“Bored Ape (Yacht Club)” is a phrase that lived on the periphery of my understanding of the crypto bubble until today. I knew it was one of those NFT markets that sold bad cartoons for hundreds of thousands of dollars and got celebrities to promote them. But it also sort of stuck in the back of my head because of the logo which is directly copied from the Nazi SS Waffen.
Well this guy has taken that suspicion down one of the darkest most terrifying rabbitholes I’ve ever seen — and that’s saying a lot. Here’s the website that first reported on this. https://gordongoner.com
This documentary is brilliant, laying out the true purpose of this operation clearly — which is to normalize white supremacist ideology through selling NFTs using celebrities who have no idea what they’re spreading. The doc also gives a fantastic introduction to 4chan, weaponized irony, and neo-nazi symbology. On top of that it manages to be inspiring and funny af.
Please watch this and share. These nazis are worth a billion dollars. #BURNBAYC
There is also a long section on an elaborate alternate reality game (ARG) that Bored Ape Yacht Club put on to launder its nazi propanganda. I helped run the largest ARGs in the 2000s, and this is the opposite of everything you should do. This is sick, dangerous radicalization spreading racist memes.
For example, in just one small step in a complicated ARG that involved numerous puzzles alluding to Nazi themes, the answer was “Guenon” which is both a kind of monkey, and refers to Rene Guenon, who was a fascist, “traditionalist” philosopher — and one of Steve Bannon’s favorites.
Guenon pushed “Kali Yuga” which was the idea I objected to when I called Joe Rogan “Steve Bannon’s gimp” and got permanently banned from Twitter the first time. Kali Yuga is the Hindu equivalent of the End Times and has been widely appropriated by neo-nazis to rationalize accelerationism.
The company that develops the Bored Ape website is called “Yuga.”
This is a billion dollar troll fueled by ignorance and greed, both from the nazis who created this and the celebrities who bought into it — because they got something for free and didn’t bother to ask anyone. One of the saddest commentaries you will ever see, and I’m afraid just the beginning.
On a better note, make sure to stay for the end. It’s hilarious. 😂
“Bored Ape Yacht Club, in a way, is a social experiment in making fun of people who are easily influenced, crypto bros, and everyone who sucks off technocrats included.” A psyop tailored for Silicon Valley. There are even drops (“mints”?) and puzzles.
Good info Jim, thanks!!