How were you made

How Were You Made?

You are legally an individual — something not divisible. But you’re, in fact, endlessly divisible down to the last subatomic particles.

You emerge as an individual organism only when all the links in your organization come together and collaborate in specific ways.

But how can such a complicated organization come together? And how does each link at its every level know what to do?

How Were You Assembled into You?

Suppose you’re a robot manufacturer.

When R&D department conceives a design for a new robot, the hardware and software plans are created for components at every level. The manager creates a project plan to coordinate the construction of this robot. These plans are saved in digital files and indexed in folders for easy access. Digital files are written in binary code (patterns of 1s and 0s) and stored in a physical format like a CD.

Similarly, genetic files, i.e. genes, save the hardware and software plans for you and all your components. Genes also save the project plan (called epigenome) that guides your construction. For easy access, these genes are indexed in chromosomes.

Chromosomes are like cassettes that tightly wrap long molecular data tapes (DNA). The genes are physically stored on this tape using DNA code (A/T/G/C). Collection of 46 unique chromosomes make up your genome, i.e. all the information required to create you.

If it sounds a little complicated, this visualization will help you to clearly understand it.

To bring the robot to life, production department scans the CD for Project Plan. It lays out schedule, instructions, roles and responsibilities. Hardware and Software files get assigned to relevant teams as per plan.

Hardware team divides their assigned jobs among specialized workers and machines — Purchasers, Fabricators, 3D printers, CNCs, etc. to start constructing and assembling the hardware. Once sufficient hardware is built, the IT department starts step-by-step deployment of the robot operating system. This operating system is a suite of programs — drivers that grant the robot some control of its hardware; learning strategies to achieve various objectives; dashboard for making sense of the sensory inputs; protocols to interact with the environment.

Similarly, when you were conceived, your genome was scanned by the specialized machines (organelles) in the fertilized egg. Based on the project plan, they began your assembly by assigning jobs to specialized machines and protein workers. Some transported raw material from your mom; some fabricated the required components; others arranged the construction material parts as per the layout. Molecule by molecule, cell by cell, you started getting formed.

Once the foundational structure was built, networking and computing hardware started getting laid. Shortly, the neurons started firing as per the protocols in the software genes to begin the deployment of your mind! All this firing started the installation of the subconscious and conscious software modules in your mind.

Your birth was just one milestone in your assembly process. It continued long after! Appropriate hardware and software modules got deployed as per the project plan based on the stage of your development. You also got refined a bit by the inputs of your environment.

Congratulations, your development is complete! Your body is now in maintenance mode!

How Were You Conceived?

God bless your mind! I was asking about the conception of your design!

We know how the robot got conceived — R&D department designed it. But we didn’t address who designed you!

Wouldn’t you have loved some better design choices? Sadly, you had zero say in creating yourself! Who conceived you then? Your parents?

A human’s DNA code is distributed in 46 chromosomes. Imagine each chromosome as a card. That makes a person a deck of 46 unique cards.

To make a child, a woman randomly picks 23 of her cards and shuffles them with 23 cards of a man. There were zillion ways for your parents to mix their cards! But they fancied each other and got lovey-dovey at precisely the right time to shuffle their decks into you!

So, your parents conceived you, after all!

Not really! The only design choice your parents made was the partner they shuffled their cards with! (Blind love or arranged marriage make even this choice debatable.)

The random shuffling of chromosomes with a partner of choice doesn’t mean your parents got to choose a child of their dreams! They could’ve shuffled their chromosomes into any of the 70 trillion unique combinations!

And if your parents’ chromosomes would’ve combined in any other way, you wouldn’t be designed differently. Someone else would have been born instead of you!

This means you (and your siblings) get to play the game of life at the expense of your 70 trillion unborn siblings who missed out forever! Some held way better cards than you!

Winning 1 out of 70 trillion odds makes you luckier than all lottery winners on earth! Complaints about your quality of cards look petty now, don’t they?

But we’re merely scratching the surface of how fortunate you really are!

Like you, even your parents won the cosmic lotteries! So did their parents, and their parents, ad infinitum. Each one of them had to win their cosmic lottery for you to win yours! What are the odds of that?

You were conceived by Destiny! What are you doing to make it proud?

How Are Movies Made?

Have You Ever Wondered.

Today’s Wonder of the Day was inspired by Heidi from Rockingham. Heidi Wonders, “How are movies made?” Thanks for WONDERing with us, Heidi!

