Raging As The Bubble Bursts: My Journey Partying Through NFT NYC 2022

            NFT NYC is, in theory, like any other multi-day corporate conference: a couple days of talks in a big conference hall with topics like "Can NFTs Revolutionize Education Finance?",  "Manifesting NFTs with the Mind", and "NFTs as Decentralized IP (De-IP)" with a half-full auditorum full of people hungover from drinking too much at the open bar the previous night. I wouldn't know because I didn't formally attend what some dork compared to the 1969 edition of Woodstock--I don't own any NFTs, I can't day trade to save my life, and I have no idea on how to make a crypto wallet. I do, however, have a lot of friends who either make NFTs or are grifters, scammers, and hustlers in the crypto universe, and thus was sucked into their orbit during the June 2022 edition of the NFT NYC conference.

         The 2022 NFT NYC conference was supposed to happen in April of that year, but there was something about delays or fear of another outbreak or something, so it was delayed to June 2022--the kickoff to the first real post-Covid summer in New York City, the mask mandates long gone, the terror of Omnicron reduced to a speck in the rearview mirror...when the interest rates were still low enough for investors to think throwing money at JPEGs of drawings of monkeys wearing sailor hats and smoking Cubans was a solid investment...when the adderall was free-flowing in pharmacies from the Upper West Side to Myrtle-Wycoff...and when the NFT market was, in retrospect, had hit its peak before sliding down along with the rest of crypto.

         As with any stuffy business conference, the interesting action and deals and shenanigans don't happen within the conference rooms or officially sanctioned afterparties, but off in the corners--from the penthouses of Manhattan to the dirty skateparks of East Williamsburg. Here, in these unpainted corners, is where I found myself with my friends during the week of June 20, 2022.

TUESDAY

         Mike texts me about a party happening in Dimes Square later that evening, in the loft holding the studio of Montez Press Radio, a sort of 24-hour community radio thing that hosts everything from DJ sets to talk shows about art. He and another friend of his are going, supposedly, and it looks to be a good time. Never one to say no to a good time, I tell him I'm down to go, but I first need to make a spot in the Upper East Side to a party happening earlier in the evening, something about a "Milady Village", you should come, you might get a kick out of it, could be some content for your substack there.

         I arrive from work and the party's already in full swing, a crowded backyard full with paper-mache crafts of Miladys, those chibi anime girls that have taken the NFT scene by storm, a sort of counterculture to the lame normie bored apes that have captured the mainstream medias attention during this whole craze. They're decorating the entire fence of this backyard, and there's a scattering of arts and crafts to make your own, but the on and off rain this afternoon has put a damper on the whole construction--it's on to the drinking segment of the party, which is in full swing by the time I've arrived.

         I survey the scene and it's half unknown faces and half friends--there's Griftshop, whos apartment this whole shingdig is being hosted at, hawking Milady hats and hoodies...there's Deng wearing a bootleg Nick Land tshirt, same one he was wearing at the rave I first met him at a couple weeks ago...my roommate RealityGamer, hoping to use this week to pitch his LMAOism NFT project, which involves invoking the spirit of Maoism with DAOs and some non-hierarchical power structure, this somehow involves trolling Angelicism, which is going very well...and, in the back somewhere, Yoshida. Yoshida's one of the first friends I made after I moved into NYC, we're both involved in the same Twitter circles of post-rationalists and crypto guys and other various oddballs, without being directly invovled in any of these subcultures--we're mostly just along for the ride and going to all their various parties and events, like the Milady raves and post-rationalist house party salons and poetry readings at KGB and the black tie Urbit gala/rave/silent auction that had occured in a warehouse in Bushwick a couple weeks prior.

"You know, salty, I was at some party the other evening," Yoshida tells me, "And people were asking where you were--like we're some sort of double pack that goes to all these things."

"Oh nice," I reply, "What'd you think of that?"
"Well, I dunno, I was really weirded out by that--like, I don't wanna be seen as some sort of combo, and I'm sure you don't either, right?"
I'm about to reply when a guy with glasses joins in the conversation.

"Salty! What's up man? It's Albert, good to see you!"

"Oh shit, Albert!" I suddenly remember. "That's right, you're the guy who gave me the unmarked bag of pills at the one Milady rave afterparty. How're you?"

