With the introduction of NFTs into the world of digital assets in recent years, I find myself struggling to understand these immaterial digital goods and the entranced hold they’ve come to have on today’s investors. Much like with physical art, value is expressed through ownership. However, since there isn’t a tangible object in real space to enjoy and since copies of digital art can be identical to the original, as others have argued, ​​that value amounts to nothing more than bragging rights.

In short, for up to just several million dollars, I can announce the fact that I own something utterly replicable, making the impulse to buy rather confounding. So, what underlies this trendy power grab, and what does it indicate about the current moment in human development?

Quoted in the British Psychological Society, Christian Jarrett theorizes about our relationship to possessions, arguing that “how much we see our things as an extension of ourselves may depend, in part, on how confident we feel about who we are.” Drawing on scientific studies that correlate self-certainty with the extent to which we identify with our belongings, Dr. Jarrett says, “It’s as if reflecting on our things restores a fragile ego,” and notes that this may be why midlife crises are often expressed through the purchasing of flashy, big-ticket items.

Looking at the current frenzy around NFTs, then, are we to assume that we live in an age characterized by unstable egos? It seems logical, in an increasingly digital world in which each of us is summarized within the uniform and limiting bounds of social media profiles bearing identical interfaces and few avenues for the expression of distinctiveness, that we’re bound to feel lost about who we are and what makes us special. Enter digital consumption to fix the problem.

Perhaps, also, in our digitally-rocked world in which every article, tweet and upload is a flash-in-the-pan, there may be a desperate and growing need to seize something more lasting. Has art, even if digital– with its mysterious layers of value and experiential potential– become our answer?

For centuries, philosophers and religious leaders instructed men to eschew material goods. In the Ethics of our Fathers, for instance, a compendium of 1st and 2nd century rabbinic wisdom, it is said, “the more property, the more anxiety…the more charity, the more peace.” Interesting, then, that we’re attempting to salve our uneasiness about diluted and ill-formed identities by amassing more, something that, according to the Sages, will only amplify the problem. By contrast, charity, which will induce greater tranquility, is about extending ourselves and giving away what we have, whether our money or time.

On the other hand, as psychologist Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi argues and Julie Beck so beautifully articulates, there is a difference between terminal and instrumental materialism, the latter representing the sort of noble way in which humans imbue objects with greater meaning and identify them as vital links to loved ones and cherished memories.

Could it be that our lives online — and our associated identities and digital possessions — will soon become emotionally laden? Have they already?

For me, there’s something sad about that notion. With the extent of our remove in the nothingness and everythingness that is “online,” wouldn’t anything emotionally stirring be a sort of Platonic reflection of the three dimensional version that might exist elsewhere?

On the other hand, if we focus on the human experience as it pertains to art, whatever sort is in vogue — whether real-world or digital — the psychology and values motivating ownership and appreciation are likely the same. Some cite our desire for status and financial security — both arguably reactions to existential dread — as primary motivators, but others submit that it’s about connection. In a world in which our emotional experiences can be too complicated to articulate, where art expresses our untold, we gravitate. When others convene around that same beauty, we feel a sense of kinship. As some have suggested, art is a social enterprise, and a primary incentive when it comes to the procurement of it is its capacity to engender a sense of belonging.

Cynics will argue against the worth of this particular sense of belonging on two accounts. For starters, they’ll harp on the fact that it is mostly enjoyed by one percenters whose investments link them to others with the same deep pockets. Second, they’ll argue that our craving for connection is simply a response to material addiction, which inevitably deepens the void.

Materialism, generally speaking, is highly correlated to greater levels of anxiety, depression, reduced well being and less pro-social interpersonal behavior. However, with its capacity to engender connection, might art be the one material exception to the rule? Does art actually fill the void without deepening it? Unlike other material goods, does it positively affect our well being and better our interpersonal lives?

Might NFTs manage this same anomalous functionality? Can they, like physical art, awaken the visceral? Can they comment on the state of our world, launch a discussion and, even, precipitate social change? Very possibly.

As it happens, studies are demonstrating a correlation between greater consumption of social media and higher levels of materialism. If the research holds, our digital lives, laden as they are with advertising that encourages ever greater material consumption, will inevitably decrease our well-being. The question is: Will NFTs, sitting as they do on the blockchain, combat materialism’s corrosive gains in the digital space? Will they, like physical art, stand spiritually apart from sillier, less meaningful, and less unifying material consumption?

The first time I bought art, I was alone. A recent college grad, meandering up Fifth Avenue, examining the unvetted work of artists hawking their wares outside the Met. What I found was a muted polaroid transfer, a haunting image of a woman walking toward — or perhaps away from — a fallen figure on the ground. At $75, it was a splurge and a scam, but I loved it.

For me, some of the beauty in that photograph, which still graces my bedside, was its lack of universal appeal. It made me feel seen and special because it spoke to a thread of discernment and taste within me that I imagine to be fairly particular. Most of my friends find the piece unsettling, much like they do my wall-sized “Migrant Mother” by Dorothea Lange. I suppose the connection art affords me is not to other people but to my own mindscape and sense of aliveness.

So, perhaps that’s why I have a difficult time relating to the NFT feeding frenzy — a trendy social scene that convenes people around replicable seeming art. 

However, replicable or not, art, which represents little in the way of material functionality, possesses great capacity to move and change us, and there’s something rather beautiful about that notion. Maybe, specifically because of its undetermined and subjectively appraised utility, art is endowed with infinite potential for meaning-making. It doesn’t come with instructions, and it doesn’t run out of batteries. So maybe it does represent an exception to the rules of materialism, easing our anxieties and inspiring us in ways that other goods cannot. 

The questions of uniqueness and tangibility notwithstanding, NFTs may just be the digital world’s answer to the long-brewing and unsettling question about whether our lives online are healthy and substantive. Maybe, at least, their popularity signals the hunger of an enduring human spirit, forever searching for deeper meaning on whatever the platform may be.