{"id":13123,"date":"2023-12-19T21:00:01","date_gmt":"2023-12-19T21:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2023\/12\/19\/marvel-crypto-tucker-carlson-eight-of-2023s-most-spectacular-downfalls\/"},"modified":"2023-12-19T21:00:01","modified_gmt":"2023-12-19T21:00:01","slug":"marvel-crypto-tucker-carlson-eight-of-2023s-most-spectacular-downfalls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nft.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2023\/12\/19\/marvel-crypto-tucker-carlson-eight-of-2023s-most-spectacular-downfalls\/","title":{"rendered":"Marvel, crypto, Tucker Carlson: eight of 2023\u2019s most spectacular downfalls"},"content":{"rendered":"

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R<\/span>emember 2022? Elon Musk had just been named Time\u2019s Person of The Year, Marvel still ruled the box office, Tucker Carlson<\/a> was the most-watched host on cable news and it seemed as if all of life was going to take place on the blockchain (the Staples Center in LA had been rechristened the Crypto.com arena, and Yuga Labs, the company behind Bored Ape Yacht Club, was valued at $4bn).<\/p>\n

What a difference a year makes: 2023 has seen the crash of digital currency, the flatlining of NFTs, and the floundering of blockbuster franchises. Previously beloved musicians took on a more sinister edge, a celebrated social network imploded, and a TV show became the biggest \u201cfaceplant\u201d in a network\u2019s five-decade history. Below, experts from the worlds of tech, politics, and the arts give the inside track on the sacred cows that have been put out to pasture, the buzzy upstarts that faced a reckoning, and the lessons that can be learned for the future.<\/p>\n

Crypto<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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<\/svg><\/span>Sam Bankman-Fried was crypto\u2019s poster boy.<\/span> Photograph: Jane Rosenberg\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When the investigative journalist Zeke Faux first pitched a book about crypto in 2021, digital currency was at its peak. Bitcoin had hit an all-time high of $69,000. English soccer teams were being sponsored by crypto exchanges or wearing<\/a> Dogecoin\u2019s shiba inu logo on their sleeve. Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the crypto marketplace FTX, was being hailed as tech\u2019s next great innovator. \u201cOnly Zuck has been as rich ($23 billion!) this young (29!)\u201d read<\/a> the cover of Forbes. \u201cI thought the whole thing was pretty dumb,\u201d says Faux, who published Number Go Up: Inside Crypto\u2019s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall, this September. \u201cIt turns out I should have been even more skeptical.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year has been crushing for crypto, and it may never recover from the dramatic denouement of its poster boy. Nearly a year to the day after FTX filed for bankruptcy, Bankman-Fried was convicted of seven charges of conspiracy and multi-million dollar fraud this November, and faces up to 115 years in prison. Another exchange, Coinbase, is being sued by the SEC<\/a>, accused of operating as an unregistered broker. And Changpeng Zhao, who once seemed like crypto\u2019s heir apparent, resigned as CEO of the Binance marketplace after pleading guilty to money laundering charges. \u201cFor a while, crypto was really fun,\u201d says Faux. \u201cPeople like gambling, especially when you win. But not only have the prices of nearly every coin collapsed, but FTX \u2013 which was viewed as the most legit of the crypto casinos \u2013 was actually stealing everybody\u2019s money. So crypto doesn\u2019t seem that fun any more.\u201d Thousands of FTX customers lost all or part of their savings; the US government does not insure digital currencies, and they may never get that money back<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Blockchain devotees insist the crypto winter is thawing. Companies are throwing money<\/a> at federal lobbying in an attempt to win over policymakers. The hope is for \u201calternative and looser regulatory environments\u201d, says Faux. \u201cBut given all the terrible things that have happened, is Congress really going to step up and pass a pro-crypto law?\u201d<\/p>\n