You’ve spent hours getting into costume and makeup. Now, you’re trying to see past all the bright lights. It’s almost time. Your nerves are getting to you. What’s your character’s name again? Do you remember your lines? Too soon, you hear those three words from the director: “Lights. Camera. Action.”

But the process of making a movie began long before the cameras started rolling. Anyone who works in film can tell you that a lot of work goes on behind the scenes. However, movie fans rarely get to peek behind the curtain. This leaves many WONDERing: How are movies made?

After the cast and crew are in place, it’s time to get the cameras rolling. Everyone involved in the film travels to the chosen location. There, they shoot each scene until they get it just right. In many cases, movie makers will shoot different versions of every scene. That way, they’ll have many options to choose from in the final cut.

All-in-all, shooting a feature-length film often takes between six and eight months. However, if you’re interested in filmmaking, you’ll probably start a lot smaller. You just need the right equipment and help from a few friends. You might be able to complete the process in just a few weeks.

Standards : CCRA.R.4, CCRA.L.3, CCRA..6, CCRA.W.3, CCRA.L.1, CCRA.L.2, CCRA.SL.1, CCRA.R.1, CCRA.R.2,, CCRA.R.10

Wonder Contributors

We’d like to thank:

7 Amazing Sample Answers to «What Makes You Unique?»

Excel in your job search with these free job seeking templates from HubSpot.

The interview question, «What makes you unique?» is not an opportunity to confess weird habits or odd quirks. It’s a chance to provide the interviewer with insight into how you’d be the best candidate for a role, while proving you’re someone who can think on her feet.

Essentially, «What makes you unique» really means, «What makes you an exceptionally good candidate?»

To avoid an awkward conversation, you’ll want to be prepared to answer «What makes you unique?» in an interview. Here are seven sample answers to ensure you’re proving yourself an incredibly valuable company asset.

How to answer «What makes you unique?»

7 Sample Answers to «What Makes You Unique?» and Why They Work

1. «I am a very good communicator and find it’s easy for me to relate to other people.»

Consider mentioning a personality trait you feel would be a good fit for the business. After reading the job description, make a list of attributes that could make you an exceptional candidate.

Additionally, including a personality trait in your answer allows you to display how you’re a good fit for a role in which you have little prior experience.

For instance, if you’re applying for a position as a team leader, it’s critical that you demonstrate strong communication skills and an ability to connect with a diverse group of people. If you tell the interviewer, «I am a very good communicator and find it’s easy for me to relate to other people», you’re able to match your personality to components of a successful leader.

Effective communication is a critical trait to emphasize in interviews — if you consider how 86% of employees cite lack of collaboration as a main component of workplace failures, you can begin to appreciate why effective communication is so important.

2. «I really enjoy learning new things and am constantly seeking out new learning opportunities.»

By mentioning your passion for learning new things, you’re demonstrating you’re growth-focused and unafraid of challenges.

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3. «My prior experience in customer service has provided me with unique technical skills that I can apply to this role.»

If you have prior experience in a role vastly different from the one for which you’re applying, you might use this as an opportunity to explain how your background uniquely qualifies you. With an answer like this one, you’re able to alleviate concerns the interviewer might have with your lack of experience in the field.

It’s critical, however, that you provide specific examples of how your prior experience has provided you with certain transferrable skills.

For instance, you might say, «My prior experience in customer service provided me with technical skills and an extensive knowledge base for how our product works. As a marketer, I will be able to use this knowledge to ensure we’re meeting our customers needs with every campaign we launch.»

It’s also important to highlight: Previous job experience has declined in importance when it comes to recruiters evaluating candidates. In fact, between 2017 and 2021, that number has dropped from 92% to 62%. So it’s okay if you feel your prior work experience doesn’t perfectly align with the role for which you’re applying, as long as you can explain how your skills will help you succeed.

4. «Working at a startup gave me an opportunity to understand the ins-and-outs of the industry, and to take on tasks I might not have at a larger company. I think this experience gives me a slight edge over other applicants.»

Similar to the answer above, this answer is a good one if you’re attempting to switch industries. If you think your prior experience could deter interviewers from seeing you as exceptionally qualified, this is an optimal chance to prove them wrong. Consider how your background has allowed you to gain unique skills that others, who followed a more linear career trajectory, might not have.

For instance, if you previously worked at a small startup and now you want to transfer to a large corporation, it’s important you mention how those skills will make you successful in this new role.

5. «I’m not afraid of failure. In fact, I think it is an essential part of the experimental process that gets you to success. For example … «

This answer shows your interviewer that you’re not afraid to take risks. Of course, you’ll only want to say this if you have a positive example to reinforce the importance of failure in the workplace.

