. Melania’s right eye is an obvious digital mirror image of the left, or vice versa. The computer-artist simply did a cut-and-paste-and-flip. Only Melania’s washy eyebrow strokes are non-mirror-image.
Not that time-to-create is the essence of art, but I genuinely doubt that Melania’s Vision took more than 20 minutes to produce. Graphic artists, as I once hoped to be, learn to do things super-quickly because they are paid so little. The majority of the time spent on this work no doubt took place on the upper floors of Trump Tower, discussing the best way the Trump grift family could make a buck off it. They could care less that Melania’s right eye was a mirror-image, down to the smallest eyelash detail, of her left eye.
To them, it’s just another part of the unreality show that the Trumps star in.
Half of Americans want this guy, and his family, to rule this country again. If only I could make an NFT of my head-slap, but it may not matter. Americans vote for people of their class these days: Trump the Grifter, along with his Fagin Family, has somehow convinced a multitude that he’s one of them. This doesn’t speak well of the multitude.
As to the other half of America… well, there’s my market. If I want to make a difference, I had better start perfecting my head-slap and hire a graphic artist who works cheap but markets well.
I agree that NFTs are bullshit, but check out this law review article by my colleague and friend Brian Frye: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3971240
We cannot understand this side of the equation, but we MUST fight them! 2024 is the year of reckoning, especially in North Carolina, but look at what happened yesterday in Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio and yes, in little Woodfin: Good people, when asked and given information, will stand up and say “no, we’re not going to do that, we’re going to do something positive”.
Going door-to-door in Woodfin, a town that the current Mayor says “Jim just doesn’t understand us” about, I met not grizzled retirees with MAGA caps, but lovely people of every size, shape and orientation. For whatever reason, multiple same-sex couples opened the doors of small cottages and even mobile homes – I met a remarkable numbers of people “transitioning” and not ashamed of it. Then many others with little kids opening the door with giant smiles (and lots in their Halloween costumes!) and more dogs than I could count, but my point is that almost half of the 750+ doors that my team knocked on opened them, took time to talk to us – many asking questions about issues – percentages that the seasoned politicians said has never happened. It tells me that the real majority of Americans are sane, horrified by the grifters that you write about and genuinely want neighbors like me to rise and say “OK, I’ll do it”.
Don’t be sad or afraid! Get ready to travel 2-3 hours with me to knock on doors in places like Wake Forest and Durham, where in 2024 we’ll meet folks similar to those in Woodfin who, if asked, will stand up, get in their cars and go vote for sane candidates.
Craig, I love you and this site! Jim McAllister, Mayor Elect, Woodfin North Carolina
I don’t want to go all “Old Man Yells at Cloud” but who in their right mind would buy this and for what reason? To show “support”? Owning “an amulet to inspire”? Providing “strength and hope”? If that’s a “breathtaking watercolor”, then I’m Salvador Dali.
I detect a slight air of disdain for Grifters Inc. You’re preaching to the choir, but it needs said.
Somehow, the other side and those on the bubble must surely come to their senses.