We have talked about how celebrity idols use NFT to turn the fans' support and works into a long-term supporting platform in the last article. Let’s dig deeper in this regard and explore the relationship between popularity and NFT.
But before we start, let's take a look at the story of a primary school student. During this summer vacation, a P3 student in Japan, who is also known as 'Zombie Zoo Keeper', was intrigued by the news that some foreigners were making money with NFT paintings. He then kickstarted a summer project — 'Challenge NFT' for which he created some paintings. His mother, who was an artist with some understanding of NFT, helped digitize the paintings, while managing the social media account for sales promotion.
However, Zombie Zoo Keeper, is just like many other unknown creators on the market, did not receive a good response at the very beginning – not until these paintings were picked up by the well-known DJ Trevor McFedries. Since Trevor McFedries used the paintings as his Twitter profile picture, Zombie Zoo Keeper became a big hit! He even set a record of selling three NFTs within one minute, his paintings have brought him an accumulated fortune of hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong dollars.
The NFT project of Yua Mikami's shares some similarities with the P3 student's one, though they might seem completely different. In the 'Your NFT' auction series issued by Mikami, each of the 28 NFTs came with a physical version of the autographed photo, alongside accessories or clothes featured in the photo were also given out as gifts. Let’s not forget that there was another highlight: the bidder of the highest bid in the entire auction could win the 'last night’ of 28-year-old Mikami - an opportunity to have dinner with her on the night before she turned 29. This set of NFTs was not only selling the photos but also the story behind.
We can draw a conclusion from the above two stories: the popularity of the NFT is not the key to success of selling NFT. The key factors are : how appealing are the stories behind and how possible these stories can go viral.
To buyers who buy NFTs for showing support to their loved ones, NFT is a valuable work, artwork, or collection, it is nothing commercial. However, from the perspective of investors and speculators, purchasing NFT is actually a profit-driven decision as they are looking for value appreciation. In their eyes, NFT is a commodity but also a speculative product. The way they assess NFT is like locating penny stocks or penny stocks with explosive potential – both of them require a lower entry fee and certain appreciation potential. But the difference is the operation challenge, to be exact, manipulation.
In the traditional stock market, even if with considerable financial resources, the investors need to undergo a series of steps: mergers, acquisitions and negotiations, so as to control the majority of stocks supply; but this is not the end of the story, as they still need to spread some good news, wait for the response of the market, and harvest their gaining – after paying lots of effort, TIME and MONEY.
Meanwhile, it works totally different in the NFT world. Various operating platforms have combined the functions of selling, receiving, and displaying goods. Accumulating supply has become easier. In addition, in a decentralized and anonymous world, it is relatively easier to push the prices; therefore, the price would easily increase multiple times after a few rounds of trading. With an attractive story, it can naturally attract the attention of retail investors, creators can take advantage of their FOMO (Fear of missing out) psychology to close the deal.
In other words, NFT paves a very convenient way for speculators: picking, storing, speculating, and selling. The procedures that used to take months or years in the stock market may now be completed in just a few days. In addition, manpower, procedures, time cost involved are largely reduced. Gaining this money is QUICK and easy.
After understanding this gameplay, you should learn: the popularity of the creator is not the determining factors of the popularity of the NFT; instead, it depends on how attractive the story is, how much attention it can attract, and how to turn the audiences into potential purchasers and the most substantial income. Hard to understand the logic? Just remember that all consumption behaviors are not that rational as we imagine.