M○C△ Confessional: We Should Care Way More About PFP Projects
In so many words...
I always know these essays are going to be good when I’m worrying in advance whether I’ll get dragged for them. Before even writing it, I can tell this one’s drag-worthy potential. So without further ado, welcome ye back to everyone’s favorite M○C△ column:
On the podcast with Colborn yesterday (writing this part on a Tuesday), we were talking about the latest Moonbirds debacle, wherein Yuga Labs, who bought Proof (the company behind Moonbirds) and all their holdings, arbitrarily announced that the Moonbirds imagery and IP —which had previously been CC0 (guaranteeing free, mass distribution rights to whomever wanted them)— could now only be used by holders of the specific assets. We don’t need to speak much more about that, other than to note the fact that it’s not even probably legally possible, because what’s more important than the “what” of the thing is the “why?”
The pragmatic answer is fairly straightforward: Yuga has been continuously teasing its Metaverse world, The Otherside, for years now, and if you’re going to bring an entire community of NFT holders into a Metaverse space, it’s pretty important for identity purposes that unique assets to tied to unique individuals. I mean, if I’m going to be recognizable in some virtual world by my appearance, and if anyone has copyright-free ability to clone that appearance, quite a few potential headaches could emerge.
Questions of digital identity are going to come pell-mell if/when-ever there’s a substantial Metaverse expansion: How do we prove who we are? How do we appear recognizable in a digital space? How do we accomplish the same kind of social-signaling, status flexing, and community inclusion (deliberate or not) with Metaverse identities that we do with our clothes, jewelry, skin color, and overall style IRL?
Yuga is trying to shore up commercial rights of the NFT projects they’ll incorporate into their Metaverse so that they can turn around to the holders of these projects and say, “It’s worth your investment in one of these silly PFP projects because only you, holders of this project, can use its image in The Otherside. Your identity will be inimitably tethered to this specific digital asset, and hereafter, we will try to make these appearances even more sought-after for the purpose of pumping your bags.”
While it’s rarer now for us serially-onliners to be identifying ourselves completely with a single digital asset, let us not forget that during the bull run of 2021-2022, when PFP projects were proportionally at their height, how common it was for folks to feel a deep attachment to whichever PFPs they were sporting. Yes, this was done primarily by degens who sought acceptance by a certain community or otherwise gain influence by flexing a valuable asset, but I believed at the time, just as I believe now, that the concept of identifying intrinsically with a digital asset —be it a Metaverse avatar, a Fortnite skin, or a Twitter PFP— is fascinating and worthy of our unironic attention.
In January of 2022, I wrote my very first long-form essay for MOCA: “The End of Art (as we know it) (again), or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bored Apes.” In hindsight, the article is more chaotic than I would have liked, and a lot of its concepts are pretty introductory (but then again, I too was introductory). But within this sprawling text are my early notions about what the then-massive PFP market meant on a conceptual and creative level. I say in the article:
“I brought [an] apocalyptic mindset to a few highly-respected Crypto Artists: Hackatao, LuluXXX and SamJ. Surely, they’d agree that the PFP movement would kill Crypto Art, that it was bringing in bad actors and bad money, and in gobbling up everything in their path, PFPs would inevitably consume all the innovative institutions and inventions that helped make Crypto Art such a haven for progress, equity, and creative freedom.”
This, when I interviewed those artists, is what I expected them to say, however they all, in their own ways, flouted me. LuluXXX scoffed at my anti-collectible mindset, telling me:
“I think collectibles bring you back to your childhood. I was collecting everything: stamps, Disney figures, cans of coke, cigarette packets, vinyl records, etc. etc. etc.”
And that remains true: Collecting is a natural human tendency. Moreover, what we choose to collect is indicative of our spirits, our tastes, our tendencies. Collectibles are not inherently wrong. Especially collectibles that offer some even deeper meaning. On this subject, Hackatao said:
“It is an era where we live with multiple lives…You have your own physical self and your digital presence and all of what you curate that to be. So to identify with a piece of art this closely…where these [PFP] avatars are used, it’s a very interesting phenomenon.”
PFPs were top of mind for Hackatao at the time, as the duo would release their project, Queen + Kings, in January of 2022. They were not alone amongst OG crypto artists to do so. Coldie’s DecentralEyes Mashup and XCOPY’s Grifters were both released shortly thereafter on Async.Art in March; these three continue to be considered among the more esteemed artist-led PFP projects in the greater NFT sphere. Hackatao was not alone in seeing value in exploring the PFP ecosystem.
I admit being particularly struck by Hackatao’s above comments, and I wrote later in the essay that “Hackatao, meanwhile, were adamant that PFPs are…a true communion between artist and audience. This kind of connection with an artist’s work is next frontier, where an audience can not only experience an artist’s creation, but be that artist’s creation.” Obviously, there’s been a lot of interest to this point in identifying with a digital avatar; we’re not lacking in enthusiasm, what we’re lacking in, instead, is purpose.
In the intervening years since I wrote that article, we have only barely expanded on the conceptual pull to identify with one PFP over another. I don’t think it’s all about money. Social signaling IRL isn’t always about posturing wealth, it’s about so many things —signaling group membership, antagonism, political ideology, economic standing, relationship status, sexual orientation, ethnic identiy— and in theory, digital identities should, could, could they?, will eventually contain a semblance of that same nuance.
