The Margin: ‘David After Dentist’ kid made over $13,500 selling an NFT of his viral video

If you’re not familiar with David: the then 7-year-old was still groggy from anesthesia following a tooth extraction 11 years ago, and his father took a video of him blearily remarking “I feel funny,” and musing, “Is this real life?” in the back seat of their car. The original video alone has drawn more than 140 million views since then. 

Unlike many folks who become memes, DeVore’s family has actually managed to make a small fortune from their amusing home movie. In 2010, they reported earning about $150,000 — $100,000 from YouTube GOOG, -2.14% revenue, $8,000 from a 2010 Vizio VZIO, -2.68% Super Bowl commercial, plus income from licensing and merchandise. And David’s father, David DeVore Sr., tells The Verge that these funds have helped pay for his kids’ tuition.

Related: ‘Disaster Girl’ makes over $430,000 selling the NFT of her meme

But generally, once you’ve become a meme, making money off your picture can be like pulling teeth. That’s why fellow 2000s-era internet stars like “Disaster Girl” and “Nyan Cat” have turned to nonfungible tokens (aka NFTs) to finally profit off their original images that have been shared countless times around the world. An NFT is a certificate of ownership for a unique digital asset, which is not meant to serve as currency or a means of exchange. They are often written on the ethereum blockchain, and carry unique, digital signatures that guarantee authenticity. 

Related: What is an NFT? A Beeple NFT just sold on Christie’s for nearly $70 million, highlighting craze for cryptos

Read more: ‘What the hell’s an NFT?’ — ‘SNL’ explains in an amazing rap parody

And now David DeVore’s family is jumping on the NFT bandwagon, as well. BuzzFeed reports that they worked with NFT creator program Views, which was founded by video licensing company Jukin Media and talent management company Night Media, to sell an NFT of their iconic clip. The auction went live last Thursday. The starting price was set at 1 ether (a cryptocurrency recorded on ethereum), and the NFT sold for 3.30 ether on Friday, which was worth a little more than $13,593. It should be noted that ether’s value is volatile and can fluctuate by the minute, however.

While this makes a nice chunk of change, it’s smaller than some recent headline-making NFT auctions. Zoe Roth, the face of the “Disaster Girl” meme (which features a young girl smiling slyly into the camera as a house burns down behind her), made more than $430,000 auctioning off the NFT of her photo. And Chris Torres, who created the Nyan Cat GIF of a flying cat leaving a rainbow trail behind it, recently sold an NFT version of his art piece for almost $600,000.

Some other major NFT transactions include Twitter TWTR, -2.62% CEO Jack Dorsey’s first tweet selling for $2.9 million; Kings of Leon releasing an NFT-only album for more than $2 million; and a 10-second digital collage that took 13 years to make selling for $69 million at auction.