You don’t want to sound like you make mistakes all the time, but you’ll stand out if you mention how you turned a failure into a success.

For instance, you might say, «I’m not afraid of failure. In my last role, we tried to streamline our SEO process and, along the way, found we’d accidentally decreased traffic to our site. However, this initial failure allowed me to see the errors in our previous procedure. My team and I came up with a more successful strategy to avoid these mistakes in the future, and ended up increasing traffic by 20%.»

6. «When solving problems, I apply both logic and emotional aspects in equal proportion. For instance, I’m trained in SEO and understand how to use analytics to ensure a marketing campaign is successful, but I also majored in design and know how to apply creativity to a project as well.»

If you’re stuck on deciding how to demonstrate your unique qualifications, start by thinking about how other people approach problems at your company, and how you differ.

For instance, most people are either logical and use analytics to solve problems, or emotional and use creativity. It’s rare to find someone who is both. If you truly believe you combine these two aspects, it’s an impressive ability you should highlight.

7. «I’m exceptionally organized, and at my last company, I was able to apply this skill to improve our process and increase ROI by 33%.»

Remember, when your interviewee asks «what makes you unique», she’s really wondering «how will you help our company?» At the end of the day, it’s critical you tie your answer back to how you will solve problems for the company.

48% of recruiters say improving quality of hire is their top priority in 2022 — so you’ll want to ensure your answer highlights how you will excel in the role for the long haul.

To avoid sounding like you’re bragging, consider a personality trait or skill set that helped your last company achieve results. If the results are quantitative, make sure you have the specific numbers to support your claim. However, it’s also appropriate to share qualitative results, such as, «my organizational skills led my manager to trusting me with a major project within the first two months in my role.» Ultimately, providing examples shows the interviewer you’re results-driven, and aren’t just saying generic phrases to answer her question.

Originally published Apr 5, 2022 7:00:00 AM, updated April 05 2022

6 Tips to Answer ‘Why are you the best candidate for this position’

6 Tips to Answer ‘Why are you the best candidate for this position’

Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a cheat sheet of how to answer interview questions and land your dream job? Well, unfortunately there isn’t one. No need to worry though, instead look at it from this perspective, if you were the hiring manager what questions would you ask candidates to ensure that you get the ideal candidate, who is genuinely interested in working for the company? Once you understand that, you will be in a better position to determine what the interviewer wishes to know with every interview question they ask. As such, we’ve provided useful tips to answer ‘why are you the best candidate for this position’ to help you ace your interview and get the job.

Employers create a job opportunity or role within their company, to indicate that they are looking for someone who can solve a particular problem (as illustrated in the job description). As such, most hiring managers use a variety of questions to determine if a candidate is the best fit to solve that problem. How you answer these questions will determine whether you land the job or not.

Interviews are merely for information gathering, information about candidates. As such the interviewer may ask you the question, why are you the best candidate for this position? Phrased differently, why should we hire you? Or, why do you think you are the right fit for this role? Alternatively, what would you bring to this position?

Every new hire can pose a risk for the company and the hiring manager as well. Therefore, the hiring manager has to ensure that the candidate selected is not a liability but an asset for the company.

So, why do interviewers ask this question? Well, the main aim is to ensure that the company gets the best candidate for the job. Consider the fact that the majority of applicants that make it to the interview stage are all qualified. The company is looking for an above average candidate, the most qualified among all the applicants.

As the interviewee, you should expect this question or at least a variation of the question. As such, you should prepare adequately to refine your answer.

Therefore, the interviewer wants to know why it would be better (are you confident in your abilities to deliver and if so, are these abilities relevant to the job?) to hire you and not any other candidate, and assess that you as the candidate are aware of what the company is looking for.

Use the information on the job description to understand the role expectations, the skill sets, and how they align to your career goals.

As such, you must prove to the hiring manager that:

In such cases, your objective is to prove to the hiring manager why you are a valuable candidate for the job. Therefore, when making your pitch illustrate what you have to offer the company and how it will be relevant to the role.

Follow the simple guidelines below during your preparation period to know exactly what to say and what to avoid, as well as the essential aspects to include in your answer.

Table of contents

How to answer why are you the best candidate for this position?

