Remember when Paris Hilton was famous for carrying her chihuahua around in a Hermès bag? Fast forward 20 years and Hermès is only now ‘considering’ the metaverse as a communication channel, whereas Paris Hilton is a fully paid up member of the web3 community, traveling the world from one event to the next, extolling the virtues of blockchain, NFTs.
Regardless of where you stand on the Paris Hilton spectrum, you’ll find it hard to deny she’s doing a good job.
But which other celebrities are ‘doing a Paris’ and speaking about the metaverse? Who is in the celebrity support band helping onboard a billion users to web3, praising crypto, organizing metaverse events and opening the eyes of their millions of fans to the wonders of NFTs?
Using social media follows and a celebrity’s commitment to the metaverse as a benchmark, here are RLTY’s seven favourite celebrities speaking about the metaverse.
1 — Paris Hilton
“The Metaverse just got hotter! I’m beyond excited to be diving further into the Web3 space with @TheSandboxGame to build #ParisWorld.”- Paris Hilton
Twitter — 16.9 Million / Instagram — 19.4 Million / Tik Tok — 6.3 Million
Paris Hilton calls herself the Queen of the metaverse. She is juggling so many web3 projects one suspects she has an army of digital twins carrying out her metaverse evangelizing. Who sends out all the invites?
There are collaborations with RTFKT, Dayzee and The Sandbox, her own world in Roblox and an NFT collection worth millions. She had a line of digital wearables back in 2015 when most of the people reading this thought Slack was the metaverse. As we go to press, she is on stage in Cannes discussing the NFT and metaverse revolution with another of the web3 glitterati, Gary Vee.
Paris Hilton is an A-lister from the higher echelons of the public eye and she speaks to her army of followers about the metaverse non-stop. Gone are the days of being famous for having a small dog in a bag.
Paris, if you’re reading this, get in touch with RLTY! We can build something special for your next event in the Sandbox.
2 — Gary Vaynerchuk
The Creator of Veefriends, Chairman of VaynerX, 5-time NY Times best-selling author, keynote speaker at NYC.NFT, twitter personality, expert on human behaviour and IP enthusiast, Gary Vee needs no introduction to anyone who has even a passing interest in Web3, but he’s just had one anyway. Welcome to number two on our list of celebrities who speak about the metaverse.
Twitter — 3.1 million / Instagram — 10 million / Tik Tok — 14 million
We like Gary Vaynerchuk. Not just because he is the go-to metaverse man for Bloomberg, Forbes and CNBC and is always taking down the naysayers with epic knowledge and insight; not because he brings more people into the web3 space than anyone else; not because he has an NFT fish restaurant in New York or one of the most valuable NFT collections in the world in VeeFriends, but because he is a nice guy. Positive, optimistic, diplomatic and patient in a world which is often cynical and negative.
We also love how he speaks non-stop about the metaverse.
Go Gary!
3 — Snoop Dogg
“I got my mind on my money and my money on my NFTs.” — Snoop Dogg
Twitter — 20 million / Instagram — 75 million / Tik Tok — 20 million
Like Paris Hilton, Snoop Dogg doesn’t just talk about the metaverse, he hosts events in the metaverse, films videos in the metaverse, makes games in the metaverse and smokes blunts in the metaverse. He is so ‘into’ the metaverse one NFT collector paid over $400,000 to live next door to him in the Sandbox.
All this before we even get to the thing he used to be most famous for: music. In February Snoop Dogg bought Death Row Records, as you do. What’s he going to do with the most famous rap record label in the world? Why take it to the metaverse of course.
On a recent episode of Drink Champs, the west coast’s finest rapper said “those platforms get millions of millions of streams, and nobody gets paid other than the record labels. So what I wanted to do is snatch my music off, create a platform similar to Amazon, Netflix, Hulu. It’ll be a Death Row app, and the music will live in the metaverse.”
But not in the house next door to Snoop. That’s already been sold.
Snoop Dogg is a powerhouse for web3 and easily makes our list of celebrities who speak about the metaverse.
4 — Reese Witherspoon
“In the (near) future, every person will have a parallel digital identity. Avatars, crypto wallets, digital goods will be the norm. Are you planning for this?” — Reese Witherspoon
Twitter — 2.9 Million / Instagram — 28 Million / Tik Tok — 8.3 Million / Oscars — 1
The Oscar winning actress speaks to her millions of fans about NFTs and the metaverse on a regular basis. In February she tweeted, “Are you curious about NFTs? Let’s learn together! Join us on @nftnow where we discuss the ever changing world of digital art, technology and how artists can own their work.”
