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Stoner Cats: Weed, Celebrities, and NFTs

Stoner Cats: Weed, Celebrities, and NFTs
By Ani Alexander • Issue #17 • View online

It all started with Vitalik Buterin appearing in Ashton and Mila’s kitchen…
Well, I am sure it started way before that but this video was the first thing we as NFT community saw as a teaser of the Stoner Cats campaign.
Obviously, the video went viral, since it was cool and both communities - the ones who liked the actors as well as the ones who admired the tech genius were pretty massive.
Then we all found out that it was about the Stoner Cats and that became a big discussion topic.
For those who did not follow the whole roller coaster ride - I decided to write up my observations based on what I could discover by browsing the internet, spending some time on Twitter, and reading project conversations on Discord. 
As always, this too is an aside look at the events from a relatively inexperienced user’s perspective - and no I don’t own a cat and am not associated with the project in any shape or form. 
Ok let’s go.
First things first - what is the whole project about?
As stated on their homepage Stoner Cats is
“the new series of animated shorts from Mila Kunis and friends, including the creative forces behind Toy Story 2, Spider-Verse, Happy Feet, Cryptokitties and much much more…”
The high-level angle is “joining the magic” and “funding the content you want to watch”. Obviously, it’s also about the revolution, cutting out the middlemen, and creators and fans directly connecting. 
You could “join the revolution” by getting the collectible Stoned Cat NFT
And this is not all - seems like the team behind the project decided to tick many boxes at once based on everything that has been done so far and the NFT based on their roadmap also includes such elements as:
  • Access to content
  • Membership 
  • non- commercial rights to do whatever you want with your specific 2D non-animated Stoner Cat NFT image.
  • 1% of proceeds are being donated to charities - token holders vote on who does the money goes to
  • Regular community calls
  • Giveaways and physical collectibles + merch
  • Voting rights
  • Sponsorship/product placement opportunities
  • 2.5% royalty from secondary market sales
All this sounds great so far… 
Now also add to that the rockstar creative forces behind Toy Story 2, Spider-Verse, Happy Feet, Cryptokitties as well as the star team of voiceover artists
And things look even better, right?
Well… maybe.
Let’s look at how the NFT community reacted to this before the launch.
  1. Vitalik’s involvement
There were mainly 2 well-distinguished groups: one saying that the fact that he is involved brings credibility and trust to the project and the second one thought that it did not fit his image and he should not have got involved in such a thing…
Many were wondering why he would even want to do that? 
All agreed that he did not need the money - so that could not be the reason.
The second most common guess was that after his speech at the EthCC  Paris event, he is open to projects that are beyond DeFi and have more human/emotional/social impact aspects behind them.
I guess we will never know, but the fact is that Vitalik 1. was in Ashton’s kitchen 2. was part of the promo teasers 3. is doing a voiceover 4. endorses the project
  1. “Cash Grab” accusations
Many did not exactly embrace the new celebrities entering this space. The sentiment varied from a mild “meh, another celebrity jumping on a bandwagon” to way more uncensored phrases.
If you are not a complete newb in this space I am sure you know Beanie. He was one of the first people to state his positioning about the project loud and clear. 
And there is another thread of his worth looking at in here.
Setting up the secondary royalties to 10% as well as the high price of the NFT compared to the other collectibles were helping that narrative too.
  1. Mass adoption illusion
Then there was a group of a naive crowd that had this illusion that the project was awesome because thanks to the celebrities it will attract the attention of people who are not familiar with the NFTs and lure them in. The masses will come for Stoner Cats, get the taste of how awesome space is and stay, later becoming active participants. And like that, this project was going to have a “social impact” and do the important work of “contributing to the mass adoption”. In fact, some even argued that that’s exactly why Buterin decided to join it.
What do I think about it?
I say it’s bullshit!
If you are tailoring your project to be suitable for the “average Joe” you need to ensure a minimum of 2 things: user-friendly UI/UX and fiat on-ramp so people could pay with credit cards since you can’t expect the average Joe to have Metamask and anticipate the brutal slap in the face by the gas fees (more about those fees coming later). 
Oh, and you probably don’t price your NFT at 0.35 ETH either when most of the collectibles in the space were priced at 0.08 ETH.
  1. Uncertainty 
The interesting thing that I noticed was that people kept discussing the NFT and were asking each other about what they were actually getting. To be fair, I had not checked their homepage before the launch, so am not sure what was there exactly, but from the discussions that I saw on socials, it felt like the message was not very clear and many were confused about the actual utility of the token…
  1. Hype
In the space of NFT collectibles where people saw how the Crypto Punks and Bored Apes made many people rich, many are looking for the next big thing. And they wanna make sure that when they come across that thing, they don’t miss it.
Now the tricky part is figuring out which one that next collectible will be… and many, for that information, go to… Discord and Twitter to listen to people who with big convictions give “not financial advice”. 
Needless to say, there were many people hyping Stoned Cats and apparently many more who believed in them, since there was real FOMO just a day from the launch.
