Met the love of my life 11 years ago. Realized god is good and life was actually worth living.
started saving every penny i could for ten years. saved up a bit over 90k.
It was Nov 2020, Pandemic was fucked. Just finished reading "rich dad poor dad". 💡 AHHH "must use my $$$ to make $$$.
Dove into investing. Threw 10k at $TESLA. Almost doubles in a couple weeks.
Found crypto. Turned 20k to 60k in a month in alt coins.
Decide to finally look into NFTs coz Gary Vee keeps yelling about them every day.
First NFT project I thought was actually pretty cool was BAYC. Went to the website, says sold out.
"ugh would have thrown 20k on them monkeys, but it's sold out. ok, there's gotta be other NFTs to buy right?."💁♂️
Find Ethernity.
Throw 20k at their 1st 5 drops. Worst minting experiences ever.
Find Astro Bulls. Mint 2. "this is so fun!
"NFTs are the next big trend for sure. I'm so early. omg lol this nft shit is INSANE. mint everything!!!!"
everyone talking "OpenSea"
me: "oh that website I went to before BAYC came out. meh been there. wasn't anything on there. UI confusing. who's gonna use that? what is it even?"
Beeple, meebits, ...everyones yelling
Not knowing everyone was trading on opensea and you could buy this shit on secondary yet. Dumbass.
me: "Y don't I just start a project. I can draw monkeys."
Played around with a few ideas. Started a new artist Instagram account thinking "This is meant to be. Life time of drawing is finally gonna pay off!! Dreams of making as an artist reignited"
Found RTFKT on Instagram, " this is gonna be big if they do a pfp project is a for sure buy. CloneX was just an idea then, they were calling it AKIRA.
On1Force started their instagram and followed my artist account. "hmmm what's this account? oh NFTS!? decent art. Will mint for sure if they drop a pfp.
A month or so goes by. Finally learning how to use Opensea. f*ck are traits? this filter shit is weird? huh? i don't get it.
was thinking as an artist/investor. Buying shit I thought was good art in the space at the time. Not flipping.
Missed them all, artblocks, fidezas, ringers, name it, saw them all, didn't understand.
One day gave OS another try. Oh i get it now.
Wait you can buy BAYC on OS?! A secondary market? they were like 3 eth then. What?!?! I would have thrown that 20k on BAYC that day I first saw them" u f*ckin idiot" Too late to buy them now at these prices.
Entire year is a blur of just sitting in front of the computer.
My first collector was The GoingParabolic guy. Which led me to the world of Rare Pepes.
Immediate favorite project till this day. Spent 3 weeks down the rabbit hole of Rare Pepes. No pepe.wtf back then.
"I need to submit my pepe art to Rare Pepes"!! Not realizing the subs closed down in 2018.
Crushed wen I found out.
Yep started collecting Rares on the rise. Thinking "So what just think of RarePepes as your long term savings account"
So I turned my 10 yrs savings into almost a milly in unrealized gainz in a few months just buying and holding good nft projects on ETH.
Take profits? Y? (first time investing thought process).
At this rate my portfolio will be 2.5-5 mil easy by the end of 2021.
yep sat on all that profit for months and months and months.
Heard Rare Pepes were gonna start taking submissions again. And it was going to be called FAKE RARES. Was so pumped. So gonna send in a shit ton of subs when it opened.
Got caught up flipping and degening.
Totally forgot about fake rares.
Till we all know what happened. yep watched it all go to zero. Never sold.
Depressed? understatement.
my wife and i actually decided to start trying for a baby when I had almost a milly in unrealized gains. And were planning our future. Home shopping. and so happy we were going to be able to leave or jobs. and finaly start our own businesses.
Left the space for 8-9 months.
Came back in late October 22" cause I spent 10 mins on 6529.io which led me back to Twitter. I felt like the space was back to what it supposed to be before the hedge funds and influencers.
Just art and decentralization. So excited.
So I took what I saved up. Around 10k or so then liquidated all my old nfts and had around 45k. And started collecting The Memes by 6529.
And started vibing with a lot of artists. Having a blast.
from the fake doctor himself to kero, batzdu, c.b singh, al fernandez, rare scrilla and many more
Fell in love with batzdu’s art and started collection all of his art.
Was also getting on 6 phase one AL a week on punk6529 memes.
So had extra liquidity weekly.
