RAWALPINDI: One of Pakistan’s most viral memes, “Friendship ended with Mudasir,” has been auctioned in a non-fungible token (NFT) sale for $51,530, the founder of Alter, the Lahore-based startup that conducted the sale, said.
An NFT is a crypto asset, representing an intangible digital item such as an image, video, or in-game item. Owners of NFTs are recorded on blockchain, allowing an NFT to be traded as a stand-in for the digital asset it represents.
The NFT sale in question involves a 2015 meme created by Muhammad Asif Raza, a resident of Gujranwala, to announce the "end" of his friendship with Mudasir Ismail Ahmad and the start of a new one with Salman Ahmad Naqash.
From its humble beginning on Facebook, the graphic transformed into a pop cultural artefact, edited and remixed by meme connoisseurs and social media users around the world. This World Friendship Day on July 30, it was auctioned off as one of Pakistan’s first meme NFTs for $51,530, or 20 Ether, the currency on the crypto platform Ethereum.
The sale was facilitated by Alter which seeks to enable “viral creations from emerging economies to connect with collectors and fans around the world through NFTs.”
“We reached out to a lot of meme makers, artists, musicians and celebrities,” Alter founder Zain Naqvi told Arab News over the phone. “Yet, this ended up becoming our first product for sale since the timing coincided with World Friendship Day.”
“Non-Fungible Tokens or NFTs are making it easier for people to sell their digital assets,” he added. “Memes such as ‘Friendship Ended’ have been popular for years, but creators have barely been able to monetize them.”
Though the sale of the meme has gotten other Pakistani meme makers excited, Naqvi said not all memes were likely to fetch such a high price.
“The value does not directly exist in the meme but resides in its context,” he said. “Owning a meme like this means owning a part of internet history from 2015 Pakistan.”
However, he added “all kinds of creatives in Pakistan and South Asia should start looking at their options in this realm.”
The creators of the meme did a Facebook live following the sale, revealing that Ahmad and Raza were still best friends and had embraced Naqash as their third bestie.
Raza also created a friendship reconciliation meme in the same photoshopped format which is coming up for sale next.
“I can’t even remember what we fought about,” Ahmed said in an interview with the international press. “At that time, we were so focused on each other. If either of us met other friends, we would get hurt. We used to share all of our deepest secrets with each other.”
He said he had no idea why the meme had gone viral and dominated social media platforms for so long.
“I would never have known that [the post] would go so viral and that it would spread all over the world. So many news agencies interviewed us. We’ve even had a cartoon made about us,” Raza said.
The friendship break-up meme was bought by Andrew Kang, the co-founder of crypto investment firm, Mechanism Capital.
Speaking to international media, Kang said he bought the meme to “represent important pockets of internet culture and history,” saying:
“The Mudasir meme can probably be recognized by at least tens of millions of people and is also just legitimately funny to me.”
He announced his purchase on his social media handles, writing, “Proud to announce that I am now best friends with Muhammad.”
Kang also owns three other memes: Harambe, Dust Storm Dog, and Suh Dude.
