I've done two NFT drops that have gone viral. My most recent one is the Base fundraising announcement which has 27k+ mints.

It seems that 99% of minters are in it for an airdrop. They mint off-platform (eg on mint.fun) and don't even visit the website.

Is this true for viral drops in general?

cma.xyz. Founder /paragraph, ceo /mirror, previously at Google & Coinbase 

These are free mints with no reward fee. The awareness seems to be a net negative - this coincided with hundreds of people joining our Discord and asking "wen airdrop" and other ultra low quality content.

At least in my usecase I'd say overall this is a bad thing

Yes, it is. But maybe it's not a bad thing. They drive transactions, reward fee and awareness.

crypto user researcher /openux || 
internet-native mysticism /manansh || manansh.xyz

Hey colin, yes this is typical airdrop hunters.

On a personal side, i've run engagement quest to bootstrapp my media platform @theoptimist using Tide web3 dapp

Engagement has been amazing Reduced qty, very high quality

U can check here:

Hey colin, yes this is typical airdrop hunters.

On a personal side, i've run engagement quest to bootstrapp my media platform @theoptimist using Tide web3 dapp

Engagement has been amazing Reduced qty, very high quality

U can check here:
https://x.com/Tide_web3/status/1699411498735411549?t=6SEPExL7TgfwI9rQS8i5pg&s=09

If do not do proof of liveness checks (i.e. are you a human) you get 100% bots