I can only wish I wake up one day and completely forget what a non-fungible token is. If they aren’t causing huge amounts of carbon emissions, NFTs are mainly used to scam easily impressionable individuals. There is something nauseating about seeing an NFT shoved in social media feeds on a daily basis, but it has gotten a lot worse. Celebrities all over social media are creating NFTs of their own. The likes of Brie Larson and Tony Hawk are coming out with NFTs and it is making people think it is an acceptable thing to do.

Here’s what happens: a lot of people don’t truly understand what NFTs and cryptocurrencies do to the environment, yet they see these lovable celebrities promote them, and don’t think much else of it. It is one of those things that have the potential of becoming extremely dangerous if we aren’t careful.

My knowledge of all this stuff only goes so far, and the less I know the better for my own mental health. But sooner or later, there will be some sort of huge crash and burn. Then we will be left with those people who scammed others out of millions, if not billions, of dollars.

Of course, who is to say some of these celebrities may not even know what is truly going on.

This hurts the wrestling fan in me, but John Cena got involved in the NFT game. Shortly after the attempt at selling his NFT, he went on record saying, “I talk a lot about failure […] Myself and the folks in the WWE thought $1,000 was a fair price point. We were wrong. We were absolutely wrong.”

So does he regret it? Who knows. We haven’t seen him get anywhere near an NFT since and he has hopefully learned his lesson about playing with something as unstable as this.

Even Stan Lee had a posthumous NFT. I cannot even begin to elaborate on how wrong this is on so many levels. A man who has fought so hard to give representation to those who have been neglected for so many years, Lee created a world for people to escape to. His legacy will live on forever, but what was attempted here is extremely distasteful and disrespectful.

Many celebrities have hopped on the NFT train but then quickly hopped off, such as voice actor Troy Baker who broke his partnership with VoiceVerseNFT after immense backlash. It is this backlash that shows what power fans have. Voicing their disapproval is a way to make celebrities see the. light of day and hopefully come to their senses.

I’d like to think most of these people don’t truly understand the weight of the situation and they just see it as a way to make some money. I can forgive someone for not fully understanding, but once the circumstances are fully comprehended, and they still choose to continue going about their NFT business, then it’ll be time to reassess.

It is just unfortunate a lot of these celebrities are using their fame and name to push NFTs on their impressionable fans. 

Featured Illustration by J. Robynn Aviles