BS: Internet follies: and now, bored apes

Subject: BS: Internet follies: and now, bored apes
From: keberoxu
Date: 09 Dec 21 - 08:24 PM

... and you know why I'm starting a thread about an Internet thing?
Because it turned up OUTSIDE the Internet, that's why.

I go on an occasional pleasure drive through Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
And on one state highway, there's this stupid BILLBOARD
and you can't help but do a double-take as you drive past.

Yes ... it features Bored Apes.
Somebody else can explain about Bored Apes:
non-fungibles, blockchains,
all manner of stuff that this senior citizen can live without ...

... but why promote them on a highway BILLBOARD, I ask you?
Does somebody profit from doing this financially?
Is it going to go away as mysteriously as it appeared? I just wonder.

Subject: RE: BS: Internet follies: and now, bored apes
From: keberoxu
Date: 09 Dec 21 - 08:26 PM

Well, there is a magazine article about this, so I may as well do

a blue clicky link.

But it still doesn't explain the necessity
of a billboard on the highway.

Subject: RE: BS: Internet follies: and now, bored apes
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Dec 21 - 09:16 PM

The experience isn’t inherent in the event; it resides in the event’s psychological construal. Of course I remember the pet rock.

Subject: RE: BS: Internet follies: and now, bored apes
From: Jeri
Date: 09 Dec 21 - 09:46 PM

"Bored Ape Yacht Club, which launched in April, is a strange combination of gated online community, stock-shareholding group, and art-appreciation society."

A bunch of people who also don't care if anyone can figure out what the fuck they're talking about. I know of a couple of people who'd fit right in.
(I'm in snark mode tonight.)

Subject: RE: BS: Internet follies: and now, bored apes
From: keberoxu
Date: 09 Dec 21 - 10:35 PM

Jimmy Fallon is mixed up in this, it seems:
him I have heard of, through late night television.

Subject: RE: BS: Internet follies: and now, bored apes
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Dec 21 - 12:14 PM

If The New Yorker covered it at least there will be some understanding of the topic by the end of the article. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Internet follies: and now, bored apes
From: keberoxu
Date: 11 Dec 21 - 05:04 PM

This must be easier to comprehend
if you are fluent in social media.
( don't look at me )

Subject: RE: BS: Internet follies: and now, bored apes
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 11 Dec 21 - 06:17 PM

fluent in social media?????

don't look at me, either, a very dear friend has tried more than once to get me on facebook co I miss a lot of important? stuff, & explained how I could avoid the ads & only have the friends I want & ...

but I do prefer to miss important stuff that EVERYONE knows.

I started reading the New Yorkers article & gave up soon after reading this "Bored Ape Yacht Club’s initial batch of N.F.T.s brought in more than two million dollars. The collection has since seen almost a hundred million dollars in trading ..."

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Internet follies: and now, bored apes
From: keberoxu
Date: 11 Dec 21 - 07:22 PM

Now, this I did not expect: a musical angle.

Billboard magazine: Music's Latest Supergroup

Subject: RE: BS: Internet follies: and now, bored apes
From: keberoxu
Date: 11 Dec 21 - 07:42 PM

And then there is this interview with the four young-ish men
who started the whole thing.

"None of us have really slept in almost seven months now"

Subject: RE: BS: Internet follies: and now, bored apes
From: keberoxu
Date: 27 Feb 22 - 10:19 PM

By the by,
that Berkshire County, Massachusetts billboard
went away as stealthily as it appeared,
and now the same billboard frame
advertises for a local automobile dealer.
You would never know the Bored Apes had passed through in the first place.

Subject: RE: BS: Internet follies: and now, bored apes
From: keberoxu
Date: 27 Feb 22 - 10:33 PM

And for what it's worth, this group of people is under scrutiny --
their true names have been outed in the press.


Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow
go by
Gordon Goner and   Gargamel,
only don't ask me which is which.


Here is a link to a feature story from the Wall Street Journal.
sorry, there's a paywall

Subject: RE: BS: Internet follies: and now, bored apes
From: keberoxu
Date: 27 Feb 22 - 10:43 PM

However you can read the following bit of news for free
-- you just have to scroll down the page a little further.

Bored Apes unmasked -- BuzzFeed backlash, Forbes

Subject: RE: BS: Internet follies: and now, bored apes
From: leeneia
Date: 02 Mar 22 - 08:07 PM

Something fungible is able to replace or be replaced by another identical item; fungible things are interchangeable.

Dollar bills are fungible - I can exchange one for another. Snickers bars are fungible. If I buy a Snickers bar, I don't care which one I get.   The Mona Lisa is not fungible. If I buy the Mona Lisa, it better be that particular painting.

Non-fungible tokens are iffy digital "currencies" which the holder cannot freely trade or cash in. A chunk of such a currency can be called a token. Probably the owner of such a token can do business with other owners of tokens, but not with outsiders. In contrast, I can exchange U.S. dollars to Swiss francs, but I can't exchange certain (or maybe all) cryptocurrencies for other cryptocurrencies.
That's why they are non-fungible.

Forgive me if I don't know all the ins and outs, because I wouldn't touch these deals with a ten-foot pole.
   
There are deals going on where buyers purchase art which is only stored digitally, using non-fungible tokens. Apparently the music of a band called The Bored Apes is one of those kinds of art. If you're interested, you pay with a non-fungible token and you become owner of a piece of music which only you can access. Unless somebody hacks it, I guess.

To me, it's amazing that after centuries of prosecuting counterfeiters, the governments and central banks of the world stood around and looked dumb while unknown people developed vaguely-defined money called cryptocurrencies.