"I'm good, man, back in New York for the week. Dude, you should've been there a couple weeks ago, we rented out this huge warehouse in Queens and just fuckin partied the whole time, it was something insane."

"Yeah, I remember Realitygamer telling me about that, now that I'm thinking about it I can't remember why I didn't go...."

"Ah well, there's always next time. Hey, you're cool man, do you wanna be a part of my DAO? It's called Seed Oil Capital--basically we just got a shitload of ethereum and we invest in whatever crypto projects we think look cool. You want in? There's no fee or anything, I'll just add ya to the group chat."

Not knowing how the hell a DAO works, I figure may as well. What do I have to lose?

Albert's adding me to the group chat when Mike shows up in the backyard. "Oh shit, it's Crumps!"  Someone yells out, suddenly the gadfly of the downtown social scene is here, this is before the infamous Fascist Humiliation Ritual y'know, when he's still just cranking out scene reports and earning the ire of the Clandestino regulars. There's a little vibe shift now, people realizing they could get their name written up in his substack, get a little clout out of this maybe, get their handle mentioned in the same breath as forever magazine and curtis yarvin. I intercept crumps and we catch up on our lives and I introduce him to Griftshop and his friends, who are ecstatic to meet him.

The rain picks up again so we all head inside, hanging out in the basement hallway of this apartment complex, when there's chatter of making the move to the next thing, some NFT party at a bar nearby which the majority of the guys seem to be going to. I invite Yoshida to join Mike and I to the dimes square party, and the three of us get on the 6 train heading south towards Chinatown.

We get to the Montez Press Radio headquarters in some apartment across the street from Clandestino and the party's already in full swing, DJs blasting music in front of an open window, the beers down to a critical low, people smoking on the fire escape. Yoshida and I grab the last beers then head to the fire escape for a smoke, losing Mike in the process.

"Hey, I got a good idea", I tell Yoshida. "What if I invite Grace?"
"I dunno, do you think she'd show up?"

"She lives by here, may as well give it a shot."

Grace is a friend of mine I met on twitter but have only sparingly met in real life. The first and last time I had seen her was at a Urbit party, where we did ketamine in the bathroom then lost each other in the crowd.

I text Grace and she says she'll head over, just as I see a pair of red and blue lights reflecting in the mirror facing the street. Someone called the cops and, while the party can still continue, they have to turn the music off because of some noise complaint here, in the middle of dimes square, in the summer...the whole situation was absured to me. What's the fucking point of living in downtown Manhattan if you can't throw racuous parties during June?

In any case, with the music dead and the beer gone, the crowd thins out and disappears into the night. Yoshida and I are heading outside when Grace arrives.

"Bad timing, the party just got shut down" I tell her.

"Oh, that sucks. Were you guys going to do anything after?"

"Want to get a drink? Clando looks full but we could hit another bar nearby."

"That works, yeah."

We end up in the red light booths of Clockwork, a punk rock themed dive bar a block down the road. After grabbing a round I realize that I have some ketamine in my wallet. "Y'all wanna do some?" I ask the crowd, and soon enough we're all doing some key bumps.

While my ketamine varies in quality from time to time, this batch appears to be extra strong as Grace, after doing one, grabs both of our hands, starts speaking in tongues, and then runs out of the bar into the night. Yoshida and I head out looking for her, but don't see her anywhere. Deciding there isn't much else here, we finish our drinks and head to the subway stop back to Brooklyn.

We're on the train heading over the Williamsburg bridge, the rain clouds covering the moon from shining over the water, when I get a text from Grace. "hey sorry i threw up lol   but i'm good now". I guess the ketamine was pretty strong, if it can make someone vomit.

WEDNESDAY

There's an art gallery opening somewhere in the Upper East Side, it's curated by Spike art magazine columnist Dean Kissick, who charters a monthly column about the goings of the downtown manhattan and its general vibe. Well, at least, that's what I think it is--I end up not going because I'm too tied up in work, and by time I journey from the dirty streets of bushwick to the cleaner ones of the upper east side it'll already be winding down.

Fortunately, that's not the only thing happening tonight--some NFT project is hosting a party at a greek restaraunt in FiDi with an open bar for everyone till midnight. I have no idea what the project is--livwutang or something like that, I can't remember nearly a year later--but drinking free alcohol with my friends, who am I to turn something like that down?