There are hundreds of ways to address this question, but you need to be smart about how you approach it. To start, thoroughly go through the job description to understand what the company is looking for, precisely. Re-examine your resume, your past experiences and your skills set. You can do this by asking yourself questions along this line of thought:

Once you are done answering the questions above, you can match your qualifications to the job requirements. The second step is to brainstorm how your these qualifications helped you achieve the expected outcome in the past, you can use the STAR technique (situation, task, action, results) to illustrate your answer. In the final step, review how your qualifications make you the best candidate for the role and tailor an answer that illustrates this aspect based on the steps above. The aim here is to help you formulate the right answer to this interview question. This should act as a basis to help you prepare for your interview.

Once you’ve completed the assessment, consider formulating your answer using the guidelines below. The guidelines are specifically tailored to ensure you know how to answer this question, and included are sample answers to give you a general feel of the expected answer.

1. Highlight specific traits in your personality or relevant skills that make you the best candidate for the role.

In most work environments, you’re expected to establish a certain relationship with your colleagues to facilitate the workflow, in this case, your education or experience don’t apply, your traits determine how you’ll interact with others and create an efficient working environment.

Personality plays a vital role in the job performance of everyone. However, not every personality trait is relevant to the job. Therefore, it’s important that you know the relevant personality type and how it will help you achieve the duties of the role. While it may be difficult to illustrate your personality traits, they may be crucial to getting you the job. Your personality is unique to you. If it can contribute to your success in the role, mention the specific traits and skills that are unique to you and will make you succeed.

Sample answer 1:
I am a highly motivated, result-oriented individual, willing to go an extra mile to reach goals and learn along the way. For example, my last job involved meeting specific targets on a daily basis, which I managed and sometimes surpassed while gaining better and effective means of improving the achievement of those goals. I’m confident that if given this opportunity, I will thrive and deliver quality work within stipulated deadlines. I look forward to contributing my skills and experiences to your organization if given the opportunity.

Sample answer 2:
I’m confident that I will thrive in this position, seeing that I have all the skills that you are looking for. Having worked as a sales and marketing agent, I’m well versed with the job requirements.

Apart from my impeccable track record as the leading sales and marketing agent in the district, my flawless communication and interpersonal skills are precisely what your company needs to achieve its marketing advantage. I will not only bring my skills and experience but also my return clients database that I’ve created over the years.

2. Highlight your accomplishments that are relevant to the job

Highlighting your accomplishments illustrates what you are bringing to the role and most importantly the company if hired. Your work is to find your proudest accomplishment and coming up with a concise answer that shows how it is relevant to the role.

If you have pertinent accomplishments that could make you stand out, share them and illustrate how these achievements make you the best candidate for this position. Accomplishments always succeed. If your accomplishments are quantifiable then the hiring manager will prefer you to a newbie, somebody straight out of college, since the risk is reduced.

Sample answer 3:
My background experience, as a sales and marketing representative, equipped me with the relevant skills for this role. I’m very ambitious and determined to achieve my goals, and my enthusiasm to get work done motivates my team members. In the past six months, my team and I were ranked among the top ten sales and marketing teams in the industry. It’s not just my background that makes me the ideal candidate, but also my excellent management and leadership skills, as well as my excellent communication skills.

Tips to answer ‘Why are you suitable for this job?

There are numerous approaches you can use to tackle this question. Sell yourself and convince the hiring manager why you are the best candidate for the position. Also, preparing in advance helps to avoid being caught off-guard with such questions.

To do this, consider standing in front of the mirror or better yet, practice with a friend, and refine your answer as you continue practicing.

To land this job, you need to come prepared with a well-summarized answer, which highlights your best traits, skills, relevant experience, accomplishments, and education. Therefore, practice! Refine your answer several times, until you craft the one that will land you the job.

1. Match your skills to the job requirements/description

Re-examine the job description against your resume and note any similar skills or roles. Compare the related skills to the job responsibilities, experience requirements or characteristics, and explain how they correspond to the job role.

Convince the hiring team that your industry experience, education or skills, as noted in your resume, make you the best candidate for the position.

2. Know what you bring to the position and how it helps the company

Avoid any statements that imply you are desperate for the job. Instead, focus on how your experiences, abilities, and skills will add value to the company. All this information is in the job description/requirements. Your work is to determine which of these requirements align with previous experience, your abilities, your skills and the information on your resume. The next step would be to determine how your qualifications are relevant to the role, and how to use them to make a killer pitch and land the job.

A general rule of thumb to prepare for these type of questions is to carry out an extensive background check of the company before the interview.

Concentrate on the company’s culture, mission, vision, projects, partnerships, among other things, to get a general feel of the working environment and also, determine if it’s somewhere you would want to work.

