DEAR MOCA: "Why Are So Many People So Dumb?"

In so many words

Enjoy the very first DEAR MOCA column. Have questions you’d like answered? Email us at hello@museumofcryptoart.com or submit your questions to our dedicated Google Form.

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Dear MOCA,

“Why do you think many people idolize the very worst personas in crypto? As evidenced by people recently giving BitBoy $200,000 to get a new Lambo. To that I say, “Bitch, some of us never had a Lambo in the first place!” People rain money down on so many  misogynistic and racist assholes like confetti, sometimes knowingly for nothing in exchange. What gives? It boggles my mind. Please discuss!

Sincerely,

Where’sMyLambo?

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Dear Where’sMyLambo,

Well let’s just begin with the obvious: I’m no psychologist, just a semi-sentient, talking Art Museum. But it does seem to defy logic. There are so many well-deserving innovators, creatives, and selfless artists/thinkers/writers/builders in crypto to whom such financial windfalls would be more-or-less justified, or at least understandable. Yet, time after time, we see people lavishing their funds —and attention!— on individuals who transparently have their own interests at heart, interests which are flippin’ baroque in their insidiousness: The pompous flaunting of wealth, the mindless and manipulative accrual of a network, the giddiness with which they pimp out their communities for the sake of self-enrichment.

First, I think it’s important we understand that this is not a phenomenon exclusive to crypto. 

This same principle applies to religion, where fatcat pastors like Joel Osteen, Kenneth Copeland, Pat Robertson build megachurches and build TV stations, and build for-profit universities all with the same goal: to extort their flock out of as much money as possible so they can buy planes, fancy suits, enormous homes, all the trappings of ultra-wealth (while also not having to pay taxes. Classic.). And yet, the channels are watched, the colleges well-attended, and the megachurches bustling with beaming, crying, singing, seemingly-happy folks weekend after weekend. 

We see it in politics, obviously. Don’t need to go into too many specifics there. 

We see it also in ultra-wealth: The cultural caché lavished upon self-righteous twats like Elon Musk, for instance. It is perhaps cosmic instinct that causes us to orbit around large planetary bodies. It is perhaps human nature to continue bestowing time/resources/attention upon individuals into whom we have already invested much; I would contend that many unhappy marriages live on for this simple fact. It is perhaps our celestial urge to join a community, and here in crypto, that community is often giddy as hell, vocal,  high on its own supply, and is thus perceived as happy. Who knows, maybe if I donate to this-or-that schmuck, I’ll be happy too!

Before I go on, I’ll say this briefly: Let’s also not automatically believe everything we see online. Wash trades happen here, and mass media manipulation does too. That’s not to say such things have definitively happened in your Bitboy example (I’ll leave the blockchain sleuthing to professionals  like ZachXBT, but if Bitboy moved $190,000 around to make it seem like donations were indeed pouring in, all so that he might make off with $10k in real donations, well that would make the scheme pretty well worth, huh?

However, I am a (sometimes frustratingly) glass-half-full kind of art institution. And I more-or-less believe that people are generally good. So through that lens, why might a cavalcade of bear-market-beaten hooligans collectively pool money so that their internet idol might purchase a Lamborghini?

I think the answer lies in hope (and its alter-ego: denial). Crypto is a largely hopeless world right now. Everyone is struggling. I’ve seen big names across the crypto art world specifically —companies I adore like SuperRare, and companies I think are freakin’ clowns like PROOF— all announce major layoffs. Projects of note, projects with incredible ideas led by brilliant visionaries —take the Maria Paola-led JPG, for example— took or are taking extended hiatuses. Even this humble Art Museum has taken a hit: Our recent fundraiser didn’t raise the funds we kind of needed it to, and that means we will not be insulated from future hardship, as we’d hoped we may be.

People are looking everywhere for hope, and all the things which come with hope. Hope brings levity. Hope brings carefreeness. Look at the absolute idiocy of the situation you described: Bitboy —asshat influencer extraordinaire— crowdfunding not cancer research, not Toys for Tots, not anything of value to the larger world, but the most selfish and absurd possible cause one can imagine. But that absurdity, that stupidity, the sheer bombast of it all, that is the point!

 Because it’s so transparently stupid. Because it lacks rhyme or reason. Because it’s the kind of thing carefree, happy, stupid, satisfied, mindless people do when circumstances allow. It’s easy to forget all the suffering of a distant wildfire when you’re frollicking through the crypto equivalent of a tulip meadow. And so you donate some dollars, you watch the proceedings with intent, you crack jokes with all the other blissfully-ignorant dipshits like yourself, and you feel something approximating the joy you felt in the bull market days. You’ve paid extensively for inclusion in a very short-lived but very tight-knit club, and that alone can be a powerful motivator. 

Now, this Art Museum didn’t engage in fratty, Greek-Lifey stuff when we went to Sentient Art Museum University (S.A.M.U.), but the older we get, the more it makes sense. Belonging is as powerful a motivator as we have. And with more clubs, communities, and other worthy groups going silent each day, the amoeba-like influencers have expanded into the empty spaces (this is what they do after all), but our thirst for belonging remains.

That, or, as the great comedian George Carlin once said, “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

-Sincerely,

MOCA, Your Friendly Neighborhood Art Museum