The empty-headed, cynical world of celebrity NFTs

When Reese Witherspoon took to Twitter in December to advocate for investment in cryptocurrency and NFTs, it seemed like a strange pivot. Normally you’d expect to find her selecting some of the most mediocre novels in the English language for her book club, or maybe adapting one of those mediocre novels into a television series, so middle-aged women from the suburbs can imagine their lives being enlivened, briefly, by a little infidelity, and maybe a horrific murder or two. But no; she’s now into NFTs.

She’s not alone. Even as the NFT space is being rocked by one scam or theft after another, famous athletes, musicians, and dead people are coming out with their own blockchain digital collectibles in an attempt to cash in on this delirious investment bubble we are in. Paris Hilton and Jimmy Fallon were this week smugly comparing their NFTs on the Tonight show, while former One Directioner Liam Payne – who launched his NFT collection last June – has now gone as far as to create an entirely new Twitter account solely dedicated to the cryptocurrency.

I know what you’re thinking: don’t these people already have enough money? The answer to that question is always going to be “no”, especially when they can sign off on someone else’s aesthetically half-hearted artwork and make themselves richer by bestowing their glowing aura on a Jpeg file. You would think, given the ridiculous contracts, the Pepsi endorsements and forgetfulness about paying taxes, someone like Lionel Messi would be content with what he has, but instead he’s selling “autographed” illustrations of himself as a robot.

It’s like a poster you would hang in your teenage bedroom, yet somehow both more ugly and more expensive. Also it doesn’t really exist in the material realm, you just look at it on your phone.

Celebrities, having run out of physical objects to sign, have decided to extend their brand by selling transitory things instead. For a while, Snoop Dogg was putting his face on bottles of truly terrible wine. (The kind of wine that somehow gives you a hangover at the same time as it gets you drunk.) Now he’s auctioning 30-second videos with an animated collage of his face while he says words that sound vaguely tetchy.

For the people who are into these things, hearing Snoop say “certified block, like these chains around my neck” must give a small thrill – “That’s a reference to blockchain!” – like hearing the rockstar who manages to get your city’s name right when he screams “Hello, Philadelphia!” That’s us! He’s talking to us!

Most of these celebrities could not even begin to adequately explain what it is they’re selling.

Moreover, the adult children of great men and women now have the opportunity to create tokens out of their dead parents’ bodies of work. For instance, Beatles nostalgia is in vogue at the moment, thanks to Peter Jackson’s solemn and respectful documentary Get Back, and this week Julian Lennon, the disappointing son of John, announced a series of NFTs based on memorabilia and childhood memories.

The song-notes to Hey Jude, written by Paul McCartney to comfort young Julian after John walked out on the family, are now up for auction as an NFT. (It’s perfectly in line with our trauma and true-crime-obsessed culture to make money from the worst things to happen to a person, so I’m sure it’ll be a hit.)

What do you even get when you buy an NFT? Not the actual notes to Hey Jude: while bidding begins at $30,000 (￡22,400), prospective buyers are reminded that the NFT does “not include the physical item”. Likewise, the video of Snoop Dogg will continue to exist on the internet for years, until the tech on which it’s hosted becomes obsolete; for now, it’s freely available for all to “enjoy”. The person currently bidding more than $750,000 for this NFT is mostly paying for bragging rights, or a kind of fantastical association with Snoop.

It’s possible that the people snapping up celebrity NFTs are hoping they’ll increase in value over time, but this is like hoping that the old iPhone 4 you bought but never used is going to bring in thousands on eBay. Some NFTs, it’s true, have made money in the resale market, but these often look like “pump and dump” schemes: people passing ownership between each other to artificially create interest and inflate the price at a forthcoming public auction. Does anyone think that, beyond the near future, reality star Stephanie Matto’s digital fart-in-a-jar NFTs are going to be auctioned at Sotheby’s next to a real Picasso?

In the meantime, these celebrities are buying real things with the money their fans are wasting on their “collectibles”. They’re buying cars, jewellery, property. Hopefully, they’re also buying actual art. (Justin Bieber is buying NFTs of illustrated bears, but that makes sense: he doesn’t seem very smart.) The rest of these figures, though, are using their fanbase like a jewellery store during a smash-and-grab. They don’t care if they leave the space totally trashed as long as they get their money.