26/11/2021 'NFT' is Collins Dictionary's Word of the Year for 2021, beating out 'crypto' and 'cheugy'

"NFT," the abbreviation of "non-fungible token," has been namedWord of the Yearby dictionary publisherCollins, beating "crypto" and "cheugy" to the top spot.
An NFT is "a unique digital certificate, registered in a blockchain, that is used to record ownership of an asset such as an artwork or a collectible," according to a blog post from Collins, published Wednesday.
Acting like virtual signatures, NFTs prove the authenticity of an artwork as the blockchain serves as incorruptible proof of ownership, meaning that "original" artworks and their owners can always be identified via the blockchain, even if an image or video is widely replicated.
They also provide scarcity, and as a result thedigital art markethas been booming.
In March, a digital artwork named "Everydays: The First 5000 days"sold for $69.3 millionvia Christie's, making its creator, graphic designer Mike Winkelmann, better known as Beeple, one of the art market's most valuable living artists.
The idea of a digital revolution is also captured in another of the dictionary's candidates for Word of the Year: "crypto," short for "cryptocurrency," digital money that is challenging traditional forms of money, according to Collins.
It also named "metaverse" in its blog post, following Facebook's announcement that it would change its corporate name to Meta.
Other selected words reflect the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, with "double-vaxxed" and "hybrid working" making the shortlist.
"Climate anxiety" reflects growing concern about the damage humans are doing to the planet, while "neopronoun" is a way of referring to a person without using their name or traditional markers of gender, such as "he" and "she." Collins gives "xe," "ze" and "ve" as examples of neopronouns.
Rounding out the shortlist are "Regencycore," which is defined as a fashion aesthetic inspired by the Georgian-era clothing seen in the Netflix show "Bridgerton," and "cheugy," which is used to say that something is out of date or uncool.
In 2020, Collins named "lockdown" its Word of the Year, for obvious reasons, and, earlier this month, Oxford Languages made "vax" its pick for 2021.
Defined as "a colloquialism meaning either vaccine or vaccination as a noun and vaccinate as a verb," vax was relatively rare until this year, the company, which publishes the Oxford English Dictionary, said.
In September, vax appeared more than 72 times more frequently than the year before, said Oxford Languages, which analyzes news content to track changes in the English language.
Arts

https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/nft-word-of-the-year-collins-scli-intl-gbr/index.html

Interesting NFTs
Wink
The eye of providence blinks. Originally posted to tumblr June 26, 2012.
Who Is The Creator 2
The idea for this piece was borne out of a tweet of mine that caused a bit of a stir. I’d posted a link to a blog article I’d written a number of months previous titled ‘Who is the Creator’ discussing various types of creative collaborations and why I hire people to work on my animations. It generated a lot of debate around creation and attribution with the community split on whether it’s right or wrong for an artist to hire other professionals to help them realize their art projects. I decided to push the boundaries even further and see how the cryptoart community responded. What if I quite literally had nothing to do with the physical or digital elements of the work other than coming up with the concept and coordinating it? I decided there was one artist in the space who could add huge value to this idea on levels that none other could and so I gathered my courage and contacted the great José Delbo to ask him if he’d be interested in a very unique collaboration. I explained to him that to make this piece ‘work’ he couldn't have any say in what I produced and moreover, he wouldn’t even be allowed to see the animation until it was dropped on MakersPlace. To my surprise, Mr Delbo agreed to my proposal. The animation tells the story of the creative process, which includes my roles as writer, director, and producer working with a team and making edits and changes ‘in real time’. The dialogue between myself and my ‘hired guns’ plays out in front of the viewer. The music written for the piece adds to the nostalgia of the comic book superhero theme but other elements such as the snapping and kicking of the pencil and the signing of my signature at the bottom incorporates further layers and challenges the viewer to ask important questions, such as, is the ‘Art’ the final animation (the creation) or is the ‘Art’ the concept/credit for the creation itself?
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By OthersideDeployer
The Damage #1/25
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Amur Persian Belleblue
Sup playa! I'm Amur Persian Belleblue. My friends describe me as ridiculous and hairy. I once got in a fight with a rhino, and won. I think you'll love me beclaws I have cattitude.