The Rick and Morty Enlightenment

Text: Attire Club

The fifth season of Adult Swim’s animated television series Rick and Morty consisted of 10 episodes, part of the 70 episodes ordered after the series was renewed in 2018. Rick and Morty is an American animated science-fiction television series that follows the misadventures of cynical mad scientist Rick Sanchez and his good-hearted but timid grandson Morty Smith, who divide their time between domestic life and interdimensional adventures that take place across an infinite number of realities, frequently traveling to other planets and dimensions via portals and Rick’s flying saucer. Rick and Morty’s overall theme is based on two opposing scenarios: domestic family dysfunction and an alcoholic grandfather pulling his grandson into high jinks in space and time.

The show is largely concerned with the meaning and purpose of human existence, a theme many philosophers, writers, and directors have explored in their works. While many critics regard it as a commentary on the absurd, Rick and Morty can actually be seen as a reflection of our society’s progressive elevation of consciousness. It addresses issues that would have been unthinkable only a few decades ago and humanizes them by connecting them with ordinary life. Other shows that discuss sci-fi and touch on otherworldly topics, such as the Star Wars series, fail to humanize modern technology, making it strange and dull.

Rick and Morty use a profoundly human approach to what is going on to bring notions that were concealed someplace in our imagination and subconscious to the forefront of our minds and explain how we might deal with them one day. People nowadays frequently discuss a shift in thinking and mentalities, as well as what a highly developed person could be in terms of technology and spirituality. Rick and Morty presents one such scenario, handling both family issues and interdimensional travel in a clear and enjoyable manner.

Of course, the use of animation makes it simpler to absorb, and the jokes allude to childhood aspirations of crossing worlds, which may one day become a reality.

Rick & Morty is largely about the laughs, but there is a noticeable philosophical inclination to offer a meaningful framework. It isn’t nihilism, existentialism, or any of the other old isms; rather, it is an emergent point of view that we may name 21st Century Enlightenment.

No other book, film, or television show has shown the perils and potential of our future with such candor, as well as the kind of enlightened philosophy we’ll need to survive it. It is a radical acceptance of freedom, science, and tolerance, as well as a daring embracing of knowledge’s boundless possibilities, investigating both the dark and the light. It demonstrates how the power that science affords us generates perilous ethical quandaries, as well as how our moral standards might adapt to prevent being corrupted.

As our knowledge expands, so does our power, necessitating the development of wisdom in proportion. Power without wisdom will ruin us all, and this is not a hypothetical possibility. Politics and culture are straining to keep up with science, but most importantly, what can be said is that humans must grow their spiritualities and ethics to match the bright future.

NFTS: A NEW FASHION TREND

Text: Attire Club

What exactly is an NFT (Non-Fungible Token) in the fashion industry? Fashion NFTs can take numerous forms, including virtual clothes that customers can wear within virtual worlds, digital content with which owners can engage, and digital twins of physical works.

According to the Vogue Business Index, 17% of the businesses surveyed had some sort of relationship with NFTs in 2021. And, with Morgan Stanley projecting a $25 billion luxury NFT industry, the number of fashion companies entering the market is only growing.

It’s not surprising that fashion NFTs, which meet the demand for increasing digitalization and enable personalization in the online world, are so popular.

Brands are integrating fashion and NFTs together in a variety of imaginative ways, from digital twins that increase the traceability of rare and costly clothing to virtual things that buyers can buy, wear in the metaverse, and collect in the digital realm.

Fashion manufacturers have been purchasing their own NFTs, often in the form of virtual land on which to establish stores and showrooms in order to sell to younger consumers.

Virtual environments like The Sandbox allow users to purchase tracts of land in the form of an NFT, and premium brands like Gucci have jumped right in. Gucci aims to collaborate with the platform to develop an interactive fashion experience based on Gucci Vault, the premium brand’s conceptual realm. Gucci, however, is not alone in the metaverse. For example, Selfridges just created the world’s first NFT department store within Decentraland, where users may view unique NFTs and browse Selfridges merchandise.

A Scalefast survey found that 25% of buyers interested in purchasing an NFT would be more likely to do so if it came with a physical good. Many companies, predictably combine NFTs with real products that customers can touch and wear.

Dolce & Gabbana’s record-breaking Collezione Genesi, the first premium NFT collection to combine digital and physical works, perfectly illustrates this. Winning bidders received both a real and virtual version of the design after paying $5.7 million at auction. Another example is Nick Graham, which has recently debuted its NFT/AR outerwear collection. Purchasers may authenticate their garments on the blockchain and use it to unlock exclusive AR experiences via a QR code embroidered inside each product.

The NFT market’s meteoric expansion in 2021 has slowed, according to Chainalysis statistics, with monthly spending on NFTs falling from more than $12 billion in January to less than $8 billion in April 2022. While growth has slowed, both spending and the number of active purchasers in the market remain significantly greater than at the start of 2021. This is a good indicator because it shows that consumers are still interested.

NFTs will undoubtedly play an important role in the future of fashion, especially as the metaverse evolves to provide new outlets for customers to showcase their digital purchases. Why? Because Generation Z consumers want digitization and personalization. NFTs now provide a new level of exclusivity as well as the opportunity to transform digital designs and collections into highly scarce, precious, sumptuous, and one-ofa-kind collector pieces.