Mickey wants to popularize digital property.
images: disney, midjourney
Brief:
Disney uses the Simpsons to stick his finger in the wounds between the NFTs and the mass audience.
Pinnacle the collection of Digital Pins: Hooks to hook hearts.
Culture change, mobile experience and user safety come into focus.
Conflicts of value, the resistance of the artistic community and fundamentalism are challenges.
Recently, Homer turned Bart into an NFT in a viral episode of The Simpsons. And that wasn't an accident.
NFTs have revolutionized digital ownership in an incredible way, but not everything we've done with it has been as amazing. "Burned at the starting line" due to cases of excessive speculation, fraud, and the perception of elitism associated with the market, we've created quite a bad reputation around Non-Fungible Tokens (scary name, right?), with significant barriers to widespread acceptance.
Disney knows this, and yet, it decided to venture into the Web3 Intellectual Property market. Unable to blame the media, Disney decided to roll up its sleeves and get into the game in its own way: By the Heart.
Disney NFTs are not a novelty. But so far, the entertainment giant has been trying to adapt to a new market, exposing its intellectual properties in redundant products to an extremely critical audience, where Mickey seems like a party crasher at an ape's fest. However, things seem to change now: Instead of trying to convince Web3 that its NFTs are cool, Homer, Mickey, and Yoda have decided to bring their audience to Web3.
image: fox channel
Laughing at NFTs
One of the best ways to face the tough side of life is to laugh at our problems. And The Simpsons (owned by Disney) are good at that. Not for nothing, Bart was recently catched in an NFT that his father tried to sell for $1.5 million. In this iconic episode, Disney points fingers at the main issues surrounding NFTs and public opinion.
“Art lover of Springfield, the art museum will close its doors permanently! Replacing paintings and sculptures, art will now be digitized and sold as non-fungible tokens on the blockchain." From the episode "Treehouse of Horror XXXIV" of The Simpsons.
The logic here seems to be: "Stop trying to convince people of your legitimacy and make fun of the nonsense said by those who don't understand what you're doing." Only those who are very confident in what they're doing can take a stance like this.
It's like the old story of the "closeted gay" and the "flamboyant one" at school. While the first one suffers trying to explain himself to a world that doesn't want to understand, the second one kicks the door, responds "present" like a peacock on the attendance list, and woe to those who are sad about it. Anyone who has never seen a bully swallow hard in front of a figure like this didn't have a childhood. Isn't it true? Here, Disney seems to have done the same with people's reluctance about NFTs. In a more playful way, but no less sharp.
Pins: Hooks that Catch Hearts
In the Olympics, at Disney Parks, in the World Cup... Sticking a pin on your cap or backpack has always been a way of telling the world that you were happy in amazing places like these. They are beautiful, often expensive, desired, and a symbol of what we like about ourselves.
In the week following the Simpsons episode, Disney announces Disney Pinnacle: Its collection of NFT pins. Here, Mickey uses simplicity and nostalgia, appropriating this "heart-hook" from the physical world, inviting its audience to live this emotional memory also in the digital world. Childhood memories, Buzz Lightyear, Woody, and Disney Princesses now take shape as NFTs.
Accessibility is the Key
Disney Pinnacle didn't come for the crypto experts; it came for everyone. For this, a sales platform was created with a focus on the mobile experience. Forget those screens full of countless charts familiar to the native Web3. Buying your Pin with your smartphone in hand should be as simple as in the park store.
Registration for early purchase is done with your email, no wallets. You also wait on a "waitlist", not on the "whitelist" - the traditional VIP lists of the NFT market.
The folks at Dapper Labs are leading this: the guys who rocked creating the NBA Top Shot NFTs. These people were among those responsible for creating the market as we know it today by turning a collectible card game into NFTs: the CryptoKitties. With the money and success of the kittens, the Dapper Labs team created the Flow blockchain, focused on the agility, scalability, and low cost of operations, making it particularly good for games.
