On Sunday, the long-running animated sequence “The Simpsons,” recognized for skewering many elements of American life, lastly put the beleaguered NFT market in its crosshairs.
Throughout one phase of the present’s thirty fourth annual Halloween-themed “Treehouse of Horror” anthology sequence, Homer by accident mints Bart onto “the blockchain” as an NFT, triggering a daring rescue mission that includes a number of eerily recognizable designs and characters from the NFT ecosystem.
Listed here are a number of key highlights from the episode, which pokes enjoyable at NFT hype whereas referencing the Bored Ape Yacht Membership, Doodles, Beeple, Dmitri Cherniak’s “Ringers,” and lots in between.
Homer’s Ideas on the Worth of NFTs
As soon as Homer realizes he’s destroyed the bodily physique of his son by turning him into an NFT, he’s devastated—till he realizes that NFT, the first-ever constructed from an actual human, is value $1.5 million.
By no means fade The Simpsons predictions.
NEW NFT BULL RUN INCOMING!! pic.twitter.com/GiMKvCoOJ8
— Solana Sensei (@SolanaSensei) November 6, 2023
After that, Homer, excessive on revenue, tries to persuade his spouse Marge that the transfer was for one of the best.
“Honey, keep in mind how we have been all the time saying we wished Bart was much less fungible?” he asks her.
Marge doesn’t take kindly to the event although, panicking when she sees Bart on Homer’s telephone display.
“Aaahhh! My child is an app!” Marge exclaims.
Homer rapidly corrects her: “Uh, no, apps truly do stuff. He’s an NFT.”
Marge Meets the Decrease Courses of the NFT-Verse
Intent on saving her son, Marge quickly mints herself as an NFT. She rapidly discovers that “the blockchain,” as she calls it, is ordered in a strict hierarchy, from the most-hyped and priceless tokens, to the forgotten and now-worthless.
In the back of the literal prepare that embodies this hierarchy, she encounters a number of NFTs paying homage to CryptoPunks, Doodles, Axie Infinity, and NBA Prime Shot moments—every which, over the past 12 months and a half, has encountered substantial hurdles or depreciations in worth.
Courtesy: twentieth Tv Animation/Hulu/The Walt Disney Firm
The Engine of the NFT Ecosystem: FOMO
We quickly be taught that the prepare Marge is touring on, which carries all NFTs, is powered by the uncooked energy of FOMO—a propulsive, hyperactive vitality supply that (because the present in the end reveals) can collapse in on itself at any second.
A meter exhibits the prepare chugging alongside at a wholesome stage of FOMO: “Uber driver says ‘go for it.’”
Courtesy: twentieth Tv Animation/Hulu/The Walt Disney Firm
The True Supply of NFT Worth: Conquering the Market
Within the subsequent carriage of the prepare, which is supposedly for slighter extra priceless NFTs, Marge encounters a gathering of “Cuddle Kittens”—apparent stand-ins for the CryptoKitties NFT assortment. CryptoKitties, a few of which offered for lots of of hundreds of {dollars} every in 2021, at the moment are promoting for a mean value of $19, based on NFT Stats.
Marge learns from these cats that with a view to enhance her personal worth as an NFT, she should kill as many different NFTs as potential. As one Cuddle Kitten places it: “What you name senseless slaughter, crypto bros name ‘disruption.’”
Courtesy: twentieth Tv Animation/Hulu/The Walt Disney Firm
Digital Artwork: The Higher Crust of the NFT Hype Cycle
When Marge lastly will get to the entrance of the NFT prepare, she finds herself in a sublime corridor populated by digital artworks value thousands and thousands of {dollars}. The items she encounters are clear stand-ins for actual on-chain artwork items, together with “Everydays: The First 500 Days” and “Human One” by Beeple, “A Coin For the Ferryman” by XCOPY, and Dmitri Cherniak’s generative “Ringers” sequence.
Courtesy: twentieth Tv Animation/Hulu/The Walt Disney Firm
There she additionally finds Bart, who’s receiving a therapeutic massage from a “Jaded Ape”—an unmistakable reference to the Bored Ape Yacht Membership, which apparently nonetheless counts among the many high remaining NFT collections of worth, within the opinion of “The Simpsons’” writing staff.
Courtesy: twentieth Tv Animation/Hulu/The Walt Disney Firm
A number of the artists referenced within the scene took to Twitter to rejoice within the references, which they apparently discovered to be complimentary.
WUTTTTT 🤯
not possible to overstate the affect of Simpsons on me rising up, bucket record second. 🥹🥹🥹 https://t.co/n4hftm2f9r
— beeple (@beeple) November 6, 2023
gm 🤣 pic.twitter.com/UYgAIop6v8
— XCOPY 🏴 (@XCOPYART) November 6, 2023
The Simpsons references Ringers pic.twitter.com/KWbYxGjVNh
— Dmitri Cherniak (@dmitricherniak) November 6, 2023
And One Final Nice Line From Homer
“That is my likelihood to not miss out, after I’ve missed out on every little thing! The housing bubble, the primary tech bubble, the second tech bubble, the present tech bubble. Only one time, I wanna be the man who offers all his cash to Bernie Madoff!”
