Artchick Not a Chick?

@Artchick, a prolific member of the NFT community focused on high-end digital art and female-led NFT projects (and now known as @punk2476), has claimed to be a woman for some time now. Recent evidence has called that into question. This past week, an old tweet from Artchick was unearthed where they promoted a blog called Ode Magazine, which we know to have been authored by a man. This created a snowball effect where more and more evidence was discovered pointing to Artchick being a man. 

First, the creator and author of Ode Magazine is a man named Tanner Golden. His bio says, “Tanner spent many years in the software development industry, first as a software developer and then later on as a technical recruiter. Now he writes product reviews full time.” Other than Tanner’s Bio, there is not much that is known about him. There is another author, Chelsea Moon, named in the blog, but the idea of Artchicks being her has been dismissed by the community. 

Second, old Twitter posts from Artchick show pictures of traditionally male activities, like hunting and fishing. 

Third, going back to old Twitter posts, an old tweet was found in which a person calls Artchicks “Tanner,” and Artchicks responds to the tweet. This piece of evidence is crucial in the argument that Artchicks is not Chelsea Moon, as the person refers to Artchick as “Tanner.”  

Lastly, Artchicks posted a response to the claim but later deleted it after Twitter user danielgothits.eth said that the voice used in the video was a robot-generated female voice. 

Questioning Artchick’s gender is not a new thing. Back in July, Beanie claimed that he was not one person but a team of professional marketers meant to gain engagement. He also claimed that Artchick was a part of this professional group of marketers and hinted that a bunch of men ran the Artchick account. This claim created a wildstorm as many people on Twitter started to question the identity of Artchick. 

This event prompted a response from Artchick where they replied with a photo of a person with a middle finger. 

Artchick’s final tweet on their Twitter account says, “yes I am a woman, and I killed it while I was here. I’ll leave now, goodbye.” This seems to be the final chapter for the influencer. The time Artchick has had in the NFt space can be summed up as chaotic as they have had multiple claims of supporting and executing scammed and rugged projects. But it cannot go unnoticed that Artchick has helped numerous female NFT creators.

The ironic thing about this situation is that Artchicks was one of the lead people who helped resurrect the Fame Lady Squad project after it was discovered that it was created by a group of Russian men that claimed to be women. 

If the allegations are true, Artchick’s actions are a true disservice to women in the world of NFTs. As of now, women are underrepresented in the NFT and crypto space, and the actions done by Artchick might disincentivize women from joining the space. For a man to exploit the small community of females in this space for his own financial gain is not only disheartening, but sort of pathetic. 

After reading so much sexist nonsense on NFT and crypto Twitter, as a man, I can only imagine how hard it is to be a woman in this space. This story should serve as a friendly reminder to not be a sexist piece of shit.