Marvel<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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<\/svg><\/span>The Marvels was Marvel\u2019s lowest-grossing film.<\/span> Photograph: Laura Radford\/AP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite its films being the Marmite of the multiplexes, Marvel has inarguably set a new bar for the maximalist blockbuster. Everything is bigger, brasher, more hulking in Marvel Land, including its receipts: 10 Marvel Cinematic Universe movies have each grossed more than a billion dollars globally. \u201cThe company had seemed box office bulletproof for so long,\u201d says Joanna Robinson, a co-author of MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios.<\/a><\/p>\n

But not too big to fail. This year has brought mixed blessings for the studio. February\u2019s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was derided<\/a> as an \u201cincoherent effects-dump\u201d and grossed only $476.1m \u2013 a relative flop. \u201cQuantumania was a real wake up call for them internally because they felt really good about that one,\u201d says Robinson. \u201cThey [asked themselves]: \u2018Is our internal barometer so far off of what the fandom wants?\u201d<\/p>\n

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For every smash like Guardians of the Galaxy 3 or Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, there was a commercial non-starter like Nia DaCosta\u2019s The Marvels<\/a>, the MCU\u2019s lowest-grossing offering to date. Prestigious hires like DaCosta and Chloe Zhao (Eternals) haven\u2019t quite managed to thread the needle between art and commerce like Ryan Coogler\u2019s Oscar-winning Black Panther movies. Working within the MCU \u201crequires a certain flattening of creativity\u201d, says Robinson. \u201cIt makes more sense for Marvel to hire more workman-like directors than these intensely creative sorts of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year has been \u201ca real drop off a cliff\u201d for the company\u2019s reputation, she adds. \u201cBut the reports of Marvel\u2019s death are premature.\u201d Robinson sees the studio\u2019s relatively modest 2024 slate as a net positive, noting that the January launch of the Marvel<\/a> Spotlight banner, a new strand of films that will stand alone from the core MCU narrative, could usher in \u201ca burst of creativity\u201d. And news of extensive reshoots on the forthcoming Captain America: Brave New World seems like a good thing. \u201cThey\u2019re on a knife\u2019s edge right now,\u201d says Robinson. \u201cI would much rather Marvel takes all the time they need to make sure they get it right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Formerly Twitter<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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<\/svg><\/span>Workers remove letters from the Twitter sign at the company\u2019s San Francisco headquarters amid rebranding.<\/span> Photograph: John G Mabanglo\/EPA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since acquiring the company in October 2022 and changing its name to one everyone hates, Musk, an impetuous \u201cfree-speech absolutist\u201d, has turned it into a barely functional hellsite that platforms racists<\/a>, marginalizes sex workers<\/a>, and rewards far-right influencers with five-figure payouts<\/a>. X is currently worth $19bn, less than half of what Musk bought it for.<\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, insists X is a \u201cmuch healthier and safer platform than it was\u201d when Musk bought it, which is hard to square with the flurry of organized crime<\/a> on the platform that has proliferated now blue checks can be bought for $8 a month. \u201cShe pretends that moderation tools do exist, when it\u2019s pretty clear that if they do exist, they\u2019re not being used,\u201d says Paris Marx, host of the Tech Won\u2019t Save Us podcast. \u201cI would be surprised if they actually exist at all.\u201d After Musk boosted antisemitic tweets in November, advertising executives implored Yaccarino to resign to save her career. \u201cShe seems determined not to do that,\u201d says Marx.<\/p>\n

The X vision of free speech is one where government requests<\/a> for censorship and surveillance are almost always greenlit, Alex Jones and Infowars are given free rein, and anyone who doesn\u2019t like it can \u201cgo fuck yourself\u201d, as Musk told Disney\u2019s CEO<\/a>, Bob Iger, this November. The idea that X can become an \u201ceverything app\u201d in the mold of China\u2019s WeChat is \u201ca complete joke\u201d, says Marx. \u201cHe\u2019s lost a lot of money, and some sanity along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, alternative platforms Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads don\u2019t yet feel like rivals. \u201cWe\u2019re going through a larger shift in what social media looks like,\u201d says Marx, noting that video content is increasingly lucrative. \u201cIt\u2019s not clear what we\u2019re going to arrive at the other end.\u201d<\/p>\n

