Happy Nice Mall

Olympia Ohanian, the daughter of tennis player Serena Williams and internet entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian, was a baby when her parents bought her a plastic doll. Then they took that baby Instagram account.

Qai Qai, nicknamed the baby, appeared on the platform in a series of mysterious photos in 2018. While baby-feeding resembled crime-scene photography—Qai Qai could be thrown randomly into a sandbox or shown lifelessly on a desolate asphalt—it also had a delightfully nostalgic quality. The images embodied the comically dark side of a young child’s obsessive attachment to a beloved object: When a new toy comes along, the object can be ruthlessly thrown aside. Every photo of Qai Qai’s casual neglect seemed to be infused with Olympia’s own boundless spirit.

But as the baby gathered followers, it adapted to the demands of various online platforms. Soon, he had transformed into a computer-generated cartoon figure with a curly hair on his head and deer eyes. This new, seemingly responsive Qai Qai can lip-sync viral videos like a TikTok star and make fun of a convertible FAO Schwarz toy like a mini influencer. Finally, the original Qai Qai doll disappeared from social media, replaced by a new doll designed after the cartoon version. can be purchased on Amazon. Last week, Qai Qai released its first NFT collection.

Qai Qai is part of a movement that is pushing children’s entertainment into the digital future. Revived by tech company Invisible UniverseDeveloping Internet-specific cartoon character intellectual property connected to celebrities. (The Invisible Universe is also a long lost teddy bear character TikTok is for the famous D’Amelio family and has transformed Jennifer Aniston’s dog Clyde into Clydeo, cartoon food influencer.) And Qai Qai’s NFTs — or immutable tokens, unique digital assets spawning a highly speculative market full of cheats – zigazooAn app for 3-year-olds that describes itself as “the world’s largest social network and NFT platform for kids”.

Make yours toddler needs an NFT? Zigazoo says yes. app mission It’s about “empowering children to shape the environment and infrastructure of NFTs and Web3”, helping them “express themselves through the arts and practice basic financial literacy skills”, and allowing them to become “digital citizens of tomorrow”. Recently as Rebecca Jennings Reported on VoxEfforts to bring kids into the worlds of cryptocurrency, NFTs and blockchain technology are being promoted as “preparing future workers for lucrative jobs in technology.” Traditional children’s entertainment has long focused on maximizing cash from its small consumers ( soon to be launched by Pixar brave origin movie “Toy Story” character Buzz Lightyear), but slick language suggesting kids should spend money Make money feels new. Platforms like Zigazoo are bubbling up hype for kids and presenting it as a creative outlet, educational opportunity, or even a civic duty to participate.

Recently, I honed my own basic financial literacy skills by acquiring a series of images of Qai Qai dancing in a tutu. First I had to download Zigazoo, a kind of tiny TikTok designed to be managed by an adult caregiver. Once you’re in, the app asks “Can you sing in another language?” such as anodyne “challenges” and “What’s your favorite shoe to wear?” Asks for videos created around very impersonal questions such as The content, like any adult social network, feels less important than the design of the app, which encourages users to gain followers, likes, and often become Zigazoo celebrities. In Zigazoo-ese, this can be translated as “practicing basic attention economy skills”.

Most of the app’s users look charmingly unpolished, posting shaky videos that cut their faces off their foreheads or chins while delivering breathtaking impromptu monologues. Yet his posts are infused with the language of influencers; typical video “Hey Zigazoo friends!” starts with and “Like and subscribe!” ends with Along the way, there are apologies for not posting recently, promises to post sooner, and offers to shout out the user’s most engaged followers on the next post, if not those followers. Occasionally this awkward and sensitive feed can be interrupted by an oddly brilliant video, like from a great child actor on Zigazoo, who can take his challenges while staring meaningfully into the lens and tickling a piano just outside the frame. (When I signed up, Zigazoo suggested that I follow him along with an account associated with the movie “Paw Patrol” and a young “Ninja Warrior” champion.) Sometimes the adults show up. They usually sell something like a toy subscription box or a podcast for kids.

Common Sense Media, a non-governmental organization that evaluates the age-appropriateness of media and technology, Gives Zigazoo high marks due to the absence of images containing violence, drugs and “sexy stuff”. The app has no comments, only positive reinforcement mechanisms, and each video is moderated by a human. But while Common Sense’s review states that consumerism is “non-existent” in practice, it’s ubiquitous. I learned that every time I open Zigazoo, I earn more “Zigabucks”, the platform’s in-app currency, for my mission-conscious visits every day. Also, I’ve been repeatedly asked to care about Zigazoo’s latest NFT drop: footage featuring CoComelon’s cartoon baby star JJ.

CoComelon is a wildly popular YouTube channel It features roughly rendered CGI videos and repetitive rhymes like “Dentist Song” and “Cake Song.” Although it has no discernible value beyond its ability to hypnotize toddlers for a long time, it has taken over the world; brand recently Partner with the Saudi government Building a physical CoComelon village in Riyadh, perhaps as part of Saudi Arabia’s wider public relations effort to get recognition for something other than torturing dissidents. (Let’s call it “the practice of basic geopolitical skills.”)

Anyway, the kids love it: CoComelon NFTs ran out before I could get another one, so I waited for the Qai Qai NFTs to drop, watching the countdown clock in the Zigazoo app, waiting for my “investment” moment. Qai Qai’s NFTs retailed for $5.99 to $49.99 per pack, and when you buy more cash, it’s not just a “common” NFT but a “rare” or “legendary” NFT, an inexplicable distinction your chances of getting it were high. (While each Zigazoo NFT is tied to a unique digital record on the Flow blockchain, the app has not made it clear how many of these records it assigns to each Qai Qai image, making it even harder to estimate how worthless it might be in the future.) For $19.99” I chose a “rare” Qai Qai collectibles pack, “Parents only!” I was rewarded with a multiple choice multiplication problem (although I knew my times tables better as a kid) to prove I was an adult, and finally with four stills of Qai Qai and a “rare” repetitive video of Qai Qai. Heel Toe Dance.”

Over the next few days, I’ll try to trade my NFTs with other users and ask “#QaiQaiDrop: What new toy are you hoping to get?” I’ve been invited to join NFT-related challenges like and “CoComelon: Can you show us your favorite pajamas?” The “winner” of each challenge was rewarded with more NFTs. The real challenge in this situation seems to be to “express yourself by helping a younger class of consumers do a new tech gimmick.” This concluded my NFT training at Zigazoo.

My Qai Qai NFT is fine. Like most of the internet dancing babies Before that, it is cute and also supports to buy digital asset a larger project: Serena Williams developed Qai Qai to give her daughter’s generation access to Black babies that Williams didn’t have as a child. (I have nothing nice to say about CoComelon NFTs.) Babies provide endless opportunities for creative play, as exemplified by Qai Qai’s spooky beginnings. Her first Instagram account exemplified the generative power of the internet, her ability to start a bizarre creative project and share it with the world – not because it would help “teach” you how to invest in cryptocurrencies, but simply because you felt good about it.

“Why should kids have NFTs?” “So much about the internet is about consumption,” Zigazoo complains in its in-app explainer, but says “the future of the internet is what you can create.” But right now, it’s about what you can buy using Zigabucks.