By Ya Han Hsu
Some teenagers are earning money in a special way– digital artworks.
Have you ever worked as a servitor to earn a little extra money when you were a teenager? If yes, what kind of jobs did you do? Teenagers may go to movie theatres, shops, or other kinds of jobs to earn money. However, have you thought of selling your creativity? It’s true, on websites like ‘Nifty Gateway’, ‘Super Rare’…people, even teenagers are able to sell their own NTF artworks online.
You may wonder what NTFs are, well, NTF stands for non-fungible token. As the name suggests, every token is unfungible, making each token unique. The tokens could stand for artworks, GIFs, Videos and sports highlights, Collectibles, Virtual avatars and video game skins, Designer sneakers or Music. Similar to bitcoins, NTFs can be bought by real money. Also, since it is non-fungible, every one of them is different, including the value. This gives artists a special way to sell their works.
It started around 2017, and the public began noticing it when, on March sixth, the CEO of twitter, Jack Dorsey tried to sell the first sentence posted on twitter as a NTF. Now, there are more and more websites providing a platform for artists. “I was tossing out random stuff to see what was going on,” Justin Bodnar (jstngraphics) said, he is a 17-year-old artist who creates surreal sceneries. Justin now sells his artworks for thousands of dollars online. “Then I got onto SuperRare and things started blowing up.” Another example is Victor Langlois(FEWOCiOUS) , a transgender 18-year-old teenager, who is the most successful and popular young NTF artist. He creates digital artworks about his difficult childhood, struggles with gender identity and his transition. He has now earned millions of money since last summer when he began selling his works on Super Rare.
Though the money seems a lot, the precious thing is that the artists not only learn to make a living, but also find a way to express their true self and people understand and admire it. Moreover, people feel connected with each other through artworks.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/14/style/teens-nft-art.html
https://opensea.io/collection/weirdwhales
https://superrare.com/fewocious
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/nft-non-fungible-token/
https://www.businessweekly.com.tw/focus/blog/3005825