The last time we squirmed and clutched our abs while hate-reading the most recent, loin-searing adventures of the abusive, bone-sucking creep show that is Armie Hammer, he was losing more acting jobs than Lindsay Lohan during her “steal sparkly shit and slap a bitch” phases. That’s a tough act to follow, but those two pillars of polite society also have something else in common, and no, it’s not an STD (that we know of, but the day is young). Both Armie and LiLo have been in recent headlines for their connections to NFTs, or non-fungible tokens.
NFTs are in the news a lot lately, and while some of us just get jaded visions of money laundering when the subject comes up, others like artist Julia Morrison seize the day and claim to try to steer the technology into something nobler and cause-oriented and to explore its function as an authentication tool, and not just a quick way to separate a fool and their money (that comes later).
The Daily Beast reports:
Brooklyn-based artist and writer Julia Morrison is behind the project and will be selling two NFT pieces on Foundation, complete with a physical lightbox of the exchanges. Titled “Armie DM TMI NFT: Dibs on Ribs” and “Armie DM TMI NFT: Caligula Triptych,” both conversations took place last year, months before Hammer’s fall from grace.
Much like everyone else, Morrison told The Daily Beast that she was “addicted” to the news about Hammer, constantly reading the articles and comments. Despite hundreds of screenshots posted by House of Effie, who came forward last month to accuse Hammer of violently raping her, and his former girlfriends Paige Lorenze and Courtney Vucekovich publicly sharing their stories of trauma, the women were repeatedly doubted and asked to prove their experiences were true.
Julia explained that she was sick of people not believing women and that it was triggering to read comments online that claimed the women who had come forward were making it up. “When I saw the House of Effie girl’s press conference, I cried.”
“I started looking into what the hell an NFT was and once I learned that it was a way to authenticate something, I said I want to make artwork out of my text messages with Armie Hammer,” Morrison explained. “The NFT is the new notary. What I’ve done is, anyone who questions the authenticity of these exchanges, I have now created light boxes with them, and I minted them as NFTs in order to say that these things are authentic and real. It’s like a checkmate.”
Hammer had first reached out to Morrison back in 2017, noting he was a big fan of her photo series “For Arabella” and wanted to know if there was a place in Los Angeles that he could see them. But she didn’t see his message until March of 2020 when a friend pointed out he was following her, leading her to strike up a conversation.
Break out the bibs and BBQ sauce if you haven’t already. Here is the conversation between Julia and Armie:
thank you to the legendary Anthony Haden-Guest for taking an interest in my latest artwork @HadenGuest @whitehotmag #nft #nftart #metoo https://t.co/D0kg2aYbe0
— Julia Morrison (@jellymorrison) April 20, 2021
This took place before all the Fall of the House of Armie cannibal fuckery hit the news, and the two had never met in person before sharing this provocative exchange. One Twitter user raises the following concerns:
I'm disturbed this artist is classifying a private DM between her and a celebrity she never met as #metoo this is so wrong https://t.co/IMckJ0WJyn
— Alachia (@alachia) April 21, 2021
The Daily Beast again:
“There’s not a single word that’s been exchanged that’s been deleted,” she added. “These are authentic real exchanges and by creating artworks out of them and using the NFT process, I’m putting them on the blockchain forever and ever to cement them as a token of the times we are living in.”
Whether Julia is wrongfully hijacking #metoo for her own personal monetary gain and career visibility here is up for debate (and she states that a portion of the profits will go towards a charitable cause), but her entry into the world of NFTs with this conversation-as-evidence and support of the women who have made the rape and abuse allegations is an intriguing one, and it remains to be seen where it may lead and who else might steer NFTs into other unexpected directions that might be slightly less of an eye-roll than Paris Hilton’s token entry into this realm.
In the meantime, you just know that Armie and his dead-eyed stare are probably spending their weekend trying to figure out how to turn his prized VHS copy of Caligula into an NFT.
Pic: Wenn.com
