Anyone can mint an NFT that points to whatever, and the benefits you get are purely imaginary or at best speculative that a greater fool may exist and buy it from you for a higher price.
The art world while also somewhat suspect at least has physical possession/ownership.
However just on your point "Anyone can mint an NFT that points to whatever" - sure they can but those NFTs will be and should be worthless. You are able to prove an NFT came from the actual author since it would have been signed with their private key.
When all the fake demand settles we will see if there is any real demand here or not. I myself have no interest in buying any NFTs, at least not yet :).
the point, which is entirely rational from their perspective, is to attract media attention and thus new sources of unsophisticated money to crypto.
It's the standard ICO scam model, but tweaked to suit an even juicier demographic.
You own the equivalent of a museum's accession number.