When Vanity Fair published “Crypto’s True Believers Demand to Be Taken Seriously” on Mar. 17, the backlash arrived within hours.
Hayden Adams said he had passed on the shoot after being asked to pose in a bathrobe in a sauna. Camila Russo called the framing “so off.” Nic Carter compared the group photograph to the Alliance of Magicians from Arrested Development.
Dennison Bertram, a former fashion photographer and Tally co-founder, went further. He dissected the lighting and angles as a deliberate composition designed to diminish rather than document.
The industry’s first instinct was to call it a hit job, while the reactions on X told a more complicated story.