In December last year, “GM #NFT fam … watching my #CloneX reveal today like …”
She’s got the lingo down.
WAGMI.
The star of Legally Blonde, Wild and Walk the Line (damn, she’s a fine actress) also tweets about Bossbeauties, World of Women, Deadfellaz and… Jennifer Aniston. She tweets a lot about Jennifer Aniston. They work together.
When she isn’t showing the world her latest NFT or reminding friends how they need to get ready for the metaverse, Witherspoon is asking her community for help understanding sustainable blockchains.
It’s easy to knock celebrities for jumping on a bandwagon and trying to make easy money. It’s not so straightforward when those same celebrities are striving to learn more about the fundamentals.
Being a Hollywood star and millionaire, Reese Witherspoon took her web3 interest further and founded Hello Sunshine, a media company that uses NFTS and the metaverse (although not exclusively) to explore new ways IP can change the narrative for women.
5 — Odell Beckham Jr
OBJ is Wide Receiver for the L.A Rams. The L.A Rams is an American Football team. Wide Receiver is the guy who scores. So now you know. He started out at the Cleveland Browns, became a hero, then moved to LA mid-season to win the SUPER BOWL! The same Super Bowl that Snoop Dogg played at the halftime show. I wonder if they compared NFTS in the dressing room.
Twitter — 4.2 Million / Instagram 16.1 Million / Tik Tok — 1.5 Million
American football aside, you might be asking what Odell Beckham has done for web3. Does he speak about the metaverse? You better believe it. Odell has real ‘skin in the web3 game.’ To the tune of $13 million in fact. You see, Odell Beckham Jr receives his salary in Bitcoin. At least half of it anyway. I haven’t seen his contract, but he was definitely the first player from any major US sports league to receive his salary in satoshis.
For his commitment to Bitcoin and Deadfellaz and the size of his personal brand and presence in America, Odell Beckham Jr makes our list of celebrities who speak about the metaverse.
6 — Serenna williams
”When we think of web3, and we think of crypto: that’s going to be the biggest space for the next several years in terms of growth.”
Twitter — 10.6 Million / Instagram — 14.9 Million / Tik Tok — 1 Million / Grand Slams — 23
Serena Williams doesn’t so much talk about the metaverse and web 3 as build, own and invest in it.
The best player in the history of women’s tennis is board advisor for blockchain fantasy football card game Sorare. This isn’t Panini. In October 2021, Sorare raised $680 million in a funding round and is valued at $4.3 billion!
But that is just a prawn cocktail appetizer to her feast of blockchain investments. Her web3 portfolio includes E-Commerce blockchain platform Lolli, which offers Bitcoin rewards, NFT marketplace Bitski and a host of other investments that give Serena Ventures a $33 billion dollar valuation.
If Serena Williams was a cryptocurrency, she would be ahead of BNB and just behind USDC by market cap.
Now we just need her to wear an ‘I love Binance’ cap for Wimbledon.
7 — Rihanna
If this was purely a numbers game, Rihanna would be knocking down Paris Hilton’s door and stealing her metaverse crown. More than a celebrity, Rihanna is a global superstar who, like Pele and Jesus, needs only one name.
Twitter — 106.8 Million / Instagram — 132 Million / Tik Tok — 5.3 Million / Albums Sold — 60 Million
Unfortunately for this article, Rhianna doesn’t really say a lot about the metaverse. Which is a shame, because if she went on Twitter tonight and said, ‘right everyone, the metaverse is the future, see you in the Sandbox’, we’d have those billion users by the summer equinox.
Actually, that isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds. You see, Rihanna co-owns Fenty Beauty with LVMH, and Fenty Beauty is heading to the metaverse. With trademarks. And nothing says ‘metaverse adoption’ like trademarks.
There you go, RLTY’s top 7 celebrities who speak about the metaverse. What do you think? Let us know in the comments which of your favorites we’ve missed.
We didn’t include Keanu Reeves, Shawn Mendes, Steve Aoki, Andrew Yang, Jake Paul, Method Man and a thousand more.
Maybe next year.
Follow us on Twitter to stay up to date with everything happening in the virtual events world, and we’ll see you in the metaverse. With our favourite celebrities.
