By: Valerie Milano
Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 3/27/23 – E! Entertainment Television’s founder Larry Namer and The Academy of Digital Art, Sciences, & Culture (ADASC) founding member Chris J. Snook recently announced the pre-eminent Web3 innovation awards show gala, The NFTYS. New Jersey-based artist Connor McLoughlin designed the NFTY award, famously known for his branding and design work for Master & Dynamic, Netflix, Peacock, Nike, Puma, and Timberland. The award will be 3D printed in transparent polymer and filled with lead and resin. The manufacturing process is a blend of environmentally friendly and 3D published methodologies, costing thousands of dollars to produce, and will stand over 12 inches tall and weigh approximately 6 pounds. In addition, the ribbons of the award design will be hand-painted, making each one of one.
Over the weekend, THT had the chance to interview (ADASC) founder Chris Snook via Zoom to get more in-depth about how he and Larry Namer produced the idea of the NFTY award show and gain insight into what viewers can expect to see from the platform. Check out our interview below:
THT: What does NFTY’s Stand for?
Chris Snook: Recognition of an award that is focused on web 3 culture and innovation and art as it moves into the next generation. A lot of people think of NFT, which is part of web3 and a container for web3. We wanted a cool way to brand an award that spoke to this culture of web3 and metaverse and AI and at the same time we are minting digital twins of the award, we will be tokenizing the awards in NFT’s as well as the tickets, so will be wrapping tickets into a commemorative NFT and then it unlocks a bunch of different utility and other activations throughout the show for anyone who is participating in the live broadcast virtually or in person.
THT: What does this award show mean to you and why is it important for the evolution of culture and society?
Chris Snook: Culture always come first; we can look through history and all the technological advances that have happened, but if we are really analytical about it Hayden Ashberry happened before Silicon Valley took off, there was this social and cultural revolution in the 60’s that was just part of that evolution in time and history and generations and then we had this boom of all these things that we live in and take for granted and even fear a little bit of technology and new world that we live in. And 100 years ago, we had moving pictures, talkies, and the Acadamy of Motion Pictures was formed because there was this industry that was being exported and it was entertaining and a new way communicating through moving pictures and art that needed a platform to be recognized for its innovation, talent, and impact on society and for the envelops that it pushed. And 95 years ago, we created the Oscars and at the time it got created it wasn’t like people were running out to the movies every Friday, it wasn’t a muti-trillion-dollar industry, so this is just next. It’s the inevitability of a generation of people that have gone through the fiscal crisis of 2008, before Satoshi gave us the Bitcoin white paper in 2009, you had this whole world were Facebook was in its infancy, twitter didn’t matter, the iPhone had very little penetration because Black berry was king, this was 2008, we take this stuff for granted now but the reality is the last time we went through this social and cultural revolution we are living in now, we didn’t have the exponential technologies we take for granted and can’t leave home without and all the businesses and platforms that got built on top of them, we also didn’t have some of the problems that they are causing today like, polarization, and algorithmic manipulation of our minds. But at the same time, we’ve unlocked all this new creativity and brought billions of people into the commercial cycle that could never participate in before. We have the opportunity now to expand that through web3 and blockchain we can have someone who barely has running water all of a sudden have a mobile device and create art using tools that are taking the cost of production down to near zero. And now that person can monetize frictionless from a phone from Africa, the Middle East, or wherever, they can be transacting with people all over the world. We just felt like the world needed a place to recognize that was credible and focused on the good things that are happening, because what everyone thinks about this space is that it’s a scam, small, or not going to happen, but the reality of it is that billion-dollar brands and everybody else have already started to prove that this is next. Consumers were consuming over 67-billion-dollars in 2021 of direct to avatar goods – that’s direct to consumer, but not for the physical world. It was a 67-billion-dollar industry two years ago. That tells you we have a whole generation of people, not just young people but GenX’s too that will start to consume more in their digital assets than they will physical. When Zuck gets his way or some of these other folks get their way then all sudden we are all doing meetings with avatars in the Metaverse we are going to dress those things, we are not just going to show up in black t-shirts because you won’t be able to differentiate, so Gucci, Louie Vuitton, and other brands are all going to be selling us stuff for our avatars to work and we are going to want to take that from one Metaverse into another, which doesn’t exists today, and that’s the promise of web3. The innovators that are enabling the infrastructure and the technology that’s going to allow us to buy a skin in Fortnite and use in Roblox. The IP, the brands, the innovators, and the artists that are going to move that needle needed something that wasn’t just a bunch of crypto bros in a conference or your grandma’s award show, so the NFTY’S had to be formed.
THT: So, it’s going to be in Las Vegas June 14th. Where is it going to take place?
Chris Snook: We are producing it at the Niko Theatre, inside of Worre Studio – a state of the art XR studio that is 25,000sqft. It’s got the ability to stream interactively, there’s multiple 360 screens. The VIP, nominees, academy members, and in studio audience will be sitting in a boutique style area around the stage. There are also screens that act as front row seats from all over the world with interactive chat that get pinned in real time to interact with host and performers, they can watch it from any laptop or phone. They get a personized front row seat and ticket with a unique login that will be wrapped in an NFT and unlock extra things inside the Nicko Layer, which is the Metaverse layer of this theater. It will be broadcast all over the world in thirty countries and different languages simultaneously. It’s the most interactive thing you’ve ever seen.
THT: How can viewers tune in?
Chris Snook: They would buy a ticket from a direct link, and it rides on top of a layer of Zoom that allows us to have up to 500,000 + interactive streams, with about 250,000 on premise and another 250,000 in the cloud. They will be able to click on it just like you’d do a website of Netflix and through their own customized portal and in that will be a dashboard that will have buttons for them to activate and claim different drops from the brand partners and sponsors, they will be able to chat and meet with one another. We will also be syndicating for replay the following weekend through a couple of different distribution platforms for people to just watch passively.
THT: How do you determine the nominees?
Chris Snook: Right now, up until April 15th anybody in the public can go to NFTYS.org, nominate a person, and select the category that fits. Then we use AI and our academy members to sort through and select a shortlist of finalists that will be released on May 15th. Those finalists will then be nominees and the winners will be announced at the live broadcast June 14th.
To learn more about the NYFTY awards visit their website https://www.nftys.org/
Also, checkout our full interview with Chris on our YouTube channel 3/28/23. (22) Valerie Milano int. Chris J. Snook, launching The NFTYS, the Pre-eminent Web3 Innovation Awards Gala – YouTube
ABOUT THE ACADEMY OF DIGITAL ART, SCIENCES, & CULTURE (ADASC) – ADASC is a social benefit diversified DAO advancing the benevolent use of breakthrough technology innovation across Art, Sciences, and Culture. Its membership includes a variety of invite-only and public tiers that form the decentralized and diverse nomination committee of awardees and grants at its annual public celebration and broadcast of The Annual NFTY Awards Gala. For more information about membership to the Academy and nominations for The NFTYS please visit https://nftys.org