3. Confidence is key

Doing a background check of the company allows you to prepare in advance, which ensures that you state your answer confidently and clearly, from the choice of words to tone of your voice.

Prepare adequately in advance by making sure all the relevant materials are readily available and updated to fit the job you’re eying.

4. Stand-out: be unique!

Focus on your personality or personal traits that make you unique and the best fit for the job. Also, you can emphasize skills that are specific to you, because not many people possess them, and they are sure to make you the ideal candidate for the position.

Consider mentioning your great interpersonal skills or leadership skills, and your ability to resolve conflict amicably. Not everyone possesses these skills, therefore if you can use them to your advantage. But don’t exaggerate!

Although, the objective is to sell yourself and prove that you are the best candidate, don’t compare yourself to other candidates. Just emphasize your uniqueness positively and do not attack or demean other candidates. Understand that everyone who made it to the interview position is just as qualified as you are and deserve to be respected.

5. Be honest

Don’t exaggerate or lie. Mention any milestones, such as awards or accomplishments that you’ve received in the past, but do not exaggerate or lie about your accomplishments. Imagine a scenario where you lie about your accomplishment for you to get the job, only to fail to deliver when the same is expected of you? It’s not worth it, and worse still, your former colleagues or boss may be contacted to quantify your accomplishments. Always be truthful, the worst that can happen is you’ll not get the job but that’s okay.

6. Be convincing

To effectively sell and convince the hiring manager that you are the perfect fit for the position, you need to be convincing. Elaborate on past experiences that made you successful in your previous job and quantify them using examples.

Be truthful and ensure that the referees you’ve provided in your resume can quantify your qualifications.

What to avoid: Mistakes candidates make when asked this question

Landing a job after an interview is tough! Therefore, don’t sabotage the chance to get your dream job because of small, silly mistakes that you can easily avoid. This can’t be reiterated enough, Practice!

Rambling:
Relax! Don’t start talking about where you and your family went for a vacation. Focus on the compelling points that illustrate your suitability for the position. Keep your answer concise by limiting each question to at least 1-2 minutes. Also, practice in advance.

Don’t be modest:
This is your opportunity to sell yourself and convince the hiring manager why you’re the suitable candidate for the job, so don’t under-represent yourself.

Give general answers:
Don’t give vague answers. Include your personality in the solutions you provide. Think your answers through, try as much as possible to discuss traits, skills, and abilities that make you unique. Be as specific as possible, you don’t want your answers to sound rehearsed or memorized. Yes, use the information here as a guide, but don’t memorize it.

While this may be an essential interview question, not all hiring managers use it. Therefore, despite your preparation, you may have to look for opportunities during the interview to sell yourself using the mentioned key points.

When answering this question, remember that this is an opportunity to highlight your best skills and convince the interviewer that you are the ideal candidate for the job. Therefore, base your answer on prior industrial experience, hard and soft skills, accomplishments, accolades, and education.

Comment below and let us know how you have answered this question before (we’ve all had them!).

NFTs, explained

I have questions about this emerging. um. art form? Platform?

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Illustration by Mengxin Li / The Verge

There’s nothing like an explosion of blockchain news to leave you thinking, “Um… what’s going on here?” That’s the feeling I’ve experienced while reading about Grimes getting millions of dollars for NFTs or about Nyan Cat being sold as one.

In the year since NFTs exploded in popularity, the situation has only gotten more complicated. Pictures of apes have sold for tens of millions of dollars, there’s been an endless supply of headlines about million-dollar hacks of NFT projects, and corporate cash grabs have only gotten worse.

All this news may have left you wondering: what is an NFT, anyhow?

After countless hours of research and discussions (most of which were against my will), I think I know. I also think I’m going to cry.

Okay, let’s start with the basics.

What is an NFT? What does NFT stand for?

That doesn’t make it any clearer.

Right, sorry. “Non-fungible” more or less means that it’s unique and can’t be replaced with something else. For example, a bitcoin is fungible — trade one for another bitcoin, and you’ll have exactly the same thing.

A one-of-a-kind trading card, however, is non-fungible. If you traded it for a different card, you’d have something completely different. You gave up a Squirtle, and got a 1909 T206 Honus Wagner, which StadiumTalk calls “the Mona Lisa of baseball cards.” (I’ll take their word for it.)

How do NFTs work?

At a very high level, most NFTs are part of the Ethereum blockchain, though other blockchains have implemented their own version of NFTs. Ethereum is a cryptocurrency, like bitcoin or dogecoin, but its blockchain also keeps track of who’s holding and trading NFTs.

