Is this solving a new problem? You could buy things for status before NFTs, and simply having them was proof of ownership. An entry on the blockchain associated with a hash is hardly as "cool" (if we want to talk about social constructs) as showing a picture with the thing you own. Hell, you can pay money without NFTs to put almost anything you could want in the blockchain.

With NFTs, the "thing" the NFT shows ownership isn't the piece that's supposed to be valuable, since that's readily duplicated, it's the NFT (and what it represents) itself.

"The social component" requires people to ask agree that NFTs are the right system of value, and that requires maintaining the illusion that the token itself is a valuable thing to own. So yes, if this formalized way of showing that you've spent money is widely accepted by a community as a status symbol, sure, go for it. But there's a lot of people even here in the comments who think that's awfully silly, especially when you can buy actual physical things that show your status to people who don't care about what entries exist on the blockchain somewhere.

> An entry on the blockchain associated with a hash is hardly as "cool" (if we want to talk about social constructs) as showing a picture with the thing you own

You don't get to decide that for everyone else though.

You and many other people can think it's silly, but it's highly likely (If not proven) that there is a subset of people who _do_ think it's cool.

I don't really have an interest in NFTs, but I absolutely see why someone _would_ be interested in them.