I arrive early and grab a drink while waiting for the crowd to fill in. Yoshida and some folks arrive shortly after, coming from the Kissick show.

"Oh man, it sucks you couldn't make it," Yoshida says. Turns out Leonardo DiCaprio was there, unassuming, in the crowd, wearing a baseball hat so as to conceal his identity.
"Shut the fuck up, no he wasn't."

"He was, dude, I ambushed him in the bathroom and forced him to talk to me."

"Oh shit, nice. Did he say anything interesting?"

"He just kept telling me how nervous he was about his girlfriends' time running up and how he needed to start scouting for a replacement, but the pandemic had made it really difficult. Normally he has, like a couple of years headstart, but this time he was only going to have a couple of months before his current girl turns 25 and he has to get a replacement model."

Yoshida and I went to go get drinks. The party was a two-story affair, with a DJ on the top and some sort of lounge on the bottom. It had the vestige of something you'd see in a gaudy 80s cocaine drama, the ceilings and walls painted all-white, glass objects everywhere, an multiple disco balls, even in areas where there wasn't a DJ.

I was in line for a vodka soda when a guy I had never met before called me over.

"Salty! Hey Salty! We met at the last Milady rave, how you doin man? You have any ketamine? That was good shit last time."

I should pause here for a second: the Milady raves are a series of raves organized by the Milady folks, typically held in the basement of a restaraunt in Little Italy. I've always had a good time at them--the crowds have an interseting mix of scene kids and crypto nerds, which leads to fun interactions to witness--but they have a reputation for always getting shut down early by the cops, usually for bullshit like "noise complaints" and "you didn't have a license to do this kind of thing".

In any case, this guy claimed to have met me at the last one I attended back in April. In what is a typical occurance for me, I had forgotten that I had ever met him.

"I'll trade you a bump of ketamine for some blow, how about it?"

Now this piques my interest. While my ketamine has been a solid deal, I've been running around with terrible cocaine the past couple of months--while it's cheap, you get what you pay for, and it feels more like baking soda than snow...apparently the Brooklyn literati scene has been using this guy (or guys...I always get a different dispatcher when I pick up) for a while now, which makes me shudder how goddamn hard it is to get a decent dealer around these parts....

This man, fortunately, isn't lying, it's decent stuff. Being curious, I ask him who his guy is and he gives me a random instagram username, telling me to send them a DM and be sure to reference him. I thank him and then get back in line, where I've lost Yoshida.

I get a drink and stand around when a girl come up to me out of nowhere. We start chatting and turns out she's an artist--a good one, too, judging by her social media. Her art reminds me of something out of a BEMANI game or that BLAME! manga, which is to say, dope as fuck. We swap Instagram handles when it turns out that she knows my mysterious raver friend Alan, because of course, Alan seems to know almost everyone in this city. She goes back to join her friends and I text Alan the address of the party, telling him both me and this artist girl want to hang out with him.

"Salty, what was that?" Yoshida says, appearing out of nowhere.

"What do you mean?"

"Dude, girls don't just come up to guys at this kind of thing, I mean Jesus Christ, look at this crowd, it's all single guys with glasses and beards looking for something, girls here are rare."

"I dunno man, I was just standing here."

"I keep telling you this but you have like--this power to make anyone you like your friend, like you talk to someone and 5 minutes later they're like 'Oh, salty, I'm your friend how', and I have no fucking idea how you do it."

"I have no idea either, to be completely honest."

Yoshida mumbles "wow..." and we continue exploring the rest of the venue. Not much is happening--there's a DJ playing some unassuming tracks while some weird abstract video plays behind him, probably related to the NFT this party is supposedly about. There's a sincere lack of dancing here, even with the free alcohol to get everyone loose--just folks standing around, some trying their best to dance but not very well, groups separated off from one another talking to each other. The first floor isn't much different, more groups of people standing around, none of them looking like they're having an exceptional time.