NFTs<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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<\/svg><\/span>A September report said 95% of NFTs had become worthless.<\/span> Illustration: Illustration by Craig Robinson\/Getty Images\/The Guardian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even at the peak of the NFT gold rush, when Bored Ape Yacht Club\u2019s scraggly primates were breathlessly being hailed as \u201ctickets to a whole new lifestyle\u201d, most non-fungible tokens weren\u2019t exactly the kind of thing you\u2019d want to hang on your wall. Many felt closer to the kind of novelty poster you\u2019d see while doing bong rips in a college dorm: \u201ca pic of a nun with a Nintendo Switch\u201d or \u201cSupreme Court Justice Chuck E Cheese\u201d, as an SNL skit<\/a> put it. But in March 2021, the obscure digital artist Beeple made history when one of his NFTs sold for $69m at Christie\u2019s. \u201cI was shocked,\u201d says the art adviser Adam Green. \u201cParticularly by the prices for NFTs that resembled graphic design or screensavers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Per a September report<\/a>, 95% of NFTs are now effectively worthless, making the investments of 23 million people feel a bit like that shiny Pok\u00e9mon card that you were convinced would one day be the downpayment for your house. The durag-sporting Bored Ape that Justin Bieber paid $1.3m for in 2022 is now worth<\/a> just 5% of that. \u201cBut that means people are still paying $50,000 for an ugly ape cartoon on the blockchain,\u201d says Faux. \u201cWhy? It\u2019s mystifying to me.\u201d While the company\u2019s 2022 ApeFest featured performances from LCD Soundsystem, Haim, and Lil Wayne, the 2023 event made headlines for all the wrong reasons: over 20 attendees left<\/a> with severe eye burn.<\/p>\n

Only the most \u201ctechnologically innovative\u201d NFT artists have a serious future, says Green, who recently helped a client acquire a piece by the MoMA-exhibited<\/a> Refik Anadol. Even so, sales like this are the exception to the rule. \u201cMost traditional art collectors prefer to live with paintings, sculptures and drawings,\u201d he says, \u201crather than something they have to consume through a digital display.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drake<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Drake\u2019s eighth album felt like a conscious departure from the artist that many fans fell for, with few traces of the playful lothario taking his dates to the Cheesecake Factory, the loveable goofball lint-rolling his pants courtside, or the sensitive diarist of Take Care. \u201cIt\u2019s really hard to hear someone who built his career on being this emotional, caring person turn into what sounds like a men\u2019s rights rapper,\u201d says the writer and critic Julianne Escobedo Shepherd. Here is a bitter paranoiac with money, sex, and power on his mind. Punchlines about Rihanna\u2019s \u201caverage\u201d sexual prowess (excuse me?<\/em>), and Megan Thee Stallion\u2019s assault felt especially grim. \u201cShe made a whole album<\/a> about how awful that experience was for her,\u201d notes Shepherd. \u201cIs he jealous because she is more influential at this point?\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/svg><\/span>Drake\u2019s For All the Dogs got poor reviews but plenty of listeners.<\/span> Photograph: Chris Young\/AP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite getting the worst reviews of his career, For All the Dogs <\/em>shot to No 1 on Billboard with 514 million on-demand streams in its opening week, giving it the largest streaming week of any 2023 album \u2013 yep, more than the chart-bulldozing 1989 (Taylor\u2019s Version), whose stratospheric sales mostly came from collectible vinyl and CDs.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had a very good year commercially, but I do think he understands that he doesn\u2019t have the same sway with very young people,\u201d says Shepherd. That frustration is metabolized into headline-grabbing snark on record, but elsewhere Drake has taken a more pragmatic approach to winning gen Z ears. The It\u2019s All A Blur tour featured 21 Savage as co-headliner and openers including Lil Yachty, Central Cee, and Zack Bia. \u201cThere\u2019s a combination of him anointing these people into his audience, but also reaching out to their audience to ensure longevity,\u201d says Shepherd. \u201cIt\u2019s a good business move.\u201d Even so, other ventures have felt less prestigious. Since 2020, Drake has netted a reported $100m by shilling for<\/a> the crypto gambling site Stake. \u201cMaybe that shows how far Drake has fallen,\u201d says Faux.<\/p>\n

