National Geographichaslaunched its first NFTson Polygon and posted a detailed explainer of the technology on social mediaāprompting outright rage from hundreds of fans of the 135-year-old nature-centric magazine responding with rage.
NatGeoās Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook accounts posted animageof a Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT Monday with a caption detailing the rise ofNFTs, which are unique blockchain tokens that signify ownership.
The social media posts were designed to prepare the magazineās mainstream audience for itsown NFT droponPolygon, which dropped Tuesday and features work from 16 different photographers including Justin Aversano, Reuben Wu, Cath Simard, and John Knopf.
Today is the day! Nat Geoās Genesis collection āGM: Daybreak Around the Worldā will go on sale at 12pm PT / 3pm ET!https://t.co/03vvZMbCB0pic.twitter.com/Sdhfcv7bBK
ā Nat Geo Photography (@NatGeoPhotos)January 17, 2023
The response to NatGeo merely mentioning NFTs on its social media accounts was met with an overwhelming number of negative comments, calling NFTs a ābubbleā that āalready popped,ā ābullshit,ā āan extinct species,ā and even āanother way to launder.ā
Many urged NatGeo to ādelete this.ā
Others asserted that NFTs were an outright āscam,ā effectively throwing the whole technology itself under the busāeven though people, not the technology, create NFTphishing scamsand ārug pulls.ā
Even the manager of acclaimed photographer Ansel Adamsāaccountchimed into the conversation, replying to NatGeoās Instagram post about NFTs with a simple āNope.ā
This kind of NFT backlash,sansnuance, is far from new. Netflix sawfalloutlast year when it created free NFTs as a part of its promotions for the latest season of āStranger Things.ā And thevideo game industryhas seen continued, consistentbacklashfrom gaming publications and gamers themselves who despise the technology.
It seems that the general publicās perception of NFTs hasnāt changed. TheEthereum Merge, which was executed in September 2022, didnāt do much to appease those convinced that NFTs were bad for the environment, either, despite the fact that the Ethereum Merge reduced ETHās energy consumption by99.998%, per Ethereum Foundation data.
NatGeo has a massive following, with 256 million on Instagram, 49 million on Facebook, and well over 28.6 million on Twitter. Despite all the hate, though, its Instagram post about NFTs still received over 100,000 likes.
Despite the flurry of rage, it is notable that NatGeo has chosen to launch NFTs at a time where NFT trading volume is a sliver of what it once was. According to a Dune Analyticsdashboard, Polygon saw just $15.39 million in total NFT volume traded on OpenSea last month, a dramatic 80.5% decrease from its all-time high of roughly $79.45 million a year ago.
While the majority of the more than 3,000 Instagram comments and nearly 200 Facebook comments were negative, some NFT artists chimed in to suggest that the majority of dissenters simply werenāt educated enough about NFTs.
āWelcome to the comment section, here youāll witness a sea of people hating on what they donāt understand in their natural habitat,ā wrote artistRyan Hawthorne, who has released Ethereum NFTs with prestigious auction house Sothebyās.
āItās a shame most people commenting negatives takes here wonāt have taken the time to learn about the useful applications and problems the tech is solving/has the potential to solve,ā said Betty, the pseudonymous cofounder of Ethereum NFT project Deadfellaz.
Not all the NFT creators and artists who responded came to NatGeoās defense. TheNFT artistChuck Anderson, who goes by the name nopattern, criticized the magazine for using an image of a BAYC NFT.
āOf all the incredible projects, artists, and concepts in the NFT ecosystem, BAYC is far and away the corniest and most tasteless example,ā Anderson wrote. āBummer [that] this is what people who havenāt hopped in are still being fed.ā
Those interested in minting NatGeo NFTs have also reported technical problems. The mint, engineered by NFT platform Snowcrash, appears to be facing ongoing technical issues.
https://decrypt.co/119392/national-geographic-nft-launch-mint-backlash-technical-problems