And so this week’s confession is this: I believe in PFP projects —whether they’re 2D, 3D, or conceptual— and think they’re well-worth our time, investment, and attention.
I remain enchanted by this idea of transferring of one’s identity onto an image or avatar. I feel this when I’m playing Playstation RPGs —I recently made my Fallout76 character as hideous and grotesquely-featured as possible; what does this say about me?— just as I feel it when I decide to change my Twitter PFP. I am intrinsically interested in how my digital stand-ins will demonstrate some shreds of my identity, which is why my past three Twitter PFPs were:
This handsome little cartoon made by my friend, Tori Hong.
Then this little Buddhist fox-child I found when zooming-into LookHighward’s Abundant Calm from their collection “Possibility Spaces”:
And now a pixelated Husky (I’m a big University of Connecticut Huskies college basketball fan) made for me by InterfaceChiral:
It’s why my name is CohentheWriter (Jewish + Occupation) and why my bio includes a quote from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? We only have a few opportunities online to include delineations of our identity, a small frame and a few characters; so who are we? How much of ourselves can we contain?
PFPs, in theory, offers the possibility of deep identity-alignment. This is why PFP projects across chains —be it Hackatao’s Queens + Kings or the Degenerate Ape Academy on Solana— made big bets on trait swapping: Atop an unchanging base image, one can accessorize in all sorts of ways based on whims of the day, seasonal differences, code switches, allowing more and more customization in the various identity details that a single PFP can contain.
The notion hasn’t really caught on (as it stands, crypto projects which require frequent investment of time and energy don’t have awesome track records; take a look at the participation levels in basically every DAO’s voting protocols for proof), but the experimentation is really cool! The same thing come upon from an artistic and a more degen angle, but nevertheless, the idea, even in miniature, of an “app store for identity” has merit.
While I don’t know too much about the ecosystem itself, I know that Jack Butcher’s Opepen (which claims not to be a PFP project) PFP project is a fascinating example of precise and yet sprawling identity-formation in the PFP realm. An Opepen itself can connote certain ultra-specific details of an individual based not only on the tacit communication of the overall project itself but whether a chosen Opepen avatar has an artist bent (like with versions made by or honoring Snowfro, AlphaCentauriKid, Fvckrender) or deeper connection to Pepe culture. And I know that AlphaCentauriKid has created specific PFP-designated artworks in his own right, which is fairly akin to offering specific rare or designer clothing, but even still, it’s a very interesting paradigm when a digital identity can be fleshed out by an acclaimed figure’s bespoke creativity.
Crypto culture in general is cyclical, so we probably see value and attention accrue towards PFP projects once again at some point, but what possibilities inherent in the PFP format are yet to be teased out? How deeply can a PFP come to evoke someone’s personality? Will people gravitate towards projects that needle-thread that holy combination of community signaling and deep personal evocation? Does there need to always be some sort of rarity cap or total supply on digital identity assets, or will we come to treat them like clothes, like how I’m fine wearing fairly-common Boston Celtics gear for the most part, but also I one time spent a fair bit of cash on a vintage 1980’s Boston Celtics varsity jacket I saw once in an episode of Cheers and said “I simply must have this.”
Does a PFP project even need to call itself a PFP project in order to become one? Matt Kane’s collection of ANONs and Multitudes, are —similarly to the avowed PFP projects mentioned earlier— framed portraits in Kane’s inimitable aesthetic. Do Kane’s artworks need to be tagged as “PFPs” up-front, or is this a power that rests in the hands of an artwork’s collector? Can a community of art-lovers leverage their power to find identity-validation in images and ideas that were not initially intended that way?
We have not even begun to explore the nuances of a world in which identification with digital assets is the norm, let alone what kinds of customizations will be desired or what kinds of nuances will develop. In the last bull cycle, a new cultural norm was crystallized: One must not use as their PFP an NFT they didn’t own. This became such common knowledge that Twitter tried to capitalize on it with its experiment in Hexagonal PFPs, their attempt to ensure that an image’s user also owned the underlying asset. But it’s not like this was ever a rule. There are no PFP police. Someone bought an Alien Cryptopunk for like $16,000,000 the other week, and I made the image my PFP for a few days; the FBI has not yet raided my apartment. Regardless, doing so is simply not what we do here, and most everyone has agreed to this paradigm, the same way I wouldn’t go to the grocery store in assless chaps.
I’m not even going to speculate on how these norms might develop if/when 3D virtual environments proliferate, only to say that they will certainly develop, and the communities who involve themselves in these places will gravitate towards whatever visions feed their subconscious inclinations.
I would definitely like to see more artist-led, conceptually-bent PFP projects; there’s so much to mine in the manifestation of an artist’s creativity onto a separate individual’s identity. It’s stronger, that connection, than simply owning an artist’s work and keeping it in a wallet or hanging it on one’s wall. What does it mean when we unwittingly become a canvas? What does it say about the art, the artist, us?
I, for one, want to know.
There’s just more to see, more to do, more to…be, I suppose. I don’t want us to write the PFP form off yet, because I can’t quit feeling that, buried beneath the Monkey-picture mire, is a legitimate art-form that’s only barely been excavated.
Sooner or later, one of us has gotta start digging again.
-Your friendly neighborhood Art Writer,
Max