My favorite German word is "schadenfreude," which means feeling pleasure at someone else's misfortune. Not when an old lady slips on a sidewalk, or a child loses his balloon.
More like when some Tesla-driving jerk driving cuts you off and then gets a speeding ticket. Or when your nemesis at work tries to set you up to take a fall for their mistake only to get caught and fired. Or when the CEO who laid off 10% of their workforce gets arrested for embezzling.
That little thrill you felt when I described those situations? That's schadenfreude.
Why do I bring that up?
Do you remember NFTs? Did you buy any? If you answered "yes" to that last question, are you too embarrassed to answer? You should be.
If you don't know, NFTs are unique computer-generated illustrations that were supposed to be very valuable, and rich people were going to get stupid-rich from investing in them.
But now, the NFTs are worthless, and the people are just stupid.
Schadenfreude!
Even though you could make digital copies of the NFTs (non-fungible tokens), they have a special computer code to prove yours is the one true copy. But there are specific ways to display your NFT, which means you really only paid for the bragging rights. Even if I took a screenshot of your NFT, I only have a copy, not the original.
It's like if you owned a priceless painting by a famous artist. I could print out copies of the painting, but you have the original. And you can prove it because the artist signed the back of it. Except you can only show it to people in certain situations.
In 2021, NFTs were all the rage. People with more money than sense bought the digital photos, illustrations, and songs in the hopes that they would become even more valuable. People were spending tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes millions.
It started when an artist named Beeple sold an NFT at a Christie's auction for $69 million. Other people got greedy and snapped up as many NFTs as they could find. If someone created a kooky NFT, rich-but-dumb celebrities would spend millions just to have it.
Three years later, most of those NFTs are all but worthless.
Schadenfreude!
In 2021, someone paid $2.8 million for the first-ever tweet from former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey —"just setting up my twittr" — and now it's worth around $1,500.
Justin Bieber paid $1.3 million for one of the Bored Ape collection in 2021, and today it's worth about $42,500.
American DJ Marshmello paid $1.4 million for an NFT called KajuKing #1680; it's now worth $568.
Snoop Dogg paid $7 million for the Right-click and Save As Guy NFT in 2021, and as of September 2023, it was worth $197.
That's no typo: One hundred. And ninety-seven. Dollars.
Scha! Den! Freude!
I mention this because the famous banana-duct-taped-to-a-wall is back in the news this week.
The art piece, which is called "Comedian," was created by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan in 2019. When it was first unveiled, another artist ate the banana, so it was replaced with a different banana, which speaks to the transitory nature of art. It also explains why my art display of a six-pack of beer in my fridge disappeared.
People flocked to see the famous banana, and the crowds got so huge that it had to be taken down. Also, it was probably attracting fruit flies.
It was so popular that three other editions of it sold for between $120,000 and $150,000.
Not the original banana, because someone ate it. And not the replacement banana either, because bananas go bad after about seven days. The duct tape was probably not the original either since tape loses its stickiness once you peel it off.
No, someone paid between $120,000 – $150,000 three different times for three different bananas duct taped to a wall, and of course, all the bananas have rotted by now, and the duct tape has dried.
Schadenfreude!
If you never understood the Ship Of Theseus thought experiment before, you've got a good idea of how it works now.
Sounds dumb, right? Like buying-a-digital-picture-of-a-cartoon-ape-for-$1.3-million dumb? Except, no, someone is 4.7 times dumber than that.
Because last week in Miami, Sotheby's auctioned off "Comedian" for $6.2 million.
Remember, not the original banana, but the concept of duct-taping a banana to the wall.
Which means someone owns the concept of using a piece of duct tape to stick a banana to a wall. They can stick any old banana with any old piece of duct tape to their wall, and they own the original concept of that art.
Which probably means that if you tape a banana to your own wall, you've committed art forgery.
More importantly, could someone turn the first photo of the original "Comedian" into an NFT?
And, in staying true to my Hoosier roots, if I duct-taped an ear of corn to a wall, could I get someone to pay me $6.2 million for it? I'd even be satisfied with $62,000.
Alright, $50,000, but not a penny less. Hurry, though, because this thing is starting to attract flies.
I hope you feel bad for me.
Photo credit: Jane023 (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons 0/Public Domain)
My new humor novel, Mackinac Island Nation, is finished and available from 4 Horsemen Publications. You can get the ebook and print versions here.