Will Disney's Pins become characters in games soon? We don't know, but it's a possibility that the technology chosen for the Pinnacle offers.
What do we get out of this?
Disney's entry into the Web3 scene brings significant market developments in various aspects. Among them:
1. Paving the Way:
Currently, Web3 creators face resistance from the mainstream audience regarding the goods offered by blockchain technology. Building new culture is challenging for smaller players. When a company of Disney's caliber and credibility mobilizes assets like Bart, R2D2, and the Princesses to popularize Web3, it sets trends and expands the market for everyone. It's like we're on dirt roads, envisioning the first asphalted ones on the map.
2. Web3 Mobile:
Most Web3 Mobile Apps are a mere "appendix" to their desktop versions. With the mainstream audience coming in, this is expected to change, opening up a new level for creators.
What could people do if they had their NFTs on hand anywhere?
Could they interact with NFTs (characters) from other collections?
Inspire group experiences like in Pokémon Go?
Mobile features tend to take the lead in large-scale experiences, and creators need to be aware of this from now on.
3. Protecting Assets (The Customer)
Finally, there's that old drama: "What if I get robbed?" Having an account drained due to a wrong click has become "common sense" for Web3 users. It's terrible, but everyone accepts it. However, for those outside this bubble, it's unacceptable.
Companies like Disney consider trust as one of their greatest assets with their customers and are not willing to risk decades-long relationships due to a single innovation. Because of this, most major brands prefer to stay out of the game until the terrain seems safer. When giants like Disney invest in the sector in this way, they not only boost security technologies but also encourage other brands to do the same.
And if it goes wrong?
image: disney, midjourney
Yeah, maybe everything will go wrong. There are already prophets prophesying their doomsday prophecies. That's why the initiative of these big companies to take risks in the innovation field is so important. Among the main challenges, we have:
1. What is value in Web3?
Disney holds the biggest thematic communities we've known since before Web3 existed: Mickey and Donald, Frozen, Star Wars, Marvel... The value of these franchises to fans is tied to the heart. Web3 still lacks that emotional drive since, except for exceptions, the general tone is "how to get rich as quickly as possible with the least effort." Bringing in a new audience creates new values for Web3, but it's hard to predict what will happen when these tribes meet. After all, selling Luke Skywalker at the floor price in the digital flea market is sacrilege.
2. The Artistic Community against NFTs and AI
Even in the artistic community, NFTs are viewed with a lot of resistance: "PSEUDOART!" - many say, and most are not open to debate. It's all very similar to what Tarsila do Amaral, Warhol, Matisse, and even Walt Disney heard in their time - create drama and leave the room. Many of the artists' questions are valid, but it's not by denying technology that we move in the right direction. Despite this, this is how most artists have expressed themselves about Web3 and AI.
3. Fundamentalism hoping everything goes wrong
Web3 was born amid ideologies, and those who like them do everything to keep it that way. This created a legion of inspectors - or Web3 Sommeliers - always ready to attest to what is or is not legitimate in this digital revolution. "I love seeing these giant companies loosing up in here," many say, with the feeling that big companies launch tokens to take advantage of the ecosystem - "make big money at our expense" - instead of contributing to its development. To overcome this barrier, it is necessary, of course, to contribute. Show your value to the public before asking for money in return.
These are significant challenges to some extent, but dealing with them is the price of being a pioneer.
It's already the future in Australia!
(This is a Brazilian joke because the New Year arrives first in Australia while the rest of the world waits. It's our way of saying that something is coming, knocking on our door. 😁)
Let's get to know the next steps of Disney in its strategy to popularize digital property. We are witnessing the future of Intellectual Properties taking shape before us, with the opportunity to take our place in it. Success will depend on our ability to balance innovation with accessibility, technology with emotion.
Like every New Year's Eve, there are those who prophesy miraculous success or imminent disaster, but it's not the prophets who define our destiny; they just advertise it in their own way. Crucial is recognizing your role: deciding if you are part of the problems or the solutions.
Create. We've never lived such a great moment for it.
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