How do you pronounce NFT?

Almost everyone spells it out, saying “en eff tee.” The brave call them “nefts.” The enlightened have never had the word cross their lips.

What’s worth picking up at the NFT supermarket?

NFTs can really be anything digital (such as drawings, music, your brain downloaded and turned into an AI), but a lot of the current excitement is around using the tech to sell digital art.

You mean, like, people buying my good tweets?

I don’t think anyone can stop you, but that’s not really what I meant. A lot of the conversation is about NFTs as an evolution of fine art collecting, only with digital art.

Could you do a real quick rundown of what the blockchain is?

Well, they’re pretty complex, but the basic idea is that blockchains are a way to store data without having to trust any one company or entity to keep things secure and accurate. There are definitely nuances and exceptions there, which you can read about in our blockchain explainer, but when most people say “blockchain,” that’s the kind of tech they’re talking about.

There’s also. a lot of nuance about whether NFT’s are on the blockchain or not, which we’ll dig into in a bit.

Oooh, foreshadowing.

I know, I feel like a real writer.

So do people really think this will be the future of collecting?

Yoink! Image: Beeple

Sorry, I was busy right-clicking on that Beeple video and downloading the same file the person paid millions of dollars for.

Wow, rude. But yeah, that’s the awkward bit. You can copy a digital file as many times as you want, including the art that’s included with an NFT.

But NFTs are designed to give you something that can’t be copied: ownership of the work (though the artist can still retain the copyright and reproduction rights, just like with physical artwork). To put it in terms of physical art collecting: anyone can buy a Monet print. But only one person can own the original.

No shade to Beeple, but the video isn’t really a Monet.

Whoever got that Monet can actually appreciate it as a physical object. With digital art, a copy is literally as good as the original.

But the flex of owning an original Beeple.

I think I remember hearing that NFTs are already over. Didn’t the boom go bust? Like for real this time?

Sales have absolutely slumped since their peak, though like with seemingly everything in crypto there’s always somebody declaring it over and done with right before a big spike. Am I predicting that NFTs are about to make a comeback? Absolutely not, but I’m sure there are plenty of folks in NFT-based communities that are sure they’re still on the gravy train.

Oh no you’re about to talk about the apes aren’t you?

If you haven’t heard about the Bored Ape Yacht Club, it’s one of the most successful NFT projects, with apes (which are procedurally generated and have unique characteristics) selling for millions of dollars. The company behind the series of NFTs has created a spin-off cryptocurrency, broken the blockchain for a few hours with how popular one of their sales was, and even acquired other massive NFT brands. And a reminder: this all happened because people really like saying that they own a picture of a Bored Ape.

People like, for instance, Jimmy Fallon and Paris Hilton, who discussed their apes on TV in a clip that went viral for being soooo uncomfortable.

This kind of club isn’t really a new phenomenon — people have long built communities based on things they own, and now it’s happening with NFTs. It could be argued that one of the earliest NFT projects, CryptoPunks, got big thanks to its community.

Bored Ape Yacht Club members want to build an empire, starting with weed

What’s the point of NFTs?

That really depends on whether you’re an artist or a buyer.

I’m an artist.

First off: I’m proud of you. Way to go. You might be interested in NFTs because it gives you a way to sell work that there otherwise might not be much of a market for. If you come up with a really cool digital sticker idea, what are you going to do? Sell it on the iMessage App Store? No way.

Also, some NFT marketplaces have a feature where you can make sure you get paid a percentage every time your NFT is sold or changes hands. That makes sure that if your work gets super popular and balloons in value, you’ll see some of that benefit.

I’m a buyer.

One of the obvious benefits of buying art is it lets you financially support artists you like, and that’s true with NFTs (which are way trendier than, like, Telegram stickers). Buying an NFT also usually gets you some basic usage rights, like being able to post the image online or set it as your profile picture. Plus, of course, there are bragging rights that you own the art, with a blockchain entry to back it up.

No, I meant I’m a collector.

Ah, okay, yes. NFTs can work like any other speculative asset, where you buy it and hope that the value of it goes up one day, so you can sell it for a profit. I feel kind of dirty for talking about that, though.

So every NFT is unique?

In the boring, technical sense that every NFT is a unique token on the blockchain. But while it could be like a van Gogh, where there’s only one definitive actual version, it could also be like a trading card, where there’s 50 or hundreds of numbered copies of the same artwork.

Who would pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for what basically amounts to a trading card?

