probs happened before but @piconjo deserves more <3 2day

I've been honestly compelled to write about my thoughts on the whole NFT craze, the NFTbro community, and why I think NFTs are honestly just a shitty thing all together. So before I get into the nitty gritty of some of my experiences and thoughts I think this one news article is worth sharing that I think will make a lot of people smile here: Wikipedia Editors decide that NFTs won't be classified as art.

This is a sentiment that personally I agree with. But I think that there's also more to how I feel about the whole predicament with NFTs as a whole, between here and what I've discussed with a few people on here, through friends, and elsewhere on the internet I can tell you why I won't get into them.

The thing is, I considered getting into them if I'm being truthful. The only thing I ever did was make an Opensea account to see what the craze was about but when I saw the uploading page, I stopped myself and realized that I had no fucking clue what I was getting into. So I did some research on what these things were actually about and well, there was more going against them than there were for them. I chose not to do anything with it needless to say I abandoned that said account after not finding anyway to delete it and removing any association it had with me, changing the password to something that I would never be able to remember and never accessed it again.

Why I did consider them is because I'm always looking for ways to expand my platforms for art, but when I really dived into what they were about and how you had to put value onto whatever it was you were uploading using crypto I thought to myself that something wasn't right with the whole thing. Surely enough, as I was going through what they were about I stumbled across this one video by Cat Graffam explaining why NFTs are a bad thing. If you don't have the time to watch the video, it pretty much is a good summary to how NFTs fall into that category of rich people putting value on something as absurd as a banana being taped onto a wall, a very common problem in the realm of fine arts, but its more naked than that. That video led to my overall decision to have no involvement with them and this was before I became well aware of Keeanu Reeve's stance.

In my mind, making an account in of itself I feel like was a dirty little sin to even go that far, I never uploaded anything personally nor will I have any intent to, but in hindsight I was close to falling into a rabbit hole. But I digress that I wasn't totally out of that same pit yet because of how many people kept messaging me over instagram to make NFT's for them, leading me to litterally put a disclaimer on my instagram account telling people I won't get involved with them.

Here and there I also saw a few NFT projects surfacing, one time I recall on the PixelJoint discord that someone brought up a project where basically someone was making an NFT based pokemon game and emailing people to make art for him based on old memes. I actually commented on the project saying that this was a lawsuit waiting to happen and it led to a debate between a creator who was claiming that the lawsuit would never come to fruition which, if you know how nintendo reacted to Super Maria Sisters when that came out they went down hard on them. Said creator also tried to argue with me that comedy hinges on how people react, which is only a half truth because good comedy should at least make you think about why you are laughing at a joke to begin with. I don't really know if he decided to take the last say after I told him that his sense of humor sucked, but I walked away not really giving a shit because I realized he had no clue what the fuck he was going on about.

The ironic thing is, in a decision that I never expected leading me to take sides with the Big-N in a legal matter Nintendo actually went after a NFT project with a cease and desist order. Which pretty much throws that one guy's argument out of the water about how an NFT project could never get touched by lawyers. But... That's the thing that struck me the most. NFTBros genuinely have no clue what they are talking about or why they are supporting NFTs to begin with. They have no grasp on reality to a point where it's a highly absurd.

I've seen more arguments that made more sense opposing them, most NFTbros that I actually debated with try to justify their support for them by attempting to actually use the very arguments that are against them. One time I even pointed out to an NFTbro that eventually the bubble was going to pop on the whole thing and then pointed out how that most people don't even know where that money was going to. He had more faith that he was going to be rich from it even when the bubble did pop which I found ironic because he was using a decentralized currency and putting his faith in that more than anything else.

So, where am I going with this story? Why would I share my experiences concerning the whole thing itself and the people I discussed with?

In short, the reason why I'm against NFTs is because you're not owning the product you obtain as much as you are the data that coincides with it. No one who supports NFTs knows what they are getting into with that and it's where the line between reality and absurdity becomes so clear where if you know someone supports them, they don't know what they believe in. Think of it like a combination of an Ed Edd n' Eddy like scam, a pyramid scheme, and a cult mindset put into a blender and then you get this mad internet culture that acts like these things are going to be the next big thing. (They aren't)

I would like to make clear that I'm not against Cryptocurrency in of itself. That is something I'm more or less neutral on. However, NFTs are an outright scam because you're basically buying code that tells you that you bought an image. Well, whoop de do. You got a string of code and that's all you really own out of it when everyone else can just copy and paste an image or save an mp3 file from it.

