You know one of the many things I hated about NFTs? The hype behind them, however short-lived, convinced a lot of people that the only way to purchase art was through digital Monopoly money. Or at least, that it was The Future™.

One time I bought a NFT that came with a physical painting. Isn’t that a silly sentence? I bought a digital image of a painting and it came with the original art it was a scan of.

Let me try that again: I bought a painting once, and it came with a NFT.

The jpeg is worthless now was worthless from the start, but the painting still hangs in my little basement office to this day.

The value for me wasn’t in some unstable digital pyramid scheme I might be able to make a quick buck on. It was in the talent it took a person to create physical art; something they actually crafted with their hands.

I like the idea of a cartoon avatar for social media, but I wouldn’t be caught dead with a $10,000 Stoned Ape or whatever they were called.

I’m useless when it comes to arranging pixels in a way that doesn’t make you want to gouge your eyes out. That’s why I bought this pixel portrait from The Iconfactory:

Never mind my ugly mug — the point is that someone sat down and crafted a portrait of it, pixel by pixel. Just for me. I think that’s pretty neat.

Even if you haven’t used their social media/RSS hybrid app Tapestry or the writing app Tot, theres a good chance you’ve seen some of The Iconfactory’s work before — as long you’ve used Windows XP anyway. They were also the folks behind the legendary Twitter app Twitterrific.

I wanted to do what I could to support a small business who has been making what’s on our screens a little prettier since the mid 90s, and I’m very happy with the result.