rare mfers
season 2
card 1
artist notes:
on february, 13th 2022 sartoshi published a mirror article titled āwhat are mfersā. the article has since become one of my favorite writings not just in crypto, but overall. i view it kind of like the mfers white paper similar to that of the bitcoin white paper written by satoshi nakamoto. when i first learned of bitcoin pre silk road and mt gox i dismissed it is a fad, magic internet moneyā¦canāt be real, sounds like a scam - that kind of thing. at the time, i came to this conclusion based on zero actual research of my own. later in 2016 i was convinced by a colleague to read the bitcoin white paper and was absolutely blown awayā¦the light bulb went off - i āgotā it, and there was no turning back. i learned a valuable lesson from this: prior to commenting on a particular topic or formulating an opinion you should really ādo the workā and learn about what youāre talking about firstā¦dyor. my early dismissal of bitcoin was intellectually dishonest bc i didnāt spend the time to actually understand it. fast forward to early 2021ā¦i was consistently hearing more and more abt nfts from crypto friends and rather than dismissing it like i initially did with bitcoin i decided to ādo the workā. in this case that meant minting some nfts and actually becoming a user of the technologyā¦minted some rugs, got rekt, but was learning. one of the earliest projects i got involved in that worked out really well was onchain monkeyā¦another lightbulb moment. later in nov 2021 i saw a tweet from punk6529 with the image of a stick figure wearing a cap and smoking a cigā¦it looked tight. dug into it a little more and realized that this was the mfers mint and sartoshi was the artist. i wasnāt able to grab one at mint, but picked up my first mfer later that evening on nov 30th at 11:16pm est. i still didnāt really know what i was doing but i liked the motherfuckers. the mirror article titled āwhat are mfersā wasnāt published until a couple months later in feb 2022. iāll never forget reading it for the first timeā¦very similar to how i felt after reading the bitcoin white paper for the first time. i believe that āwhat are mfersā by sartoshi contains the most important 1,912 words in the entire nft space. iāve shared the article link with so many people, tweeted about, and even read it out loud numerous times on twitter spaces. iāve always wanted to find ways to share that document with as many people as possible - i think it is that important. when breezy approached me about kicking off season 2 card 1 of rare mfers i was a little stressed about it considering i donāt really have a background or training in artā¦but obviously couldnāt say no. i knew that i wanted to do something related to āwhat are mfersā but didnāt know exactly what (or how, lol). i was initially thinking maybe iāll create a piece and record a voice over of me reading āwhat are mfersā - quickly scrapped that idea realizing it was lame and there was no way that anyone would wants to hear my voice on a nft. i settled on trying to figure out a way to incorporate the actual text of āwhat are mfersā into a piece (still no idea how i was going to pull it off). in the opening sentences of āwhat are mfersā sartoshi talks about coming up with a name for his digital identity āwe all know about satoshi & digital currencyā¦but this was about a foray into digital artā¦suddenly āsartoshiā was bornā. i thought āwhat if i use the iconic image of satoshi nakamoto and overlay the text somehow on that imageā - that might be badass. there was only one problem, i didnāt have the skills to pull it offā¦yet. after many painful hours and photoshop lessons on youtube i was able to figure it outā¦there was a lot frustration, deleting and restarting, what opacity to use on the font, how to properly displace the two separate text layers, etcā¦at one point i was running into so many issues i seriously didnāt think i was going to be able to finish and would have to resort to calling an artist friend for help. fortunately it didnāt get to that point and everything worked out. rare mfers season 2 card 1 is an accomplishment i am very proud ofā¦i was able to create a piece that pays homage to those incredibly impactful words written by sartoshi, and i learned a lot in the process. i hope you appreciate it as much as i do.
link to the original mirror article belowā¦give it a read.
https://mirror.xyz/sartoshi.eth/QukjtL1076-1SEoNJuqyc-x4Ut2v8_TocKkszo-S_nU
