Join the club, just don’t diss the NFTs

The art world has embraced Clubhouse, a new, no-holds-barred social media phenomenon. But why is crypto-criticism considered beyond the pale?

By Cristina Ruiz

April ed.333 2021 

Illustration by Katherine Hardy

There are two types of people on clubhouse, the audio-based app currently infiltrating the highest levels of the art world. Those who listen to the occasional talk and those, like this writer, who are immediately sucked into this strange, new universe of live discussions with strangers.  This new social-networking platform, still in beta testing, is currently invitation only with plans to open fully to the public later this year. A colleague gets me in at the end of February. The first conversation or “room” I join is an epic slanging match between the Los Angeles dealer and artists’ agent Stefan Simchowitz and the New York dealer and writer Kenny Schachter. Every insult they level at one another is defamatory; none can be reprinted here. When have people in the art world ever spoken publicly with such abandon? I am immediately hooked.
     I spend the next two weeks on clubhouse wandering from room to room. With conversations ranging from bidets, cilantro, philosophy and Daft Punk to embarrassing parents, mental health, and Harry and Meghan, every interest is catered for. Yes, there is a preponderance of conversations hosted by “life strategists”, “international online hypnotherapists” and “global wellnesspreneurs” (no, I don’t know either) in search of clients, but if you wade past all the self-promotional garbage and the endless talk of NFTs (more on this later), there are real gems here. There are quantum physicists explaining the mysteries of the universe; Uyghurs giving testimony of China’s brutal detention camps in Xinjiang, and Ethiopians discussing the civil war in the northern region of Tigray which is still subject to a near-total news blackout.

No room for NFT sceptics

Some art world conversations focus on strategies for relaunching museums and galleries post-Covid. One personal favourite is a daily, weekday talk in Italian organised by Lorenzo Giusti, director of the modern and contemporary art museum of Bergamo, and Lara Facco, a cultural PR specialist based in Milan. They choose a different theme every day, ranging from copyright and artists’ archives to urban planning and digital strategies for museums, with experts in each field invited to speak. The talks are engaging, informative and, most important of all, mercifully short. 
    But most art discussions are focused on one thing and one thing alone: NFTs or non-fungible tokens which are bought and sold with crypto-currency. Most people in the art world had never heard of NFTs two months ago. But that was before Christie’s sold one, by the artist Beeple, for $69m. Now we’re all paying attention.  On clubhouse, the pro-NFT agenda is relentless. There are NFT tutorial rooms, NFT party rooms, and the optimistically-titled: “NFTs: connect with a community that cares.” There are almost no dissenting voices. Even a room misleadingly titled “Don’t try to sell me an NFT” is nothing more than a ruse to attract and convert NFT sceptics. The one time I hear a moderator raise important questions about where the huge piles of money being spent on these new digital tokens are coming from, she is immediately shouted down by her fellow moderators. There appears to be one rule regulating speech on clubhouse and one rule alone: it is apparently ok to be racist, homophobic and misogynist but anti-NFT? No. Too far. 
   

Cryptocurrency gold rush

It may be interesting to note here that the largest investor in clubhouse, the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, is also heavily invested in crypto-currencies and could arguably benefit greatly from the rush to trade in these new digital collectables. But NFT enthusiasts have no time for such scepticism. They’re too busy focussing on how to mint or trade their own. Afterall, nobody wants to miss out on this new gold rush.  
    One recurring question is about what exactly can be transformed from a real-world thing into a digital collectable. One NFT discussion, for example, evolves into a talk about museum restitution with suggestions that works acquired in the colonial era by the British Museum be converted into NFTs benefitting the communities they were stolen from. How this might even be possible is beyond the current comprehension of this writer. 
    Other topics of discussion include NFT sports and music clips and the recent offering by twitter founder Jack Dorsey of the first tweet he ever posted. That’s right, dear readers, the tweet which you can read for free on this very page, is also, apparently, a collector’s item worth $2.5m. And if you don’t understand how or why, then, you haven’t listened to enough NFT tutorials on clubhouse. (Hint: there is no why beyond large pools of cryptocurrency). There is only one NFT message resonating loud and clear on the app: if you’re not minting them or trading in them yourself, you’re a loser.  
    On one of our recent podcasts, a colleague recounted the sad story of how she lost $75,000 simply by failing to anticipate, three years ago, that NFTs would be a thing today. If only clubhouse could have guided her back then. I’ve taken all this to heart. By the time you read this, I may have figured out how to turn this article into an NFT.* If I do, I’ll be on clubhouse promoting the hell out of it. 

*It is possible that this writer may not fully grasp how NFTs work