It's when I get to the first floor when I see Alan arrive. Alan just got back from a whole month travelling around Europe, and he starts going into his various adventures. He's telling me about how they destroyed the floor when Kenny Beats transitioned into Faneto and they had to stop the set, how the Primavera festival was a nonstop party, with seemingly half of everyone who lives off the L train in attendance, how he met these Redditors who "really knew" their stuff about music...at this point I'm trying to pay attention but the free drinks and the k and the blow are combining and I'm bouncing, gone, trying to find Yoshida and anyone else I know here, I keep seeing faces that look vaguely familiar but I can't place them, who they are or where I met them or what their deal is...and somehow I end up oustide, it's well past midnight now, the open bar is closed and the crowd who can't be bother to pay up has joined me as well.

Yoshida finds me sitting on a curb, me having no idea how I got there, staring at the entrance to this restaraunt watching the sea of crypto nerds and girls who were invited here and people just looking for the next party all coalesce against each other.

         Yoshida and I are sitting on the curb when Albert appears with an Uber and tells us to hop in, there's an afterparty somewhere and we've got an invite to it. Yoshida drags me and and we're whisked off to a fancy looking building in Manhattan, somewhere by the water but I can't place it, it's too dark and I'm too drunk and high to get a feeling for it.

         We show up but the elevator won't take us to the very top floor, something about a security measure, so we have to climb a series of stairs to get up to the door. We get there but even then it's still locked so we're pounding away while Albert tries to hit up people who he thinks are inside, increasingly losing hope with every minute his texts get left on "Delivered".

         Eventually we get let in and the scene is a moribund one, lots of people high or looking for a plug, all the alcohol long gone, unbenknowst to us. We stumble around the scene looking for whatever empties are around that might still have a couple drops in them. Alan texts me wondering where I am, and I tell him I don't even know, man, to which he replies LOL.

         At one point I'm standing looking outside of the massive windows into the city, looking at dowtown Manhattan which at this point is covered in darkness, the rain clouds from the night before having moved on, still unable to place myself physically within the city even with all the hints of iconic landmarks. It's well past 4 am and I have work in the morning yet here I am, in the middle of everything yet nowhere in particular. I'm in one of those holes I'm all too familiar with, one you get into sometimes when you're out partying too late and the drugs are wearing off and you're drunk but still level-headed enough to think coherently--what am I doing here? What's this all for? What feels like a seemingly endless pursuit for something, some excess, some escape from the problems you have, a grander scale than just "hanging out" with your friends for an evening...looking for clout, looking for a good time, looking to get laid, looking for a wife, looking for something, anything, to get out of your lonely self even if it is just for an evening.

The sun starts to rise as I'm in a car back to Brooklyn. I try to sleep for a little bit but the birds outside my window make it hard to do so.

THURSDAY

Albert had persuaded me to let him crash on my couch Wednesday night, it seems Griftshop wasn't at the penthouse afterparty and he wasn’t answering Albert’s texts. I get home from work and Al's there, doing some work on Seed Oil and scoping out whats happening for the evening, asking if I have any adderall, which I trade him for what he claims is valium, it came out of the prescription bottle, maybe it is.

Ryder Ripps has a yacht party going on that evening, which Al claims he can get Realitygamer and I into, something about being on the list or knowing a guy. I tell him I’m game for up but I first want to try out this coke dealer’s information I got last night, one because I’m out and also because it’d make for a better party if we got some.

I DM the person on instagram the guy at the party gave me last night and it turns out it’s just some party promoter, he doesn’t move weight, but he knows someone who does, he gives me a random number and tells me to reach out to them over Signal. I reach out to the unknown number and sure enough they tell me yeah, I can pick up tonight, just meet them at the port authority bus terminal, they’re doing a lot of business in manhattan tonight. Al hands me $200 and a request to get an 8ball and I’m off on the L train heading into the city.

The port authority bus terminal--not really the best place to make a drug deal…cops everywhere, some uniformed some plainclothesed, security cameras on every wall, throngs of people moving in and out--tourists, travelers, service workers, any sap unlucky enough to have to transfer trains around here to get back home…and, more importantly, an hour from Bushwick. But so it goes, you work with what you have, not what you want.

I’m waiting around when a woman on a Citibike bikes over to me. “Are you saltypickles?”, she asks.

“Yeah, that’s me. You’re the--”

“Yep. Let’s see if we can make this quick, I got a busy night tonight.”

