The world’s first anti-NFT NFT project
THE BIRD HAT GRIFT CLUB
The Bird Hat Grift Club is a game-changing, world-first NFT experiment – the only NFT scheme in history to be 100 percent honest about the fact it’s a grift. Presenting not one, but TWO collections of Birds in Hats NFTs. Your Bird doubles as your exclusive Grift Club membership card, and grants access to members-only benefits, the first of which is access to THE BIRDHOUSE, a collaborative grifting board. Future perks can be unlocked by the community through roadmap activation.
Two collections. Two ways to “invest”
COLLECTIBLES
Every bird procedural. Every bird unique. Every bird, hat. The Bird Hat Grift Club Collectibles are a flock of birds randomly generated from hundreds of unique traits and hand-drawn artwork, presented as one-of-a-kind, collectible NFTs. Every bird is different, and every bird has its own name and its own story. See samples here.
ORIGINALS
The most valuable* NFT artwork of all time, priced to appeal to crypto whales, money launderers, billionaires, and inexplicably wealthy bird enthusiasts. If mere wealth is not enough, Bird Hat Grift Club: Originals will give you the bird+hat badge of honour you’ve always craved.
CREDIBLE MEDIA OUTLETS
HOW THE BIRD HAT GRIFT CLUB DOESn’T WORK
So here’s the thing: The Bird Hat Grift Club is a contemporary art project / joke and I’m using it to make a point about NFTs. The long preamble can be found here. The short version is: I’d love to like NFTs and believe they can be useful for artists, but nearly all the evidence I could find suggests they’re mostly… kind of crummy. Environmentally, socially, conceptually crummy.
CHANGE MY MIND
So you, crypto enthusiast, have an opportunity to change my mind about all this. I’ve set this project up to be functionally indistinguishable from other NFT art sale / collectible schemes. In fact, I’ve tried to make it even better. It has THREE roadmaps! A Discord and a ridiculous collaborative art project! One-off art NFTs! A collection of 10,000 NFTs generated from over 450 different traits ! A videogame! And a truly huge percentage of NFT sales go to charity and a range of other good causes.
There’s a catch, but never mind that (yet). Check out these roadmaps!
ROADMAP(s)
ORIGINALS
- Toptit sold: I plant a bunch of trees to offset the carbon emissions from this silly project, I do most of the things on the Non-NFT Roadmap, and pay off a big chunk of my mortgage. I also get an accountant.
- Xiao sold: I become a full-time artist, and start a free YouTube course teaching people art basics that can be used in schools
- Larry Aliceson sold: I buy a studio to work out of and function as an accessible art and theatre community space.
- Jame Walton sold: I buy a farm and rewild it by planting a *lot* of native trees
- Mork Zuckerbirb sold: I buy houses for the family members who don’t currently have houses
- Mickey Bloombirb sold: I team up with some cool teachers I know to co-design an art curriculum for schools (the way we currently teach art to kids is really not very good). Oh, and half the proceeds of this sale go to Australian conservation organisations.
- Ligma Ballmer sold: I sponsor a bird sanctuary. Or, if I’ve also sold the Kereru Cook, I build a pest-proof fence around a bunch of the rewilded farm and turn it into a bird sanctuary
- Robin Walton sold: I hire a couple of biologist friends to create a pest-control startup, with a view to helping make New Zealand predator-free
- Sergey Brine sold: I create a lobbying and PR company advocating for sustainable climate change solutions
- Larry Book sold: I buy a second-hand MRI machine for my neuroscientist/programmer friend Lee, who has pioneered novel brain-imaging techniques (really) and give him the startup capital for his own lab, with the directive “Do good science.” The only caveat is that he has to give the startup a terrible name of my choosing (name TBC).
- Warren Allyoucaneat sold: I buy New Zealand citizenship. The main requirement to become a citizen seems to be “have money and spend it here,” and Peter Thiel has blazed a path I can follow.
- Jeff Benzos sold: I buy a politician. Politicians are cheap as chips. I’m planning to buy David Seymour, who’s kind of like NZ’s low-rent Rand Paul — not because I like him, but because he seems to be the most biddable and he’s a big fan of Letting The Market Decide.
- Bill Gatekeeper sold: I will also solve a number of the United States’ more pressing problems by purchasing Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.
- Elone Musky sold: The reason this one is particularly expensive is because I painted it for my wife. However, she has agreed to let me sell it if someone wants to pay the crypto equivalent of $100,696,969 USD for it. If it sells, she can buy herself something nice, like a country. I will buy a tin of anchovies and eat every single one.
10 percent of all profits will go to charities listed here.
