An artist in Ibadan on pizza day and crypto friends.
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Three minutes from Ibadan, Nigeria, a painter filming himself between two subjects he likes: the work on the board in front of him, and pizza. It opens on the greeting and the introduction. “My name is John Baide. I’m an artist and a crypto fanatic. I’m based in Ibadan, Nigeria.” Before anything else he turns the camera on the piece he is making, “this is the work I’m currently working on”, done in pastel.
Then the errand. “The reason for this video is to inform you about the Global Pizza Day that is coming up on May 22nd”, he says, that week’s Friday, and the instruction is practical: go to globalpizza.party “to check a location that is very close to your own area” so that you “will not miss out for this year party.”
He explains what is being celebrated, and does it without ceremony. “The reason is just to celebrate the fact that someone used 10,000 BTC to buy 2 pizzas 16 years ago.” What that bought, in his telling, was proof: “thanks to him, that’s the reason why everyone knows that, okay, it’s possible to like spend cryptocurrency for real life stuff.”
The middle of the tape is why he stays in the crypto space at all, and it is about access rather than price. “You get to meet a lot of people that you cannot actually meet on a normal day”, he says, including people far above him in rank at work, and in this space “you guys will be vibing as if they’re just friends and stuff like that.” Money comes second, and he says it lightly: “you get to make money if you are smart and you know what you’re doing”, then, “I made some money on crypto and I’m still making some. Yeah, let’s keep that there.” What he wants across is that this is “a very, very interesting community” where “you get to meet and network with great people that can actually change your life.”
The proof he offers is one friendship. “I actually have a friend too that I met through crypto. Like, we met online and shared gas fee once in a while.” When he mentioned he had never eaten pizza, the friend took him out for his first one, and his review is measured: “the pizza was very okay.” He plans on his second slice at the party that Friday. Then he asks the viewer for their story back, and signs off.
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