In a 2022 commercial, Meta\u2019s Vishal Shah made the metaverse sound like a delight. \u201cComedy clubs, speakeasies, haunted houses,\u201d he promised<\/a>, cruising down a highway lined with candy-colored buildings, as Keke Palmer nodded approvingly. Shah was speaking of Horizon Worlds, Meta\u2019s flagship metaverse app. Mark Zuckerberg had believed enough in the metaverse to rename Facebook Meta and restructure the company around it, sinking $36bn<\/a> into the company\u2019s Reality Labs division.<\/p>\n

Citi once estimated that the metaverse could be worth $13tn by 2030, but Facebook\u2019s big gamble turned out to be haunted in all the wrong ways. Users found Horizon Worlds basic, blocky, and buggy \u2013 a far cry<\/a> from cutting edge games like Roblox and Fortnite. Last year, Meta said<\/a> that 200,000 people logged on to the app each month; the YouTuber Jarvis Johnson recently put it<\/a> at 900 per day. \u201cAt the beginning of the year, it felt like the metaverse was a joke,\u201d says Joanne McNeil, a culture and tech journalist and the author of the novel Wrong Way. \u201cNow we\u2019ve reached the point of irrelevance.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/svg><\/span>The metaverse was supposed to be worth $13bn by 2030.<\/span> Photograph: Metaverse<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Visiting Horizon Worlds, Johnson was greeted with digital tumbleweed, finding a tiny number of users \u2013 mainly kids \u2013 \u201cyour mom\u201d jokes, and extreme empty glitchiness. After laying off thousands of employees between November 2022 and May 2023, Meta<\/a> is pivoting to AI, with a freaky \u2013 and much-memed \u2013 new digital assistant that can be skinned as Tom Brady and Kendall Jenner. This October, the company launched its \u201cmixed reality\u201d Meta Quest 3 headset, which, Zuckerberg noted, offers the potential for conference room meetings with both in-person and online colleagues as well as \u201ca bunch of AI guys who are embodied as holograms\u201d. Suddenly Zoom meetings don\u2019t seem so bad.<\/p>\n

McNeil is skeptical that \u201ccorporate attempts to gather a bunch of users and get them to hang out\u201d holds a candle to \u201cindependently minded projects\u201d in the real world. Yet despite a mixed reception and repeated delays, Apple is pressing ahead with the launch of its Vision Pro headset in 2024. And while Horizon Worlds may be running on fumes, Meta still has enough clout to attract A-listers to the app. Elton John and Foo Fighters have performed there, and a Blackpink \u201cconcert experience\u201d arrives this Boxing Day. Which seems like a great booking, until you realize that they won\u2019t be there at all: it\u2019s a concert filmed in 2D earlier this year, and, as a treat, you need $250 goggles to watch.<\/p>\n