Let me tell you how slow I am. Didn't even realize The memes dropped three times a week the first month collecting.
Found out later I was on AL 1 for the majority of them that I missed. lol
Decided to pay it forward and support all the pepe artist doing dope shit w/ a lot of my extra eth.
Started The Son of Memes Museum account to support and collect all the art.
Early-mid December my 6529Memes and Batzdu portfolio combined was around 150-200eth if I remember correctly.
Learning from my past mistakes I said next pump I should liquidate it all and peace out. And just concentrate on (my) art that I had been grinding out as Pepe Le Hues.
Caught the OE mint for Checks by Jack Butcher. Gut said just mint 50 of these.
learning fronm past mistakes Minted 6. I believe all the ones I minted last sold for 7 eth each.
Caught everything.
From opepen to all the OG FAKEMEMES oe that became fakememes.eth
Was making art about 10-12hrs a day. Pumped out around 70 pieces of Pepe art in two months. And was trying to build an ecosystem that would maintain value for the space and collectors. So wanted a website and the strategy done before I began minting the pieces.
Working w/ no team. A pregnant wife that was due in March 2023. And running a restaurant. Pepe Le Hues (me)couldn't get it to the point where he felt it was ready for the space.
Could have just did an OE and turned the website on just so people could see all the art completed. Probably would have sufficed and done really well.
Perfectionist curse.
One week into January memes blew up.
My dumb ass bought more memes in the pump.
Needless to say. Watched it all go to nothing again.
Could not believe I made the same mistake and got rekt again.
still holding lol
August came and all my childhood traumas came to surface because I became a father in March.
LSS Got diagnosed with an autoimmune disease 4 months back. Then CPTSD on Aug 28th.
August was the hardest month of my life. I let out secrets that I’ve kept for 40 years. Secrets that I kept for fear of danger to the lives of my family and mine.
And I definitely wouldn’t be here today if I didn’t have my wife and my 7 month old boy. Mr. August Penn Phinyawatana.
But what’s crazy is. I did all that because I didn’t want to get to the point where my boy starts to understand things and see me still dealing with CPTSD.
My wife prayed on me one night when I broke down and cried and said let’s get out of here and move to a small town in Texas where she is from.
And if you know me. I’d never move to a small town. I’m from Bangkok. And I have an expensive pallet and I need my favorites restaurants.
I’m also a wanna be chef. Some say that’s not true. It’s like how every kid in Brazil knows how to play soccer. Every kid in Bangkok knows how to cook.
I learned that my wife has a direct line to god. She literally said “ I don’t even know what to pray for so I’m praying for miracles.” There’s more to the prayer. But no cap I was hit in the face with a miracle the next morning. and the day after that. and many many more during the last batttle with the devil.
Told her after three miracles “ you literally are a certified saint!! You’ve performed three miracles babe!!”
Her: “ I didn’t do anything Jesus did”
me: “see !!! that’s why you have a direct line to God. Cause that’s something Jesus would say” lol
took all my art off the market and swore not to put them back on till I beat CPTSD.
I believed i couldn’t be chasing one of the devils weapons if i was to beat him.
Anyways LSS. I beat CPTSD 13 days after my diagnosis. But it really took 44+ years.
I’ve never been this truly happy in my life. And can’t wait for tomorrow, the next day and the day after that.
I thank God, my wife and The Monroe institute For giving me my super powers.
i thank god for fakerares and the community that has been the most genuine welcoming with lots of love.
i thank god for all my frens i’ve made in the “bear” of 2023. all the mfers that. were making fine art memes, vibing and having a great time together.
don’t want to name names here cause the list is long and don’t want to offend anyone who i might forget to mention. but you all know who you are. and i say thank you for accepting me back into the space.
In 2023 a little nit before the holidays I found out that I was bornn into trauma . Always thought it started at 3 yrs of age.
But I’ve also found out that the darkness is my superpower. Because I was born in it.
like Bane and BANEPEPE I was born in the darkness, molded by it. And I didn’t see the light till I was a wizard.
God is good. And my faith in his plan for my life is stronger than the Bitcoin chain.
I’ve found my purpose. And I’ll be using my god given talent to make fine art memes to be the new fine art and also to spread awareness about CPTSD and give the the toolbox I’ve developed to help people beat this cruel cousin of PTSD.
And my first piece that chronicles my 44 years with ctpsd will be shown in Paris @Pepefest.lol
the rest is history.