COLLECTIBLES
- 100 sold: We open The Birdhouse, an exclusive members-only collaborative book, where members may write one character every 15 minutes.
- 250 sold: I plant a lot of trees to offset the carbon emissions from this ridiculous scheme, do everything on the Non-NFT roadmap, and pay off however much of my mortgage as current crypto prices allow, which will probably be five bucks by the time this finally goes live. I also get an accountant.
- 500 sold: The Caged Birds (NFTs held back from the original sale) are airdropped to random community members.
- 1000 sold: We create a children’s book featuring the Birds in Hats. Bird Hat Grift Club gets its own YouTube channel and I start a podcast for some reason.
- 2000 sold: Uh.. I draw a chicken every day for a year. Each day I’ll mint a new chicken as an NFT and airdrop it to a random community member. I will call it Bird Hat Grift Chickens.
- 3000 sold: We’ll poll the community to find out what we should do with all this money. (If the result is stupid, we’ll ignore it and give a bunch of money to New Zealand wildlife conservation efforts.)
- 4000 sold: We make a video game. We’ve already done more development than most NFT projects. I’m sure we’ll set out to make something to do with Birds in Hats but development may change over time. We’ll check if Peter Molyneux is available.
- 5000 sold: We hold the inaugural Bird Hat Grift Concert. Dunno who we’ll get to play yet. Probably Lorde, she’s local.
- 6000 sold: Treasure hunt! Golden Tickets will be issued and recipients will become eligible to tour the Factory. (Prior to this, we will have to look into acquiring a factory.)
- 7000 sold: The Bird Hat liquidity pool is initiated. This will be a large pool filled with money in which members will be encouraged to swim around in like Scrooge McDuck. That, or I’ll do the school art curriculum thing from the Originals roadmap. We’ll put it to a community vote, which I pledge to ignore.
- 8000 sold: The Bird Hat Grift Club will establish the Bird Hat Golf Club, either in real life or some kind of metaverse analogue. Members play free!
- Over 9000 sold: Uh, look, we didn’t really expect to get to this point, so, yeah… more NFTs? Let me think. Aha! Golden Eggs! Each Bird can now be given Birdfood to make it lay a Golden Egg, which will hatch into Ugly Baby Birds. There you go. Also, I’ll find out when the next probe is going to the moon and I’ll pay to have a Bird in Hat NFT go with it. Our project will become the first NFT in history to literally go to the moon.
- But you’d better get in quick, because – as you’ll see if you keep reading – there’s a catch.
10 percent of all profits will go to charities listed here. No, that’s not the catch. Keep reading.
THE CATCH
This isn’t really an attempt to sell NFTs. It’s about not selling NFTs.
If I do actually do manage to sell any, then I believe the high price will allow me to spend the money on doing useful and/or fun things, as outlined in the roadmap.
But I believe there are better and more accessible ways to support artists than selling NFTs. So I’m making it a race. Web 2 vs. Web 3. If you want to support me , do it however seems best to you, and may the best tech win. But don’t take too long, or there might not be any NFTs left to buy…
YOU HAVE OPTIONS
BUY ORIGINAL ART
I’m listing every original Birds in Hats painting I still have for sale at my website, Two Ruru. For every original that sells, I’ll remove its corresponding Original BHGC NFT from sale, and it’ll never come back.
What’s more, the buyer of the original painting must sign a contract guaranteeing that they will never, ever, turn my work into an NFT. This makes my artwork truly non-fungible. Revolutionary stuff.
SUPPORT ME ON PATREON
I’ve created a Patreon with a bunch of Bird Hat Grift Club membership tiers.
For everyone who signs up to my Patreon, I will randomly remove 10 of the generated Bird Hat Grift Club Collectible NFTs from sale. They, too, will never come back as NFTs. This line of text is just to get the page design symmetrical. I’m very tired.
BUY A PRINT
I’m also selling prints (digital and physical) at my website. For every one that sells, I’ll remove 1 generated Bird Hat Grift Club Collectible NFTs from sale.
COMISSION A CUSTOM PAINTING
I’ve set up my website to take commissions (pay upfront or we’ll suss by email) For every commission that sells, I’ll randomly remove 50 of the generated Bird Hat Grift Club Collectible NFTs from sale.
NON-NFT ROADMAP
Just like the NFT roadmaps, these are all things I will actually do if I sell a certain number of artworks or get a particular number of patrons. Because they represent less money by an order of magnitude, they’re a bit more… boring. But for those that are interested, you can follow along, and I’ll post proof of all of them.
