Notes from my un-edited journal: I first heard about NFTs a few days ago when I head about the digital artist Beeple selling his art in the first ever sale of digital art at the auction house Christie’s. Mind blown. If I am honest I also felt a sense of irritation, isn’t it all just a lot of hype to sell digital art at an auction? But my interest was perked and my ears ready to notice the next time NFTs come up. 2 days ago I glanced a headline asking something along the lines of: “Why are people spending thousands on digital baseball cards?”

Enter Gary Vaynerchuck’s 2 minute Instagram video about NFTs and why we should care, linking to an article giving a better explanation than I could. Before you run away to read this article (which you really should) let me quickly tell you how I imagine NFT have potential to be relevant to YOU and ME. NFT offer a way to tag original digital content and I think this may put an end to plagiarism and claiming writing as your own when in fact it is a copy of a copy (you know the type when you look around the internet for the beneficial effects of turmeric and somehow 50% of articles you find sound identical, and it becomes clear that some literally are and others used the exact same starting article and merely modified the layout or tweaked a handful of words.)

Will NFT change how content mills are operated?

I think there is a possibility for NFTs protecting original writing, and written pieces’ value going up as a result!

But here, read this very illuminating article about NFTs and imagine how you as a non tech nerd CAN get in on this. How could NFT relate to what you are putting out into the world? Do you write? Take photos? Create anything? Do you write lesson plans? Imagine being able to embed your authorship so deeply into the product of your labour that even if it is copied and shared, it can always be traced back to you! I think there is the potential for NFT to take over from traditional forms of aspects of copyright registration.

I just thought of a dystopian snag in this rainbow vision of authorship. Of course one day, it could come to the point where everything we write is tagged and there is also a problem with that. It marks the end of anonymity and depending on society and political freedoms at that point: the end to uncensored speech and activism.

Why is there always such a negative use for things that also can bring so much progress? Rhetorical question. Don’t answer it.

The title of an upcoming piece of writing by me, subscribe and leave a comment to be notified when I put my thoughts on paper in more edited form:

NFT and it’s eventual contribution to the dystopian future we are trying to avoid. Well that escalated fast.