Reddit’s Collectible Avatars made me take NFTs more seriously

I’ve been a critic of NFTs for a while, mostly because I don’t really understand them. Ya know, the typical “who the hell would pay that kind of money for a JPEG” type stuff, but I’ve always been really interested to see what they’ll become and how they'll catch on. When Reddit’s NFTs came, and I saw some actual good art, I figured what the hell and bought one. At the very least I'll have an interesting profile picture and maybe something will become of them and I can make a buck.

It wasn’t until I actually started looking into the creators that I started realizing how cool these are. These are not people trying to get rich quick with some copycat NFT series. These are artists with big followings even outside of Reddit, who are active on Reddit which is why Reddit chose them, and who Reddit actually commissioned to create these unique collectible avatar sets.

The main thing that impressed me is how the artists are compensated. On the initial sale Reddit gives 100% of the profits to the artists! Reddit takes out 5% to cover the minting and blockchain fees, along with some to fund the program, but ALL of the profit goes to the artist. If the avatar is resold, no matter how many times, Reddit takes a 5% fee and gives HALF of that fee back to the artist!

At first I didn’t see my avatar as an art piece I purchased. I just thought it would be a cool avatar. If you’re not familiar with art, artists will create a limited number of reproductions of one of their works, each reproduction with a serial number such as #22 out of 100, and they will never create more than that, which give the limited editions value. Lower numbers are more desirable, as are numbers with patterns or known combinations, and also the very last one in the set, but in a set with only a small limited amount they are all quite rare. To summarize, these collectible avatars are actual limited edition art pieces made by actual professional artists, released on a platform that generously gives back to the creators. That sold me.

Obviously these avatars are tied to Reddit (maybe in the future they could be synced to other platforms such as Twitter?) but what many people don’t realize is that Reddit is currently the 18th most visited website in the world and the 13th most visited in the USA. Reddit is now quite possibly the largest digital art gallery in the world. Reddit also has plans to launch their own marketplace where you can buy and sell the avatars. (If you’re a creator and want to get involved there’s a link at the bottom of https://reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/6213869034132-Fees-for-Selling-Collectible-Avatars-on-Reddit where you can apply.)

Maybe these Reddit NFTs will catch on, maybe they won’t, but either way I feel pretty damn good about supporting these artists. I just hope this post shines some light on what exactly Reddit’s Collectible Avatar thing is and why I think it deserves attention.