It was all going so well. Paris Hilton joined The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon to talk about her wedding. She says she had seven outfit changes. Kim Petras sang “Stars Are Blind†as she walked down the aisle. Her mom, Kathy, had a good time. All fun late-night chitchat. And then the crypto-Herbalife pitch began. “You taught me what’s up, and then I bought an ape,†Fallon tells Hilton. This would rule if this was mid-century Hollywood and Hilton had convinced him to buy an actual chimp. It would be ethically wrong, but still it would be lavish and exciting. But we know what millionaires mean when they refer to “apes†in 2022. Fallon meant a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT, an avatar with all the aesthetic complexity of a pissing Calvin bumper sticker.
“I bought one, too,†Hilton says, “because I saw you on the show with Beeple.†(An ugly sentence if ever we heard one.) Fallon pulls out a physical printout of a jpeg that Hilton owns (a link to), and there is an actual applause break for this image that is inexplicably worth more than a starter home in many American cities and produces far more carbon emissions than one. Then he pulls out his own BAYC (a printout of a jpeg to which he owns a link) and says it reminds him of himself. Sad! Hilton then debuts her new NFT collection, a GIF of “a collage of all of my memories with Carter†— her husband — “called ‘My Forever Fairy Tale’,†and gives one to everyone in the audience like some sort of metaverse Oprah. They go wild even though the vast majority of NFTs are about as valuable as a QR code on a Coke bottle cap that sends you to a dead link to an mp3 download. This whole thing is Ethereum LuLaRoe. We just wish celebs were getting involved with less tacky, more glamorous means of frittering away their wealth. At least the Beanie Babies bubble was cute.