“Sure but, look, I’m not sure if you’re aware of this but there’s cops everywhere--”--I gesture my eyes in a 360 motion-- “So I think we should get somewhere just a little quieter than this”

We decide to go across the street, as if all the surveillance will magically disappear by going a hundred feet away from the terminal. We made the deal and she rides off into the night on her gray Citibike.

As I head back to brooklyn Al informs me that actually he’s too tired to go to the yacht party, leaving me with a lot of white powder and nowhere to go.

I check my groupchats in a desperate attempt to find something happening and it turns out there’s some party at the brooklyn monarch, a rave of some sort, but you can get listed if you DM quickly enough…I message the contact, hoping i’m in time, the “DELIVERED” status not changing to “READ” no matter how many times I open and close the app.

I get to the Monarch, wait in line, and get to the bouncer. I say I’m on the list as saltypickles and, given an incredulous look, the bouncer scrolls through his phone…still scrolling, yep there it is, saltypickles. He unhooks the tarp and lets me in.

The scene inside the Monarch looks like something out of Succession or one of those TV shows mocking rich people. The party is pandemic themed, so all the working staff are wearing hazmat suits…all throughout the inside of the club there’s topless women dancing in what look like quarantine containers, wearing face masks of course. No open bar here but the cocktails are reasonably priced for this kind of a gaudy nightclub.

I’m stumbling around the party looking for anyone I know when I run into Roon, the niche twitter microcelebrity himself.

“Roon? What are you doing here? You don’t even work in crypto OR live here!” I ask him.

“Salty, the ratio is fucked here,” he replies, ignoring my question, “I mean it’s so bad, look at it, all white guys with glasses and beards, like, the majority of the women here are in those quarantine pods.”

“Right, yes, it’s a crypto party, what did you expect? So what are you doing here anyway?”

He ignores my question and continues rambling about the ratio.

“You have to have a good ratio, salty, I always aim for 50/50. Too many guys and you have a sausage fest like here, too many girls and it devolves into catfighting. You seen it in my groupchat, right? Look at how much better it got after I added people like that Shannon woman…”

He goes on like this for a while before I slip out unnoticed to get another drink. As I turn a corner I see Alan out of nowhere.

“What are you doing here?”, I ask him after catching my breath from hysterically laughing.

“I was on the list, what about you?”

“So was I.”

“This thing sucks, you wanna go to Market Hotel? It’s sold out but I can get you in as a plus 1”, Alan asks me. Market Hotel’s a venue in Bushwick that holds raves, the crowd’s usually a little younger but its a good time.

“Hell yeah,” I reply, and before I know it we’re in a car on to the next rave.

We arrive at Market Hotel and the place is packed, the music bumping, there’s a open bar which I abuse with quick haste, tipping the bartenders well as I ask them to keep the vodka sodas going when I see albert with a hot goth girl.

“I thought you were too tired to go out, Albert!” I call out to him in a drunkenly hoarse voice.

“Yeah, well your roommate kicked me out for being too loud, so now I’m here.”

I decide I’m better off not knowing how he got in the place. We party until way too late of an hour, and I walk down the streets of Bushwick home as the sun rises.

FRIDAY

The conference is over today but not before one last big event--the June edition of the Milady Rave. Unlike the previous ones that were held in Italian restaurants, this one’s being held in a big skatepark in East Williamsburg, they’re expecting a big crowd, there’s been a huge buzz all week about this Milady rave, everyone asking each other if they’re going to the rave on friday, going to the rave, Milady this Milady that. Milady.

There had been some drama going in to this week with the public revelation that the Milady project was spearheaded by this guy Charlie Fang, some internet neo-fascist reactionary, he had apparently convinced a bunch of girls to self-mutilate themselves in a Discord in one of his previous internet identities. This news of Charlie running Milady was an open secret in the NFT community for months--Yoshida had told me it the first time I met him in person--but not among the general crypto community, not until some journalist found out the details from loose lips and decided it’d make a great story. But this furor didn’t seem to stop the enthusiasm of the Miladys, who were going in to Friday determined to rave their ass off. Milady.

