The Seth Green Files

All my apes... gone...

I thought, hoped, dreamt, that I was done talking about the pan-flash known as NFTs back when it became abundantly clear that it's initial fame was overblown and that small notoriety was drying up like a splayed out crab lying on the Dust Bowl wastes of Death Valley. The rise of NFTs was an illusion, a fiction fed out by desperate and conniving organisations desperate to get their hands on the 'next big thing' before it ever made it to market. That is the great secret behind this major fad of the 2020's, it's not a key to the unlockable potential of humanity, but a pyramid scheme by another name which is quickly running out of new rungs to stick onto the other end. Remember the great conceit of 'you can have money make itself on your behalf', is only every true if it's being undeservedly squeezed out the pockets of someone who can't afford it below you; and ask yourself again if NFTs are the wave for the future that you're so eager to surf.

But no one can really be done forever with a fad like NFTs. Not until that Fad has been strung up and lashed bare, deceit and lies cut from it's bone, so that not even the most delusional can flock to it's bare naked ugliness any longer. And I'm going to stop this line of creative writing before I make myself sound anymore like a modern day Roman Emperor. To be more direct; just when the landscape of these online scam factories felt like they were going quiet, I had to learn that one of my favourite comedians Seth Green was trapped inside their vice-like grip. (I don't agree with e-stalking celebrities online in order to monitor their every errant thought and whim, but I may have to start just to know which fool has slipped down the rabbit hole next time something as dumb as NFTs rears it's head.) Oh, and the thing I'm about to talk about is related to gaming twofold. To a much lesser extent, Green is a figure of some importance in gaming having voiced Joker in Mass Effect; and to the larger argument, some prominent numbskulls believe that the gaming landscape needs our future intrinsically tied to that of NFTs, and every story like this is poison dripped on that narrative.

 When we look at the NFT landscape, there is one collection of packaged and sold generated assets that best encapsulates the entirety of the movement, and it's one of the progenitors of the craze: Bored Ape Yacht Club. A collection of ugly computer generated images stuck together from a selection of 'body part' images amassed at random on a 'rarity curve' and then sold on the blockchain for tens of millions. It is an embarrassingly grotesque collection that has made tech-bros rich and screwed up just about everyone else. And Seth Green tried to get in on the 'Techno Bro' side of that equation just recently. Yes, he was a big Ape head for his time, and he was on his way to become an ambassador for the Monkey JPEGs with the announcement that he was developing and acting in a show that would star his personal Bored Ape, because blurry concepts of 'ownership' and 'IP rights stamped on the blockchain' are intrinsic to the NFT craze and those who try to sell it.

But this turned out to be a prideful height that our poor Mr Green was all but destined to fall from. Because just as with most people who interact with the cursed landscape that is NFTs, Seth Green fell for a stupid phishing site that nabbed ownership of a bunch of his NFTs, one of which being the star of his proposed show. Those stolen assets went on to be bought by some NFT rando, and in a hilarious turn of events this simple act of screw-ups has left Seth Green's show on hold. Because as it is written in the terms of BAYC, one of the main draws of NFTs as a concept, IP rights for each ape are transferred along with ownership of the token tied to the origin of each image. Meaning he who owns the token NFT can make whatever they want with this monkey picture, and the second they pass on that token they pass the rights to be able to make any more. So yes, Seth Green currently has the bones of a show that he no longer owns the rights to distribute. What a crazy, twisted world we live in.

It must be a galling thing to realise, that the very aspect you've hailed to be the saviour of the modern financial world, has led to you being irreparably financially stiffed. Seth's online presence has switched from mind-numbingly brainless tirades into why multimillion dollar companies would be absolutely fine with cutting nobodies on the Blockchain into their earnings because they own a token of a character's likeness. (Even if the IP rights are sound, what studio isn't just going to focus content around the character you own instead of literally generating free income for you?) Now Seth is begging the man who bought his NFTs to come to the negotiating table, implying that his charm and their 'shared interests' will win over the assets, all the while he is trolled and mocked relentlessly by people who used to respect the funny man turned sad public clown. 

And as the News has turned on Seth to mock him, Green has come out to claim that he still has the right of law, and since the NFT was technically stolen the courts would side with him. Unfortunately Seth has either never been inside of a Court room before or is overdosing his few remaining working brain cells with copium because that is not how the American legal system is going to work for him. The stolen asset was sold to someone who, as far as we can tell, had no idea the asset was stolen and unless that can proven otherwise beyond a shadow of a doubt, he legally owns the NFT. And BAYC terms of service explicitly states that the owner of an NFT is the sole IP holder, so Seth has no legal legs to stand on right now. He may try to wave the stick of the courts whist offering the hand of friendship, but currently it looks as though both avenues are falling flat as long as neither come with a healthy payday.

The buyer, who I'm intentionally not naming because they aren't a public figure and thus I have no idea how wantonly litigious they may become when this is all said and done, has ignored Seth's Twitter pleas and instead spoken to news aggregators to act as his third party connect to the comedian. A frustrating, and probably fruitless, power move towards the comedian who just wants to get his show back on track. Without claiming to know any explicit motivations here, our buyer did acquire the Jpeg for around $200,000 in equivalent coin currency, so they probably are looking to make a profit from that sale. He's probably in the strongest position directly here for the time being, because even if Seth uses his time to change the assets of his show to use a different ape, the value of the 'Monkey that got away from Seth Green' is just going to shoot up for the story alone. Our funny man has no leverage here whatsoever.

As sad as it is that this is happening to a man I typically respect, this is a pretty clear lesson in the school of 'play stupid games win stupid prizes'. I can't imagine a man with as much industry knowledge as Seth Green really doesn't understand the true face of the industry he's promoting, which means he's actually trying to get some bag before the market topples and is likely just wantonly dismissing the harm his reckless influencing will have on fans who respect and trust him. I'm sorry but that attitude goes a long way to erasing the respect that shows like Family Guy and Robot Chicken had earnt him in my mind, which makes a karmic bitch slap like this nothing more than a well-deserved clap-back from this author's perspective. I bet the show would have been decent, but the culture behind it wouldn't have been worth the effort. I genuinely hope he doesn't get the Ape back and that this whole debacle forces the man to confront exactly what sort of industry he is wittingly trying to be the poster child for. Grow some self respect back, man.