A percentage of funds generated from NFT sale will be donated towards the rehabilitation of the flood victims.
The meme that captured the hearts and minds of many people across the world, ‘Wow Grape‘ is all set to be auctioned as a Non-Fungible Token (NFT) on 30th September 2022 on the digital art marketplace called Foundation. The auction link can be found below:
The Wow Grape meme got immense popularity when a YouTube channel uploaded the video of a celebration at a Pakistani school in Saudi Arabia. Snippets from the video became an instant internet sensation and went on to become a popular template for the creation of memes that were then flooded on social media. Particularly, the catchphrase ‘Wow, great’ was perceived as ‘Wow Grape’ by the netizens due to the passionate inflexion in the voice of the Pakistani politician, a former Senator, and principal of the school at that time, Ms Sehar Kamran. Since then ‘Wow Grape’ has become a commonly used phrase on the internet in the form of texts, images, gifs, and videos.
While the majority of Pakistani memes are of local relevance and at best spill over to the neighboring countries of South Asia, ‘Wow Grape’ enjoys a global following. The meme started a TikTok trend as videos created with ‘Wow Grape’ have more than 63 million combined views on the popular video-sharing platform. In fact, celebrities, Twitter and Instagram influencers from every corner of the world recreated or reshared the iconic meme. For instance, the popular celebrity Mia Khalifa shared her take on the meme on her official TikTok account which received 2 million+ views and thousands of reshares.
Pakistan is suffering from an unprecedented scale of floods throughout the country which has impacted millions of people. Due to the mass scale of damage caused to people’s homes and livelihood, they require continuous support to deal with the crisis. In order to contribute to the rehabilitation efforts, a portion of the funds generated from the NFT sale would be donated to an experienced and reputed charity.
Elucidating on her consent behind selling the NFT, Ms Sehar Kamran said, “Everything I said or expressed during the ceremony was organic and happened naturally as you know when one speaks about their motherland, their emotions become heightened. It was even more emotional for me, and the students at the event, because we were celebrating Pakistan, away from Pakistan. Extra-curricular activities like these in school help children learn about their nation.
We need to keep up with the times and technology today. Youngsters in Pakistan are smart, and they know the importance of digital assets and investing in new technology. Similarly, NFTs are the new smart contracts and their potential has not been utilized in Pakistan. I urge the youth to explore new avenues, especially in the digital realm because in today’s world anything is possible. We need to invest and unlock the potential of digital assets.
Reflecting on the recent floods in Pakistan and the use of NFT to raise funds, Ms Sehar Kamran said, “We must contribute towards the betterment of the country, and stand with our people in difficult times. The current floods have ravaged Pakistan impacting 33 million people as 1/3rd of Pakistan is flooded with water. The people in my area Sinjhoro, Sindh have been one of the worst affected. The magnitude of the catastrophe is beyond the capacity of the government to tackle alone and with that in mind, we have agreed to sell the NFT and donate a percentage towards the rehabilitation of the flood-affected people.”
An NFT is a crypto asset that represents an intangible digital item such as an image or video. NFT owners are recorded on the blockchain, meaning that NFTs can be traded as stand-ins for the digital assets they represent. The ‘Wow Grape’ NFT auction would be conducted with the consent of Ms Sehar Kamran in collaboration with the Sweden/Pakistan-based software house, Maqssoft. Indeed, the sale of the viral NFT has the potential to inspire and boost the confidence of local NFT creators to launch their NFTs in the global marketplace and contribute to the economy.