But the Milady Rave would be later. Now was a poetry reading in a backyard in Bed-Stuy, hosted by the roommate who had kicked out Al the previous night, it’s me and Realitygamer and his girlfriend and a whole crowd of people who have no idea what the fuck nft nyc or a milady or any of this is. That’s one of the beauties of new york city, i think to myself as i’m watching my friend theo perform what i can only describe as “noise poetry”, you have millions upon millions of people, all doing their own thing, all these scenes, sometimes interacting with each other on the edges…it feels infinite, really, the experiences you can have and the types of people you can meet. One random interaction at a random party on a random night can have ripple effects on your life that you can’t even dream of, not until it’s six months later and you’re palling around with a new crew of friends who you drunkenly tell that you love and they smile and say they love you back, man, we’re so glad we met you, you’re so cool, new york fucking city baby….

The readings end and the three of us--me, Reality, and his girlfriend--hop into a car to a bar near the skatepark where this girl I know is meeting us. By the time we get there she’s coming up on molly, and I ask her for some, because sure why not. We walk to the skatepark and talk to the bouncer at the front when it turns out we’re at the wrong skatepark rave that evening…oh the Milady Rave? Yeah, that’s across the street…it got shut down, the cops came and everything…I think I saw an ambulance as well….

We walk across the street and enter this other skatepark, where the rave’s in full swing. The skatepark is dimly lit, with a whole crowd of kids and folks standing in a crowd entranced by the violent happy hardcore blasting out of the speakers. Behind them, skaters and wannabe ones kick their boards around, performing tricks and rolling up and down the ramps. It’s an odd scene, something you’d see out of a Disney Channel Original Movie depiction of a rave, dark and aggressive yet at the same time it isn’t. It sure looks the part--some of the crowd like Yoshida are moshing it out, but some of the crowd looks like they’re trying to convince themselves to be in to it.

We get in and look for people we know. There’s Grace with a guy friend of hers. There’s Yoshida, dancing around and almost moshing. There’s my buddy Tommy, drunk and grabbing a random skateboard, trying to get down a ramp but falling down every time. The girl and I search for Grift and Al, who should be here, but we can’t find them, until we find an office door and enter it.

Here, in this tiny office, we find Grift and Al--along with a whole bunch of guys, so many in here that the room is packed. This is, supposedly, the VIP lounge, but the small space combined with all the men makes it feel like the opposite.

“EVERYONE GET THE FUCK OUT!” Al screams shortly after the two of us enter. “GET THE FUCK OUT! NOW!” He stays silent for a minute, then turns and looks at us standing by the door. “Except for you, salty.” He says in a quiet voice. “You’re cool. You can stay.”

The crowd shuffles out while we push deeper into the room. “How’s the rave so far?” I ask Al as I plop down on a nearby couch. “We just got here. Apparently the cops were here?”

“Yeah, someone died,” Al says in a matter of fact tone.

“Someone DIED? What the fuck?” the girl asks.

“Yeah, it was nuts, I guess some girl took some bad molly and just passed out in the middle of the floor. An ambulance came and, I shit you not, her heart was stopped.”

“Bullshit”, I reply.

“No, not at all, I saw them pull out defibrillators and everything, it was nuts. They resurrected her and I guess she’s fine so the cops are letting us keep this shit going. Crazy, right?”

I feel the molly kick in and I excuse myself to get some air. I can see why this girl passed out, the whole rave is like a furnace, no ventilation in the skatepark, no vendors hawking water bottles, and it’s a hot summer night outside anyway, no place to flee from the heat, a long walk away from any delis that would get you hydrated.

The girl and I step out and survey it all. She asks if we can get water so we trek back to one of the delis we passed by walking here, at least what we can vaguely remember.

“That sucked,” she complains to me as we start walking. “It was all a bunch of autistic guys standing around. Nobody was dancing! People should be dancing at a rave!”

“That’s a bit much, there were a lot of people dancing” I reply. “And even if there weren’t, why don’t we go back there and start dancing ourselves? We’ll get people in to it, they can join us!”

“Nah, I dunno, I just wanna go home at this point.”

I give up on arguing with her, mostly because the molly’s in full gear at this point for me and I hate getting into arguments while I’m rolling. We grab large bottles of water at a deli and head to the subway steps.

“Hey, do you guys know where the milady rave is?” some kids ask us as we start walking down the steps. We point them in the general direction of the skatepark then head down the stairs into the L train stop, an escape from the heat and the last nft nyc even that I was invited to.