Original author: Zen, PANews

In the early morning of May 31, the "Super Punk World" NFT series initiated by digital artist Nina Chanel Abney completed the airdrop and opened trading on Magic Eden. The 500 NFTs in the series were randomly airdropped for free to the holders of its first PFP NFT series "Super CoolWorld". As of 10:00 on May 31, the floor price of the Super Punk World series was 0.85 ETH, with a total of 470 holders.

As a project based on the CryptoPunks series and developed in cooperation with the official community, "Super Punk World" was initially highly anticipated by the community. However, after it caused relevant controversy, it had to be separated from CryptoPunks, and only its name still retained the traces of punk.

"The Root of All Evil": "Punk in Residence" Artist Residency Program

In February this year, Yuga Labs launched an artist residency program called "Punk in Residence". Officials said that the program is committed to advocating innovation and expression in digital art, and aims to absorb and expand the new voices of the next generation of artists and collectors in the web3 field. Artists participating in "Punk in Residence" will conduct artistic experiments and creations around the question of "What does punk mean to you?"

Yuga Labs also announced Nina Chanel Abney as the first artist to participate in the program and presented her with Punk #72. The PFP later became her Twitter avatar and she still uses it today. Abney is known for her artistic concept of identity exploration, and her work also touches on many topics such as race, gender, pop culture, sexuality and politics. In the field of digital art, Abney is more known for her "Super CoolWorld" NFT series launched in July 2022. There are 5080 PFPs in the series, which adopts colorful flat and collage-like design. As of May 31, the total transaction volume has exceeded 9,100 ETH, and the floor price is about 0.1 ETH.

The plan to use CryptoPunks IP for digital art creation did not initially receive much attention and discussion from the outside world, and the community was mostly supportive and recognized. As a blue-chip NFT that has firmly established itself as a leader, the community has always had high hopes for the first artist collaboration based on CryptoPunk IP. When CryptoPunk first revealed the Super Punk World series in mid-May, it stated that it used 3D media to reimagine the viewing experience of Abney's art from a punk perspective, further raising expectations.

However, when Abney returned after more than three months with a work that combined her unique personal style and the characteristics of CryptoPunks, it immediately caused an uproar in the entire NFT field, especially among CryptoPunks holders, where she was almost unanimously ridiculed and criticized.

"Crisis PR": Super Punk World is no longer punk

On May 21, Beijing time, CryptoPunks officially unveiled the "true face" of the Super Punk World series, and its official Twitter account released a video showing multiple NFTs in the series. In terms of artistic concept, CryptoPunks said that the series blurred the boundaries of race and gender, reflecting the identities of the virtual and real worlds. When seeing the paper people with unique looks and dresses, with only curves in their hips, spinning in place, the community members who had infinite expectations were like being poured a bucket of cold water on their heads, and the "admiring" crowd laughed so hard that they couldn't close their mouths.

In addition to the lack of sincerity in the design of the work and the artistic style that is difficult to be accepted by the public, the artistic concept and values ​​of Super Punk World are also unacceptable to many "old punks", who directly point out that the series is too "woke".

The word "woke" originally expressed a high degree of awareness and concern about social injustice, and was used to describe those who have a high sensitivity and social justice towards issues such as racism, sexism, LGBTQ and other sexual minority rights. Because the word is often overused or misinterpreted, it is now also used to accuse others of being overly politically correct. However, the most significant feature of punk spirit is rebellion and anti-authority, emphasizing unfettered freedom and independence. Groups who believe in punk culture often question and challenge social and political authority, and oppose mainstream culture and traditional values. It would be unpunk, then, to succumb to conformist political correctness that “blurs the lines of race and gender.”

Based on the above two reasons, Super Punk World will not only dilute the original value of CryptoPunks, but may even destroy the most important cultural concept and core of the punk IP. The community was outraged, and some CryptoPunks holders sold their products in anger after the Dutch auction information was released. Seeing that the wind was not blowing in the right direction, CryptoPunks immediately canceled the Dutch auction of "Super Punk World" and instead conducted random airdrops to holders of Abney's original work Super Cool World. Yuga Labs also solemnly stated that it would no longer contact CryptoPunks, which would be completely decentralized and stored on the blockchain. CryptoPunks did not release any information about the Super Punk World series afterwards, but instead let Yuga Labs follow up.

In fact, Nina Chanel Abney has long been a well-received artist, and the slightly rough and simple art style of Super Punk World is a complete combination of the characteristics of Cryptopunks and Super CoolWorld. The criticism of its exploration of Cryptopunks may be more due to the failure to communicate properly with the community. Today is different from the past. With the development of PFP art, the standards and requirements of the community are getting higher and higher. In addition, Yuga Labs may also have some shortcomings in its marketing methods.

After the NFT craze faded, the bear market in the NFT field became even more severe. OpenSea, once a top market, has dropped from 187,000 users in June 2022 to less than 10,000 today. The market value of a memecoin upstart PEPE has surpassed the sum of the market values ​​of the top 30 NFT projects.

After the great waves, the remaining blue-chip NFTs are all precious and exquisite. The damage caused to the brand by the Azuki Elementals incident last year and the criticism of CryptoPunks this time show that being too conservative and innovative in ideas are difficult to be tolerated by the community. For these boutique NFT series, project owners may only be able to follow the example of CryptoPunks and regard them as cultural heritage, making them completely decentralized. In the current exploration of the NFT field, for these blue-chip projects, taking stillness as movement is both a choice and their dilemma.

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