The Dawn of Collectomania

Picture this... your ancestors, the cavemen, just chilling, well fed from hunting and gathering, and now turning up the socials.

In their expeditions, some picked up the coolest rocks, the shiniest shells, the best animal horns, the prettiest feathers, etc. In short, their prehistoric pads were decked with the non-essential stash from hunting and gathering. The essential workers were not amused...

Overheard from one caveman to another in the hunting and gathering expedition, "Focus on the task bozo, rocks and shells never filled an empty stomach!"

The bozo smiled. He knew his companion was playing the survival game while he was playing a metagame - the social game.

Like an episode of MTV Cribs, here they were checking out each other's rocks, offering trades for Pimp My Cave ambitions. This wasn't just a prehistoric edition of your favorite cave makeover show; it was the dawn of humanity's love affair with collecting - The Rise of the Planet of Ape Collections.

Heading Back to the Future, what changed? Nada! We are still those cavemen, obsessed about rocks and things. Guess where he went to collect your favorite rock?

We size each other up by the size of our rocks and shells, if not for the number and rarity in our collection. But how did we get form hoarding ancient bling to that ape collection of NFTs?

The running joke is, we are still apes in spirit, even biology - modern cavemen, a step removed from the wild apes. Truly, Bored Apes... collecting all the things, for the price of the farm i.e., aping.

Caveman Couture and the First Collectors

It's the Upper Paleolithic period... Hot memo, just in:

To: All Valley Tribes

Subject: Cave Art Night Opening

Hey Tribe,

🎨 Fresh wall art reveal. 🥁 Drums & flutes. All the stars will be there! Just look up, they're always there! 🍖 Bring a snack, bring a friend! Full moon. Tonight!

Sincerely,

Collective of Cave Artists

What do you rock for this cave art opening? Of course - your beads, shells, and stones!

And to think the clowns playing the survival game said you can't eat your shell collection. Reverse Uno fools! Let's see them rock those stale herbs they collected to the opening.

In essence, if you had the rocks, shells, feathers etc., you were it. All the cavemen wanted to be like you or be with you. Those were the original limited editions, the OG NFTs... symbolizing status, identity, or membership in the world's first exclusive cave clubs.

Ancient Civilizations and Their Hoarding Habits

Let's spin the wheel of time again, to ancient civilizations. Egyptians for example - if it were up to them, they would have collected all the pyramids.

They upped the game. Amateurs from Upper Paleolithic could learn a thing about blinging into the afterlife with a stacked collection screaming, "I was that guy or girl, rich and cultured in the land of the living!"

Meanwhile, the Greeks and Romans were thinking... Study Egyptians. They took notes, plenty!

Middle Ages to Renaissance: Holy Relics and Cabinets of Wonder

Fast forward to the Middle Ages.

Folks are all kinds of pious now... collection is for holy relics. Crusaders and their opponents could agree on one thing - collecting holy relics was awesome. The better thought of the saint, the better the relic in the collection.

Michael Angelo channeled his inner caveman on caves of the time - chapel walls. The collection could not be moved without destroying it. Such is the nature of cave art.

The British found a way... for Empire reasons. Hello Museums, full of collections.

Science was studying and taking notes... collecting all the knowledge of ins and outs. Not your typical collection. Ask Darwin about his collection.

The Modern Era: Philately, Numismatics, and Beyond

Your great grandma was into it - collecting stamps.

Your grandpa was into it - collecting coins.

Your dad was into it - collecting baseball cards.

You are into it - Pikachu collection. Or, was it the rare sneaker collection? Or the Beanie Babies? Or your NFTs?

I am into it - Book collection. Tsundoku they call it.

Like a good game of Monopoly, if you pass GO, collect. Collect, collect, collect. Location helps. It's GO time from birth, maybe wired into your genes, or programmed into your psyche? Ads tell part of the story.

Family Feud is an episode of someone messing with your collection.

The Digital Wave: From eBay to NFTs

In 1971, a modern day caveman had noticed that we can't move around cave art collections easily. Or even conjure magic with that kind of a collection, which is the fine art of finance. The caveman was Richard Nixon.

Through the Nixon Shock, he depegged the dollar from the gold standard.

Enter post-modernism, where life is far removed from reality, as the dollar was. Magic was now possible, fueled by the digital revolution. Minting was open. Print all the imaginary money.

This conjuring of collections through technology became a part of the system.

eBay collectors for a start, but that is low-level conjuring. DeviantArt pioneered collections removed from reality. OpenSea was taking notes. Vinyl collections could now become imaginary mp3s with real economic value. We collected them all, through Napster.

Bitcoin and the blockchain came along. They had studied the depegging of the dollar from the gold standard and realized here was a blueprint for printing unlimited internet magic money. Bitcoin decided not to be greedy. 21 million is sufficient to pay the bills with some change.

Vitalik was taking notes. Enter Ethereum. Specifically, ERC-721 and ERC-1155, the NFT standards for digital assets, proving ownership of digital art, memes, and even Casts. The modern cave art was now in an imaginary cave in the series of tubes. But, you had proof of ownership.

Yet again, the survival focused modern day cavemen chimed in that you can't eat a collection of NFTs or memecoins. They are simply imaginary internet moneys and art. The social based modern day cavemen with an inclination for collection smiled... they had seen this play out before in their hunting and gathering days.

Pfft! Wen moon, survival becomes the least of your worries. Your collection speaks for itself. In the words of a modern poet - pfps rule everything around me. For all doubters, the collections will continue until morale improves.

