Tech

The internet’s first viral GIF is now a high-res NFT

In the late ’90s, long before the crazy German kid or Meristation’s cigar guy blew it up, the internet already had its first viral. Specifically, one of the most successful was one of a animated baby dancing on a black backgroundwho is also believed to have been the first viral GIF in internet history. Well, the creators of this meme have met again and have decided to remaster it so that it has a much more current look. Oh, and of course, they’ve put it up for sale. as NFT.

The classics are back (in the form of NFTs)

dancing baby original.

Apparently, the ‘Dancing Baby’ was nothing more than a sample file of what Character Studio, a render engine for Kinetix, the software we know today as Autodesk 3ds Max. The samples was created by Michael Girard and Robert Lurye, and had the name ‘sk_baby.max’. However, the one who lit the fuse was Ron Lussier, an animator who worked for LucasArt who decided to retouch the original file and send it to his colleagues by email.

In late 1996, web developer John Woodell created an animated GIF heavily compressed from the Lussier file to demonstrate the conversion and capabilities of the CompuServe format—remember, GIF was high-tech at the time. This is how the dancing baby would end up reaching all corners of the Internet, having her own website and even going out as recurring joke in the tv series Ally McBeal in 1998, which helped the meme go even more viral.

It’s been over 25 years, and the original creators of the Dancing Baby have decided remaster the original file and make it available for sale as NFT in Foundation.app. Of course, the animation is not alone. The group has partnered with HFA-Studio and have launched ‘The Dancing Baby Collection’, a series of seven animations among which is the original remastered image. The six extra pieces have been created by other artists.

Have they arrived too late?

baby nfts collection

If the second baby refers to ‘el bicho pelao’, we take off our hats.

The collection of dancing babies is currently being auctioned, although it is not having the success that its creators expected, since practically no one is bidding on them.

The NFT market has ground to a halt in recent months. A few months ago, The Wall Street Journal It was based on data extracted from nonfungible to publish a study stating that non-fungible token sales had down 92% from its all-time high in September 2021. In the same report, it was revealed that active portfolios of NFTs had decreased by 88%. The same has happened in Google Trends, since there has been an 80% drop in searches for this term.

However, all is not lost. Some days ago, Square Enix got rid of several of its Western studios – those responsible for Tomb Raider and Deus Ex – in a very drastic way to obtain liquidity and thus get into the NFT market.

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