The programmatically generated Non-Fungible Token (PG-NFT) dominates contemporary online discourse in large part due to the instance of its creators and consumers that they are offering us something new: a means by which every individual, regardless of their traditional degree of marginalization in the late-capitalist system, can build wealth. Unlike other models of NFT, programmatic generation moves the process of creation from individual to machine, allowing anyone with the technological means to engage with the system of wealth-building the model promises. However, neither this promise nor its ultimate impossibility is as unique as proponents claim. The mythos of wealth-building is baked into the American consciousness. The creators of PG-NFT campaigns themselves recognize this, calling attention to American mythologies throughout their marketing materials in a simulation of satire: not intended to challenge, but confirm and rationalize comsumers' belief in the stories they know to be fiction. These rhetorical choices insist at the intelligence and commercial savvy of consumers, who creators claim are alone in recognizing the economic nihilism that lurks in every corner of the “meatspace” while also shifting any hope for the future into the apparent unknown of the metaverse. However, through the analysis of this rhetoric, it becomes clear that PG-NFTs merely engage in the postmodern pastiche of contemporary culture to proliferate past systems of social order.

Lydia would like to thank their faculty sponsor, Dr. Emily Lutenski, for their support of this project.