Well, that’s part of what makes NFTs so messy. Some people treat them like they’re the future of fine art collecting (read: as a playground for the mega-rich), and some people treat them like Pokémon cards (where they’re accessible to normal people but also a playground for the mega-rich). Speaking of Pokémon cards, Logan Paul sold some NFTs relating to a million-dollar box of the—

Please stop. I hate where this is going.

It would be hilarious if Logan Paul decided to sell 50 more NFTs of the exact same video.

Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda (who also sold some NFTs that included a song) actually talked about that. It’s totally a thing someone could do if they were, in his words, “an opportunist crooked jerk.” I’m not saying that Logan Paul is that, just that you should be careful who you buy from.

Are NFTs mainstream now?

It depends on what you mean. If you’re asking if, say, my mom owns one, the answer is no.

The response from my mom when I asked her about owning NFTs.

But we have seen big brands and celebrities like Marvel and Wayne Gretzky launch their own NFTs, which seem to be aimed at more traditional collectors, rather than crypto-enthusiasts. While I don’t think I’d call NFTs “mainstream” in the way that smartphones are mainstream, or Star Wars is mainstream, they do seem to have, at least to some extent, shown some staying power even outside of the cryptosphere.

But what do The Youth think of them?

Okay, but what does Keanu Reeves think of NFTs?

That moment would make a great NFT.

Someone thought that too, and minted that clip as an NFT. It wasn’t us though! Rampant copyright infringement is an ongoing problem in the space. One of the post popular NFT trading sites estimated that over 80 percent of the artwork minted using its free tool were “plagiarized works, fake collections, and spam.” Which is, you know, not a great look?

The counterfeit NFT problem is only getting worse

Can I buy this article as an NFT?

Gross. Actually, could I buy someone’s teeth as an NFT?

There have been some attempts at connecting NFTs to real-world objects, often as a sort of verification method. Nike has patented a method to verify sneakers’ authenticity using an NFT system, which it calls CryptoKicks. But so far, I haven’t found any teeth, no. I’m scared to look.

Look? Where?

There are several marketplaces that have popped up around NFTs, which allow people to buy and sell. These include OpenSea, Rarible, and Grimes’ choice, Nifty Gateway, but there are plenty of others.

I’ve heard there were kittens involved. Tell me about the kittens.

NFTs really became technically possible when the Ethereum blockchain added support for them as part of a new standard. Of course, one of the first uses was a game called CryptoKitties that allowed users to trade and sell virtual kittens. Thank you, internet.

I love kittens.

Arrrrrggggg!

Same. At one point I thought that the kittens would be used in games in a somewhat interesting ways. That glimmer of hope has been decimated by the fact that almost every salesperson in the NFT space promises that their tokens will be part of a game or metaverse.

When real game developers like Ubisoft and the studio behind STALKER have said they’d integrate NFTs into their games. people reacted VERY negatively. The companies have either had to scrap their plans entirely or severely tone down the amount of blockchain stuff in their games.

Of course, there have been a few fun experiments in the NFT space (though I’ll admit that at least one of them was poking fun at the concept of NFTs), but. listen, one of the most successful NFT-based games is kind of a weird version of feudalism, and also got mega-hacked. So there’s that.

At least it’s not digital pet rocks. right?

In fact, there are people who spent tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on NFT pet rocks (the website for which says that the rocks serve no purpose other than being tradable and limited).

Can I cry on your shoulder?

Only if I can cry on yours.

Could I pull off a museum heist to steal NFTs?

This image is not an NFT. Yet. Image: Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers

That depends. Part of the allure of blockchain is that it stores a record of each time a transaction takes place, making it harder to steal and flip than, say, a painting hanging in a museum.

Or at least that’s the theory. In reality, many, many people have gotten their NFTs stolen by attackers using a variety of tactics. To be clear, hackers aren’t always playing 5D chess here. For the ever complicated hack of the programs that control the flow of crypto, there’s a case where someone was tricked into signing a transaction they shouldn’t have through run-of-the-mill phishing.

Note: Please don’t steal.

Should I be worried about digital art being around in 500 years?

Probably. Bit rot is a real thing: image quality deteriorates, file formats can’t be opened anymore, websites go down, people forget the password to their wallets. But physical art in museums is also shockingly fragile.

But wait, doesn’t the fact that they’re on the blockchain make them permanent?

Okay, so this is a whole thing. Technically, yes: when you say NFT you’re referring to an entry on the blockchain. However, the actual media, like the picture, GIF, or flagrant flaunting of copyright law is very rarely actually stored on the blockchain — it’d be too expensive to do that.

