Utah teen becomes entrepreneur and digital artist to raise money to end bullying

The artist, aged 13, has created more than 3,000 images of “Alien Dude” that will be sold as NFTs.

Sion Guevara, 13, often uses the word “fascinating” when describing the world of tech entrepreneurship, NFTs and digital art.

His passion for the field shows – as it often does with kids his age – in his sparkling eyes, unbridled enthusiasm and pure joy in doing something he loves.

Guevara said he tries to put what he knows to good use. In mid-June, he launched an NFT collection — a non-fungible token or digital asset that represents real-world objects such as unique collectibles — called “Dude Alien.” The collection includes 3,364 hand-drawn, computer code-generated images of various alien creatures. Some wear sweatshirts with the word “bullying” crossed out, others include the words “racism sux.”

“I always wanted to be in the tech industry, make a big impact and be an entrepreneur,” Guevara said. “But for a good cause.”

The collection is priced at $200,000, adding up the prices of each image, and is now for sale. Guevara plans to add individual artworks in July, which will be auctioned on his website.

Digital art and the coding behind it are common, for example in video games. But NFTs are different, Guevara explained — something that “does not have identical matches” and cannot be traded.

“It’s on a blockchain,” Guevara said, “which is a decentralized network where the code [lives] on the back of art. It’s kind of like a collector’s item with a code.”

The fact that NFTs are one-of-a-kind is fitting given Guevara’s overall idea and inspiration behind “Alien Dude.”

“I took my life experience and said, ‘Well, what could I make a brand out of?'” he said. “I always call my friends ‘dude’ and I’ve always felt left out. From there it just took off.”

Guevara created the project in part because he heard stories of youth in Utah taking their own lives as a result of bullying. It was an ongoing conversation he had with his mother about bullying when they heard that their dentist’s son had taken his own life as a result of bullying. Other stories — like those of Drake Hardman and Izzy Titchener, Utah kids who died by suicide after being bullied — also struck them.

Guevara said he had his own experience with bullying because he was different and a new kid. “Being a 13-year-old in Utah, moving from Los Angeles, California, can be very difficult. It was a way for me to express my feelings in art,” he said. The Guevara family moved to Utah 3 1/2 years ago.

With his passion for technology, starting a business in the NFT space to raise awareness against bullying was a no-brainer for Guevara. He’s in the process of partnering with an anti-bullying organization called No Bully, which helps “train teachers and administrators how to detect and identify bullying and eliminate it in their schools.”

His mother, Ellen, said it was “disturbing” to hear her son was being bullied. “As a parent, you never want to hear that your child is hurt,” she said.

It was a “double whammy,” she said, to see that the community of adults she trusted to look out for her child lacked training and tools to deal with bullying.

For six months, Ellen said, Zion would wake up and draw on his tablet. He told his mother he would get over his bullying experiences, and he did. Now, she said, he helps other children.

“I always tell my kids that everything has a purpose, not just money,” she said. “[Money alone] it will not give you satisfaction in life.

Zayn said he’s committed to continuing to develop “Dude Alien” for now, but has dreams of one day doing real estate in the metaverse.

“I really learned a lot of valuable lessons and experiences like coding and learning how to make art,” Zion said.

If there’s one message people can take away from his work — which celebrates diversity, queerness and being “alien” — Zion said it’s to get the word out about bullying and that it needs to stop.

“Everybody needs love, everybody’s been loved,” he said, “and I just want everybody to feel that at least once in their life.”