The Dawn of Collectomania

Picture this... your ancestors, the cavemen, just chilling, well fed from hunting and gathering, and now turning up the socials.

In their expeditions, some picked up the coolest rocks, the shiniest shells, the best animal horns, the prettiest feathers, etc. In short, their prehistoric pads were decked with the non-essential stash from hunting and gathering. The essential workers were not amused...

Overheard from one caveman to another in the hunting and gathering expedition, "Focus on the task bozo, rocks and shells never filled an empty stomach!"

The bozo smiled. He knew his companion was playing the survival game while he was playing a metagame - the social game.

Like an episode of MTV Cribs, here they were checking out each other's rocks, offering trades for Pimp My Cave ambitions. This wasn't just a prehistoric edition of your favorite cave makeover show; it was the dawn of humanity's love affair with collecting - The Rise of the Planet of Ape Collections.

Heading Back to the Future, what changed? Nada! We are still those cavemen, obsessed about rocks and things. Guess where he went to collect your favorite rock?

We size each other up by the size of our rocks and shells, if not for the number and rarity in our collection. But how did we get form hoarding ancient bling to that ape collection of NFTs?

The running joke is, we are still apes in spirit, even biology - modern cavemen, a step removed from the wild apes. Truly, Bored Apes... collecting all the things, for the price of the farm i.e., aping.

Caveman Couture and the First Collectors

It's the Upper Paleolithic period... Hot memo, just in:

To: All Valley Tribes

Subject: Cave Art Night Opening

Hey Tribe,

🎨 Fresh wall art reveal. 🥁 Drums & flutes. All the stars will be there! Just look up, they're always there! 🍖 Bring a snack, bring a friend! Full moon. Tonight!

Sincerely,

Collective of Cave Artists

What do you rock for this cave art opening? Of course - your beads, shells, and stones!

And to think the clowns playing the survival game said you can't eat your shell collection. Reverse Uno fools! Let's see them rock those stale herbs they collected to the opening.

In essence, if you had the rocks, shells, feathers etc., you were it. All the cavemen wanted to be like you or be with you. Those were the original limited editions, the OG NFTs... symbolizing status, identity, or membership in the world's first exclusive cave clubs.

Ancient Civilizations and Their Hoarding Habits

Let's spin the wheel of time again, to ancient civilizations. Egyptians for example - if it were up to them, they would have collected all the pyramids.

They upped the game. Amateurs from Upper Paleolithic could learn a thing about blinging into the afterlife with a stacked collection screaming, "I was that guy or girl, rich and cultured in the land of the living!"

Meanwhile, the Greeks and Romans were thinking... Study Egyptians. They took notes, plenty!

Middle Ages to Renaissance: Holy Relics and Cabinets of Wonder

Fast forward to the Middle Ages.

Folks are all kinds of pious now... collection is for holy relics. Crusaders and their opponents could agree on one thing - collecting holy relics was awesome. The better thought of the saint, the better the relic in the collection.

Michael Angelo channeled his inner caveman on caves of the time - chapel walls. The collection could not be moved without destroying it. Such is the nature of cave art.

The British found a way... for Empire reasons. Hello Museums, full of collections.

Science was studying and taking notes... collecting all the knowledge of ins and outs. Not your typical collection. Ask Darwin about his collection.

The Modern Era: Philately, Numismatics, and Beyond

Your great grandma was into it - collecting stamps.

Your grandpa was into it - collecting coins.

Your dad was into it - collecting baseball cards.

You are into it - Pikachu collection. Or, was it the rare sneaker collection? Or the Beanie Babies? Or your NFTs?

I am into it - Book collection. Tsundoku they call it.

Like a good game of Monopoly, if you pass GO, collect. Collect, collect, collect. Location helps. It's GO time from birth, maybe wired into your genes, or programmed into your psyche? Ads tell part of the story.

Family Feud is an episode of someone messing with your collection.

The Digital Wave: From eBay to NFTs

In 1971, a modern day caveman had noticed that we can't move around cave art collections easily. Or even conjure magic with that kind of a collection, which is the fine art of finance. The caveman was Richard Nixon.

Through the Nixon Shock, he depegged the dollar from the gold standard.

Enter post-modernism, where life is far removed from reality, as the dollar was. Magic was now possible, fueled by the digital revolution. Minting was open. Print all the imaginary money.

This conjuring of collections through technology became a part of the system.

eBay collectors for a start, but that is low-level conjuring. DeviantArt pioneered collections removed from reality. OpenSea was taking notes. Vinyl collections could now become imaginary mp3s with real economic value. We collected them all, through Napster.

Bitcoin and the blockchain came along. They had studied the depegging of the dollar from the gold standard and realized here was a blueprint for printing unlimited internet magic money. Bitcoin decided not to be greedy. 21 million is sufficient to pay the bills with some change.

Vitalik was taking notes. Enter Ethereum. Specifically, ERC-721 and ERC-1155, the NFT standards for digital assets, proving ownership of digital art, memes, and even Casts. The modern cave art was now in an imaginary cave in the series of tubes. But, you had proof of ownership.

Yet again, the survival focused modern day cavemen chimed in that you can't eat a collection of NFTs or memecoins. They are simply imaginary internet moneys and art. The social based modern day cavemen with an inclination for collection smiled... they had seen this play out before in their hunting and gathering days.

Pfft! Wen moon, survival becomes the least of your worries. Your collection speaks for itself. In the words of a modern poet - pfps rule everything around me. For all doubters, the collections will continue until morale improves.