Sometimes the media the NFT points to is stored on a cloud service, which isn’t exactly decentralized. Since this has come up as an issue, with people worried that their NFT proving they watched the Lions lose could go poof if one company goes under or changes their URL scheme, many in the NFT space have been turning to decentralized storage solutions like the InterPlanetary File System that use torrent-like technology. It’s not bulletproof, but it’s better than having your million-dollar JPG stored on Google Photos.

Torrent-like? So people are pirating NFTs?

No. Well, kinda, but hold that thought. The idea behind IPFS is that files are stored on a peer-to-peer network, meaning they could be stored on several computers at once. Files are given an identifier, and when a computer goes to load the file it asks the IPFS network to give it the file with that ID. Any of the computers storing it can say, “Oh, here it is!”

When you make an NFT, the content link is baked into the token. If that link goes to IPFS, it’ll be pointing to something that’s more permanent than, say, an image on a regular server.

In theory, anyways. Of course, distributed does not equal perfect. Experts have warned that files could still end up on a single computer, and could be lost in the case of a hard drive crash.

Your million-dollar NFT can break tomorrow if you’re not careful

Okay, so what’s that you said about pirating?

So someone created this site called The NFT Bay as a sort of art project, where they put up a torrent pointing to a 19TB ZIP file, which they said included every NFT on the Ethereum and Solana blockchains. There’s some doubt about whether was actually a treasure trove of NFTs (if such a thing could be referred to as “treasure”), but in theory it’s actually possible to scan the blockchain to find every record of an NFT being minted, and download the media it links to.

Real or not, it was an incredible piece of performance art, sparking a conversation (okay, closer to a flame war) about the right-clicker mindset.

Sorry, what on Earth is a right-clicker mindset?

Ah, sorry. “Right clicker” is sort of a joking derisive term used by NFT boosters to deride people who just don’t get it. The thought is that you’re completely missing the point if you think that just downloading (or pirating) a JPEG will actually get you the valuable part of an NFT.

Go ahead, make yourself a gold-coated steak at home. Post a picture of it on Instagram. See how much clout it gets you.

Salt Bae’s dish costs 1500GBP because people want to pay 1500GBP to show off that they can afford to pay that much. It’s all about the flex.

Has anyone ever had their feelings hurt when someone tells them they have a right click mindset? Probably not, but their eyes may get a little sore from rolling so hard.

The counterfeit NFT problem is only getting worse

I want to maximize my blockchain use. Can I buy NFTs with cryptocurrencies?

Yes. Probably. A lot of the marketplaces accept Ethereum. But technically, anyone can sell an NFT, and they could ask for whatever currency they want.

Will trading my Logan Paul NFTs contribute to global warming and melt Greenland?

It’s definitely something to look out for. Since NFTs use the same blockchain technology as some energy-hungry cryptocurrencies, they also end up using a lot of electricity. There are people working on mitigating this issue, but so far, most NFTs are still tied to cryptocurrencies that generate a lot of greenhouse gas emissions. There have been a few cases where artists have decided to not sell NFTs or to cancel future drops after hearing about the effects they could have on climate change. Thankfully, one of my colleagues has really dug into it, so you can read this piece to get a fuller picture.

The NFT market has grown,
As eight-figure auctions have shown.
The overall price is
A worse climate crisis
For art you pretend that you own.

Can I build an underground art cave / bunker to store my NFTs?

Well, like cryptocurrencies, NFTs are stored in digital wallets (though it is worth noting that the wallet does specifically have to be NFT-compatible). You could always put the wallet on a computer in an underground bunker, though.

What if I wanted to watch a TV show that’s somehow related to NFTs?

Believe it or not, you have options! Steve Aoki is working on a show based on a character from a previous NFT drop, called Dominion X. The show’s site says that it’ll be an episodic series launched on the blockchain (the first short video is on OpenSea), and there are hundreds of NFTs already associated with the show.

There’s also a show called Stoner Cats (yes, it’s about cats that get high, and yes it stars Mila Kunis, Chris Rock, and Jane Fonda), which uses NFTs as a sort of ticket system. Currently, there’s only one episode available, but a Stoner Cat NFT (which, of course, is called a TOKEn) is required to watch it.

Random question: what’s an NFT party like?

My colleague went to an event linked to NFT.NYC. It sounds like it was a. unique (or should I say non-fungible?) experience.

Are you tired of typing “NFT”?

This story was first published March 3rd, 2021. It has been updated to reflect new developments in NFTs.