Stuck in a game

Rug-pulls, Rampant Fraud and the NFT Wasteland

Just over a year ago, then CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, sold his first tweet as an NFT for $2.9M. It wasn’t just his first tweet, of course, it was the first tweet, which as auctions go for Crypto- and NFT-heads was about as appealing as a hunk of sourdough to a famished goose. The nearly $3M sale was a welcome green flag to early advocates in the NFT space that the winds of blockchainge (sorry...

By @Ross H.

Our Favourite SMPLE Films So far

Animation, Charlie Kaufman once helpfully observed, “is a series of static images creating the illusion of movement.” If he's that incisive about his own work, what would he make of yours? SMPLE Film Fest is moving faster than expected, and it’s left us a little animated. Okay, more than a little. A fair bit. Fuel for our playful side, like we’re taking cues from Steamboat Willie whistling at t...

By @Joshua P.

The Rise of Analog Horror

Note: contains spoilers for web series Local58I hate opening with statistics – unless of course, they’re jaw-dropping. In its first month, a recent found footage video called The Backrooms hit a staggering 15M views after its upload to YouTube. That’s a reach of roughly half a million hits every day. And let’s bear in mind, this isn’t the latest drop from Ariana Grande, or MrBeast putting main...

By @Ross H.

The Many Lives Of Kanye West Pt. 2

According to Fitzgerald, there are no second acts in American lives. That’s probably true, unless you’re bigger than America. Kanye’s career has gone through so many ducks, pivots and sensational conclusions, we can’t help but look on as the next step could be the last, as rapt as we were almost 20 years ago. The first half of my quest to understand the man through his music brought us to 2010...

By @Joshua P.

Why Frank Ocean Matters

There are artists, and there are Artists. We sometimes have to catch ourselves even using the term at all, as pop music is such an ephemeral process.

By @Smple M.