A popular meme photo of a guy at a club yelling in a girl’s ear — about something she doesn’t seem to like — is being auctioned as an Ethereum NFT on Foundation.
“Milk Edinburgh‘takes its name from the nightclub where it was taken: Milk, in Edinburgh, Scotland. The photo was originally shared on the internet with a watermark of the club’s name on it, which caused the name to stick and has since been widely used as an example of a ‘man explaining’ or ‘mansplaining’.
The photo was originally taken in 2018 by David Wilkinson, who collaborated with the help of a pseudonym Spicy DAO member Cryptopathic—is now offering the original artwork for sale as an NFT.
A member of Feisty DAO was able to get a hold of Wilkinson and discovered that he had actually minted the image as an NFT in 2021, but it had never been sold; Cryptopathic and FeistyDAO offered to step in and organize the auction for him at no cost.
The next meme up for auction is “Nightclub Meme” by David Wilkinson. The reserve starts at 15 ETH, for a three-day auction starting at 10am BST on Monday, April 22. pic.twitter.com/40gkrIUbFg
— path.eth 🛡️ (@Cryptopathic) April 17, 2024
This isn’t the first time they’ve contacted the creator of a meme to sell it as an NFT. He helped the owners of the dog depicted in the Dogwifhat (WIF) meme coin auction with their pet’s photo $4.1 million in a similar auction. Previously, they helped the owners of Kabuso – the dog used for the Dogecoin (DOGE) logo, Dogecoin (DOGE), the first dog-themed meme coin – sell NFTs.
Toad told Declutter that their motivation behind all of this is to introduce more creators to crypto, and show them that NFTs are a useful way to monetize their work.
“Many of these creators are approached by predatory teams looking to make massive cuts, or massively underpay the artist, making it seem like this space is as bad or worse than the rest of the art industry,” he said. “With our model we like to capitalize purely on PR and really show people how easy it is to take control of their work this way.”
The meme will be auctioned on Monday, April 22 Foundation at 5 a.m. ET. The NFT has a minimum price of 15 ETH, or currently around $45,000.
Edited by Andrew Hayward