OK so far so good. Seems like a regular pre-launch dynamic. Nothing too extraordinary. Now let’s see what happened on the launch day.
Launch day
Many things happened on the Launch date - but the launch itself was not one of those. The launch was postponed to the next day. 
Ok, this may sound very bad and even I was joking that this is what happens when a tech genius is recording a cartoon voiceover and actors are working on the NFT collectible release… 
Beanie could not miss this opportunity of course…
From what I gathered it partly had to do with adjusting the royalties from 10% to 2.5%.
I have always been advocating listening to community feedback and addressing their concerns - so I would definitely give the project credit for this move. If this is what people wanted then probably it’s worth waiting for a bit more…
The other thing I liked about it was that they openly spoke with the community explaining some stuff and taking responsibility.
On the other hand though - I personally think that if just a few dudes can get together and pull a project like the Bored Apes without any hiccups (as far as I know…) then celebrities with many resources and leverage and friends like Gary V + rockstar storytellers and a talented visual artist, as well as the expertise of Vitalik - should do MUCH better! 
So although I do understand that we are all humans, and mistakes happen and we should not be so harsh about it - I think at this point many people lost trust and were no longer so sure about it. 
Now add to that the unprofessional moderators on their Discord channel, who left the impression that they neither understand the NFT community and can speak their language, nor seem to understand how exactly the Ethereum and NFTs work… and things look even worse.
The Actual Launch
But at the end of the day, it seemed like there were many people who believed in the project and couldn’t wait to ape in. I could totally feel the FOMO vibe and the conversations that were so similar to the old times of the ICO token sale hype. And regardless of all the drama and mess that happened before that everyone rushed to get those cats anyway.
Is the Stoner Cat gonna make them crazy rich? Time will tell. 
But before that people had to get their hands on those and apparently it was not that easy. Once again the cats broke Ethereum (remember Crypto Kitties?). 
And we saw the absolutely crazy gas fees again. 
And guess what? When the gas fees are crazy and you have tons of failed transitions - you lose crazy money… 
What do I mean by crazy money? Check this out!
It is very hard for me to comprehend why would someone be willing to pay such amounts for a gas fee to get a Stoner Cat, but hey what do I know, right?
Anyway, at this point many rushed to Discord to complain about the situation and the mods came back with a “perfect” answer.
Discussion about this here: 
As a result, the total was almost $800,000 in Failed Ethereum Transactions was lost.
Jesse Altman
The stoner cat drop racked up $700k+ in failed transaction fees. Money just siphoned straight out of the pockets of new customers and which could’ve gone to artists. This is what we mean when we say something’s a “cash grab” https://t.co/FpRfZWIo69
Results
Well, I guess no matter how much we can criticize the project the “success” of the launch is based on sales, right?
Stoner Cats sold out in about 35-40 minutes before the launch by selling all the 10,420 NFTs at 0.35 ETH each. And I think the miners received more than $3mln in gas fees (nice payday!).
Aftermath
Not sure how many aped in order to “join the magic and revolution” but I know for a fact that most did join to make money. And just a few days later we already see the cats in the secondary market.
Vitalik’s character Lord Catsingtonis priced at 33 ETH on Opensea now and the character with Chris Rock’s voice is priced at 42 ETH. No buyers for either of those yet though … 
But to be fair seems like the floor price is growing so eventually people might reach their goals - who knows?
Although few days have passed and in the NFT space few days are a long time and this may seem an old story already it looks like there is still a bit of drama.
IP rights?
Yesterday I kept seeing different Stones Cats with *ahum - sorry about this” dicks. 
In my research I had not found anything about it from official sources, so was almost certain that it’s not anything coming from the team.
Although I was almost done with this article thought it would be interesting to find out what was all that about.
So to be completely honest I could not find proof for this one - so can’t claim the legitimacy of it but I saw few tweets and heard on Twitter spaced that Stoned Cats were refusing to give IP rights to the NFT owners and according to the team’s Discord moderator (those mods seems to be too good…) that it’s because people might draw dicks and swastikas on the cats if they had the rights… hmmm 
As a result with or without the IP rights, we saw it happening… since some thought it’s the best way to protest. 
below are just 2 examples:
Happy ending?
OK jokes aside, I really wanted to end this one on a positive note. So was glad to see the good news in their latest announcement.
People kept putting pressure on the project demanding to be reimbursed the gas fees they lost on failed transitions. Not many believed it would happen, but it feels like the Stoned Cats team made the decision and it’s a yes - and I am very happy about that.
The proud Stoned Cats owners were able to watch the first episode that was released on July 29. 
Seems like a happy ending for now but one never knows what’s gonna happen next!
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Ani Alexander

Observations about the NFT space: projects, crypto artists, NFT online communities, etc + conversations with NFT rebels.
A place where technology, creativity, education, and the unpredictable meet each other.
Real talk, real-life and raw emotions.

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