So this story is just too darn interesting not to write about, and before I go any further I’ll also say that yes, I’m the proud owner of a Weird Whale. So what are Weird Whales and how could a 12 year-old be behind one of the most talked about NFT projects of the last week? Let’s start with this tweet from Rusty Bill and go from there…
Okay, so I know what you’re thinking. Hey – that’s just a pixelated image of a whale, what’s so interesting about that? What’s interesting is that the entire project is being run by a 12 year-old who learned to code when he was five. Benyamin, who goes by @ObiWanBenoni on Twitter and looks like this, shared his journey on Twitter and well, it’s freaking fascinating:
Of course, as things tend to go in the wild west that is the NFT world, some people were excited, others well, weren’t buying it. A controversy broke out claiming that this was all a big rug pull and that the whole thing was a lie. This kicked off one heck of a rollercoaster ride on Twitter. While I could share the tweets, you can look yourself and I don’t feel like pinning the blame on any one person so I’ll leave them out of this post.
One callout that’s fun to note is that Benyamin bought the domain name, WeirdWhalesNFT.com for just $80. Suffice it to say, things got crazy and if you want to follow some of the drama, this tweet might lead you down an interesting path:
At the end of the drama came a general outpouring of love for the Weird Whales and lots of tweets from people saying, “We like the whales”
If you, like me, were on Twitter watching the entire saga play out, it was pretty wild. Now that we’re on the other side of it I think it’s really interesting and also highlights just how early we are in the NFT world and how the playing field for art really is getting leveled in ways nobody could have predicted.
I ended up with a Zombie Weird Whale, here’s my guy:
I think Benyamin is awesome both for creating the project and for dealing with criticism head on and navigating through the whole situation admirably. There’s a lot we can all learn from this 12 year-old and it’s safe to say the NFT world grew up a little bit through this whole process.
Disclaimer: The above references an opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice. Like you, the author has no idea what he’s talking about and instead just loves silly JPEGs that very few people understand.