Sam Levinson<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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<\/svg><\/span>The Idol was supposed to be the next streaming juggernaut.<\/span> Photograph: HBO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In early 2023, HBO was on a Teflon-plated run. House of the Dragon, The White Lotus, and The Last of Us were viewer magnets and critical darlings, while the final season of Succession looks set to add every Emmy going to the network\u2019s ludicrously capacious awards cabinet. \u201cHBO was coming off of arguably one of its hottest streaks in its 51-year history,\u201d says John Koblin, co-author of It\u2019s Not TV: The Spectacular Rise, Revolution, and Future of HBO. \u201cThere was a huge amount of anticipation: \u2018what does HBO have up its sleeve? They seem to do no wrong.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The Idol was supposed to be the next streaming juggernaut from Sam Levinson, the maverick creator of Euphoria and a prized addition to HBO\u2019s \u201cstable of auteurs\u201d, says Koblin. Early reports<\/a> had painted The Idol as cursed, but the network \u201cat the time wasn\u2019t really sweating it very much\u201d, he says. \u201cThey were anticipating that it was going to court controversy. If anything, they saw that as a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Levinson\u2019s miniseries aimed to be a dark Hollywood fable but turned out to be an incoherent buffet of schlocky shock value, hurling a grieving young pop star (Lily-Rose Depp) into a snake pit of self-interested execs, fake friends, and an abusive lover (the Weeknd). \u201cIt is arguably HBO\u2019s biggest faceplant in close to a decade,\u201d says Koblin. \u201cThis is a show that was panned by critics, rejected by audiences, became a punchline on social media.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Idol had been lined up as the tentpole show for HBO\u2019s new streaming app Max, but its season premiere drew 3.6 million viewers, a fraction of the 16.3 million who watched the finale of Euphoria season two. It wasn\u2019t a terrible showing, but things got worse from there \u2013 and after losing viewers each week, HBO decided to kill the program early, after just five episodes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not all The Idol\u2019s fault, but this was the thing that was supposed to get customers through the turnstiles,\u201d says Koblin. \u201cIt clearly did not help this new service come sprinting out of the gate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Levinson went from \u201cthe man with the Midas touch to having a pretty big flop on his hands\u201d, says Koblin. Plus, \u201cit took Levinson away from his mega hit,\u201d he adds, noting that the Hollywood strikes added to the delay. \u201cSo the earliest that the next season of Euphoria can premiere is at some point in 2025,\u201d says Koblin. It\u2019s not certain to replicate its past success, given viewers\u2019 short attention spans. \u201cThat\u2019s a really big ask of the audience to say, \u2018Come back.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Tucker Carlson<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Fox News\u2019s Tucker Carlson Tonight was an incoherent buffet of conjectures and conspiracy theories, with flat-out lies about the \u201cmostly peaceful\u201d January 6 protesters, petty<\/a> personal grudges<\/a> dressed up as warnings against wokeism, and a fixation on \u201cthe great replacement\u201d \u2013 a racist conspiracy theory that immigrants are being imported to the US to edge out its nationals.<\/p>\n

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<\/svg><\/span>Tucker Carlson left Fox News in April.<\/span> Photograph: Joe Raedle\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By 2020, it was the most-watched show on cable news, and Carlson among the American right\u2019s most influential figures. Behind closed doors, Carlson threw his weight around a network still reeling from the cataclysmic sexual assault allegations<\/a> against its former boss. \u201cHe\u2019s a frat boy at heart,\u201d says Alex Shephard, senior editor at the New Inquiry. \u201cHe does not like to be told what to do. After Roger Ailes\u2019 defenestration, [some of Carlson\u2019s behavior] was him trying to tell Fox he was bigger than the network.\u201d<\/p>\n

After exiting the network this April, dogged by lawsuits, Carlson said it wasn\u2019t the last we\u2019d heard of him. (There \u201caren\u2019t many places left\u201d to find \u201cAmericans saying true things\u201d, he opined<\/a>.) One such place turned out to be X, where Carlson currently hosts daily shows featuring an all-star line up of guests including Marjorie Taylor Greene, Vivek Ramaswamy, and the guy who claims to have had sex with Barack Obama. His own network started with a whimper this December. It promises to \u201ctell the unadorned truth\u201d, and hearing it will set you back $72 a year.<\/p>\n

Shephard is sceptical that Carlson\u2019s brand of red-faced smarm is enough to stand out in the jostling world of \u201canti-woke\u201d commentators. \u201cIf I want to listen to somebody make horrific comments about some trans teenager playing volleyball in South Dakota, there\u2019s fourteen guys I can think of that do that,\u201d says Shephard. \u201cThere was only one of them at Fox News.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n