Funko Pop NFTs are here to make the world just a little bit worse

News
By published

The Bob Ross edition will help the crypto industry kill more happy little trees

cruelty squad target standing in front of "chunko pops""
(Image credit: Cruelty Squad Wiki)

I challenge you to find someone who doesn't know what a Funko Pop is at this point. These vaguely chibi-style vinyl figurines are all over the place. Their ratio of quality to ubiquity has drawn criticism, and the confounding rabidity of Funko's fan base invites mockery and derision. It's pretty silly, but I try to adhere to the timeless philosophy articulated by Star Wars: The Old Republic's smuggler: "Whatever floats your speeder."

Except if what floats your speeder is NFTs, then your speeder can crash. Whether it's a Ghost Recon tacticool skin that requires 600 hours of playtime for the privilege of buying or a $650,000 3D model of a boat in a game that hasn't released, NFTs have created a new ecosystem of scamming and multilevel marketing psychosis around "digital goods" ensured by algorithmic "proof of ownership" that is helping to kill our planet faster than everything we're already doing.

I crave NFT integration with my Tyler "Ninja" Blevins Funko Pop!™ (Image credit: Funko)

Perhaps it only makes sense that these two phenomena should combine, a match made in hell. The Funko Digital Pop!™ has actually been around for a few months, but it has drawn attention with the announcement of a Bob Ross NFT Funko Pop. This new development adds further tasteless ironic twists to the concepts at play: Ross was a soft-spoken icon of art education, sharing the craft of painting with a wide audience, demystifying and presenting painting as an avenue of meditation and self-cultivation.

Why not plaster his likeness across the most crass and hollow representation of "art" as a commodity? Not to mention, the rights to Ross' image went to his business partners instead of his family postmortem, in contravention of his wishes.

It's another blockchain-backed bummer in a cascade of blockchain-backed bummers. The Bob Ross bit in particular is another example of a dead man's legacy getting used as fuel for this trash fire. At this point I'm just relieved when it's something I already find distasteful joining the crypto bandwagon. I am going to riot if Studio ZA/UM ever makes a damned NFT. 

Ted Litchfield
Associate Editor

Ted has been thinking about PC games and bothering anyone who would listen with his thoughts on them ever since he booted up his sister's copy of Neverwinter Nights on the family computer. He is obsessed with all things CRPG and CRPG-adjacent, but has also covered esports, modding, and rare game collecting. When he's not playing or writing about games, you can find Ted lifting weights on his back porch. You can follow Ted on Bluesky.