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The beloved video and meme "Charlie Bit My Finger" will be leaving YouTube soon, after it has been sold as a non-fungible token (NFT) for $760,999 (£538,000) by the original family who captured the moment on tape. After being put onto an NFT auction site by the Davies-Carr family, bids swarmed in as the auction fell into its’ final moments, and user "3fmusic’"took the crown with a final bid of over three-quarters of a million dollars.
An integral part of many people’s internet upbringing, Charlie Bit My Finger is one of the most popular videos in history with over 880 million views on YouTube. With 1-year-old Charlie and 3-year-old Harry starring in the short story, Charlie repeatedly bites Harry as he calls out his brother for it. There really isn’t much more to it, but the pair captivated the internet and became a lovable meme that has stayed ever since.
According to a BBC report, the video has continued to supplement the young pair and their two younger siblings through advertising and promotions, and they appear more than happy to be a part of it.
Now, however, the video will be leaving YouTube where it could be enjoyed by all, and instead belong to just one user. Although it remains available for now, the purchase of the video as an NFT will give the owner exclusive rights to the original posted content. Creators can still choose to keep their content up even after it is sold as an NFT, but the Davies-Carr family has decided to remove it, deviating from the norm in sales such as this.
NFTs are essentially the sale of a "certificate of ownership" of a digital "original", much like an original artwork by an artist, and the rights to popular digital pieces of content are being auctioned off at insane prices as interest in NFTs skyrockets. Each NFT comes with an encrypted signature by the creator, verifying the ownership to the new buyer.
Twitter founder and CEO Jack Dorsey made headlines after selling his first tweet for a staggering $2,915,835 (£2,058,000), while other memes continue to go up for sale, such as the "Disaster Girl" meme of a girl standing in front of a burning building, which fetched $473,000 – seemingly also to 3fmusic, the person who bought "Charlie Bit My Finger". Anyone with a popular piece of internet history can make their content available for purchase, and people are cashing in on their fleeting fame while wealthy internet lovers are seeing the NFT boom as a form of new-age investing.