Put aside the environmental concerns more than anything else and look at it from a business perspective. Ask yourself if this is a practical way to profit from your skill set as an artist more than anything else? That's the major question you should be asking yourself more than anything else because if you are investing in Crypto and/or Art, the answer you might find yourself getting is "no". And personally I feel that a couple years down the line both the Crypto world and the Art world can go in better directions than what we are seeing with these things.

I say this as a digital artist more so than anything else I think for most of us on here we can all agree that NFT's are not the only way to prove ownership over digital art. NFTbros seriously believe that it is. But we all know that's bullshit because if you've been doing art commissions for years on end and know how to sign your work off, and have the actual reciepts and written documents to prove who actually owns the piece, then you know who made it and who it belongs to. I can only beg those who know this to urge people to not get into these things for those who don't know what an NFT is or why it's more of a risk to get into them with zero to no benefits you will reap from them.

NFTs are not art. They lack the necessary merit and integrity to even be called as such. Even if art is subjective it needs to have those two things in order for it to be art and if you take the time to look at a genuine piece of work that has any soul into it, it can take you into it's own world. Without those two things it's just a superficial husk.

Greetings from Witch City. Things are pretty fuckin cool here dawg.

I'm now in the city where I can chill with satanists, goths, witches, artists, and some sailors and not feel like I'm gonna walk down the street and expect some shit to go down like I would in NYC.

But for real, I actually am pretty happy with how the New Year is starting for me and I'm hoping that between my new job and my side art gigs I can have some more time investing in Newgrounds. Hoping that all will go well this year without anything going wrong!

Follow me my fellow nerds I shall give you good blessings and Vaporeons

And I'll put the cream in your coffee.

Just making a random blog post to check in, hoping you all are doing just dandy.

Ironically enough, I don't think I've been pushing my art on here (Or any of the other communities I've been frequenting as of late!) as much as I have been prior to a few days ago after dealing with some of my own issues. Really, this is the first time that I've actually been working as hard as I have been to keep doing things on a daily routine to the best of my ability and I'm actually super glad about that.

Actually, this is one of the few places that I've been coming to time and time again. Part of the reason why I like newgrounds was because someone introduced me to the site with a mario flash animation of twisted sister some time ago? anyways. I never really submitted a shit ton of stuff until recently and for the most part I've kept myself lurking but now that I'm kind of kicking things into full gear and figuring out what works best for me, I'm glad that I've been able to experience the growth I needed to on here and where ever else I post my artwork.

With that being said I'm genuinely glad to be a part of the Newgrounds community. While I do intend to keep growing with my artwork and show my progress on where I'm at as I develop my own skill set. Come to think of it after taking advice from BridgeofFaust about how to plan out some stuff ahead of time in the case of any eventualities, I've been kind of glad to take that in and kind of do a reset on how I've been approaching my craft.

With that being said, I do appreciate the love I've been getting from some of you guys so far and I'm super stoked to see where 2021 takes me this year.

Quick announcement.

Until further notice I will be closing my commissions in order to revise my commission guidelines. Please bear with me until I am able to simplify the list for your convenience!

Hello all, it's been a little difficult for me in the past few weeks to stay on top of everything now that I am working and trying to keep myself from going insane during lockdown, but it's better late than never to spread word of my side hustle:

Damn straight! Your crazy Uncle Andrew/Dioshiba is now opening commissions!

To keep things simple and to avoid any sort of overload with my projects, I'm limiting this to five slots. So if you're interested into hiring me for a small project you need to do then I'm more than willing to work with you!

With that being said, here is a link to some of the deets that I have regarding commissions. Additionally, I have added some links into my signature regarding commissions and to a couple of other places I'm active on the internet so by all means please reach out to me!

Also on some minor note: I'm finally getting my first tattoo this week of my Cannibal Rooster so, I'll likely be posting pictures of that as it gets done! It'll have a few tweaks to the final product but hey, as long as it's spirit is kept intact!

I could have done this much much much sooner but currently in a balancing act between a seasonal job and scheduling some other ongoing things throughout the month got me in a pinch so here's the scoop with me.

Anyhow, NEW CONTENT was just posted today which you can find. Also going to be posting some content exclusively on my own personal website so if you want to check out some of that stuff then by all means: https://andreworlukartanimations.com/

So I guess now would be a good time to admit that to keep myself going in this world I recently got a full time job over at Lowes. Working in the paint department?

Not exactly my ideal first job but I gotta pay the bills and my adobe programs somehow. MEANTIME, I also did the Sailor Moon Redraw Challenge recently.

Heres a link to the actual artwork

So while I'm doing my thing I'm probably going to continue experimenting more, start working more dilligently on expanding what I do for my portfolio, then who knows where the road will go from there. All in all the only thing I can do now is just live for today and appreciate the little moments in life.