- 100 patrons and/or 1 original sold: I get the roof gutters fixed
- 200 patrons and/or 2 originals sold: I get the slightly suss shock absorbers on the car fixed
- 300 patrons and/or 3 originals sold: I’ll build a chicken coop and get some chickens. Fresh eggs!
- 400 patrons and/or 4 originals sold: I pay off my hire purchases with cold, hard cash
- 500 patrons and/or 5 originals sold: I fly my Australian family over to NZ to see my son, pandemic permitting
- 600 patrons and/or 6 originals sold: I buy the boy a puppy.
- 700 patrons and/or 7 originals sold: I get a really nice camera and home studio setup for my YouTube channel
- 800 patrons and/or 8 originals sold: I give the current car to someone who needs it and suss a brand new EV. I’m thinking a Hyundai Kona Electric
- 900 patrons and/or 9 originals sold: I pay off my wife’s student loan
- 1000 patrons and/or 10 originals sold: I start doing art full-time
FAQs
WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE?
There are a *lot* of FAQs. Well, that’s not quite true, because no-one has actually asked any questions about this project yet, as it’s brand new. But here are some things I think people will want to know. You can read the FAQs here.
9323 NFTs remain.
Let's get rid of them.
Every day, we'll be checking to see how many, if any, non-NFT artworks have sold and/or how many NFTs have been minted, should that actually happen.
We'll update the number of NFTs remaining accordingly, and post updates whenever warranted.
A reply to NFT advocate criticism of my NFT criticism
Back when my first NFT article, Needless Fucking Things, was posted on Webworm, I got a bit of backlash from NFT enthusiasts. Most of it was vitriol but at least one person said they could do an actual point-by-point critique. The critique followed, which you can find...
Bird Hat Grift Club Update 2: 9323 NFTs remain
Things continue to happen! After the initial media frenzy consisting solely of the article on Webworm, the early surge of art sales has subsided a bit. But good people are continuing to pursue their passion for ridding the world of NFTs and supporting artists, and...
Bird Hat Grift Club Launch Day: 9363 NFTs remain
It's been a long day, with regular bursts of social media in between long spells of day job, but the Bird Hat Grift Club has finally and irrevocably launched! Six months of very silly effort has led up to this ridiculous moment, with my announcement about the project...
It Begins
Here we are at the start of the Bird Hat Grift Club! Nice to have you here. I'm going to use this blog to post updates on the number of NFTs remaining, assuming anyone either a.) buys any of my artwork to get rid of a few NFTs or...
Bird Hat Grift Club:
The VIDEOGame
Bird Hat Grift Club: The Game: An NFT-Powered Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Combat And Dance Simulator Metaverse (BHGCTGANFTPMMORPCADSM) is the official videogame of the Bird Hat Grift Club. Enter a simulated metaverse full of Birds, and Hats. Pick up chicks at The Birbcage or luxuriate with the seagulls at your virtual beachside timeshare.
*(Some / all features are still in development)
Join the Bird Hat Grift Club Community
Because it wouldn’t be an NFT grift without a Discord server, I’ve created a Discord server. Come and join the Bird Hat Grift Club community in a scintillating discussion of birds, hats, grifts, clubs, and of course NFTs and art. Below is a sample of just how much fun we’re having.
THE TEAM
It’s mostly just me, but these projects always look marginally more credible when they list some team members, even when those members are psuedoanonymous and/or not real. However, these people are all real and either helped in various ways or watched in bemused horror. Their assistance and concern is deeply appreciated.
Josh Drummond
Frustrated artist. Writer. Algorithmic bad idea generator. Wasted several months of life on this project despite short attentio
Loud
Proofreader. Ideas woman. Outsourced conscience. Fully mobile vending machine. Unfortunate romantic tastes.
FlashMedallion
Long term collaborator. Solid.
Created Bird Hat Grift Club: The Game (BHGCTGANFTPMMORPCADSM).
Neuromancer
Close frenemy. Neuroscientist. Created legitimate projects like music notation software using voice recognition software and his feet. (Really.) Has no idea I am doing this but I wanted to give him a plug.
Florb
Bit-wrangler. Infosec stan. Chef specialising in the second half of the idea-baking process. Artist working in the medium of recursion and redundancy and recursion and redundancy.
David Farrar
When not writing his right-wing blog or running the Taxpayer’s Union, David co-directed Tickled and made Dark Tourist. His podcast is Flightless Bird. The Bird Hat Grift Club is not his fault.
THE end(?)
If, for some reason, you want to know more about this project, or to talk to me about it, you can email me at josh (at) birdhatgrift.club. (Check the FAQs first though.)
