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BAYC is accused of being suspected of racial discrimination and touting Nazis, and is deeply involved in a storm of negative public opinion

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Celebrities who once used BAYC as their social media avatar, such as NBA star Curry, have changed their avatars

Original title: " Bored Ape Yacht Club is Racist and Contains Nazi Dog Whistles "

Original author: 237

Original compilation: old yuppie

This article comes from WeChat public account: Old yuppie

BAYC caught in a storm of public opinion

I believe that whether it is OG who has been in the encryption circle for a long time, or a novice who is new to the circle, the name BAYC is very important. Not unfamiliar. Even in the cold winter of NFT, BAYC still has a market value as high as $1,716,537,043.03 (data from NFTGO) and a floor price of nearly 100 ETHs. It has also spawned a series of popular IPs such as MAYC and Otherside. As the leader of the NFT track, BAYC has created too many legends.

In recent days, BAYC has been on the cusp again, but this time it is not because of its shocking price increase Or a big move in business, but because of some pretty sensitive and negative topics.

On June 21, YouTuber blogger Philip Rusnack released a video accusing BAYC of using Nazi patterns, while Pursue white supremacy in NFT image design. He claimed that the BAYC images were based on racist caricatures that smeared black and Asian people, and compared the symbols and language used by Yuga Labs and BAYC to the Nazi Totenkopf symbol. Rusnack called on his audience to send their BAYC holdings to a black hole address for destruction.

Mark Pitcavage, senior fellow at the Anti-Defamation League's (ADL) Center for Extremism, sees no connection between BAYC's logo and Totenkopf, but agrees with some of the NFT's characteristics and attributes are problematic, such as the "hip-hop" character with the gold chain and the "sushi chef's headband" are stereotypes of black culture and Japanese, respectively.

But no matter what the result is, this incident has triggered extensive discussions in Europe and the United States, and even celebrities who have used BAYC NFT as their social media avatar, such as the NBA The star Curry and others also changed their avatars one after another.

< h3>Nazi dog whistle? racism?

As for this incident, there is one person who has to be mentioned, and he is Ryder Ripps.

Ryder Ripps has been investigating BAYC and its creator, Yuga Labs, since December. Through months of in-depth research, Ryder Ripps and other community members discovered extensive connections between BAYC and the internet's Nazi troll culture.

BAYC's ape figure has various costumes and features, most of which Ryder Ripps believes are Be racially oriented, or involve some type of military history.

There is a notorious word "Simianization" in history, which refers to the or members of minority groups derogatoryly liken behavior to apes or monkeys. This practice has been practiced for centuries to justify violence and racism against another group by comparing the referent to an ape.

Simianization has occurred in large numbers among different ethnic groups such as Jews, Irish and Asians, but It mostly served as a strategy for dealing with black people. Even today, such behavior has not been eradicated, such as the barbaric practice of throwing bananas at black football players on the field.

And Ryder Ripps believes that Yuga Labs is using BAYC to target Asian people and Black people are racist. At the same time, Ryder Ripps believes that the Yuga Labs team deliberately embedded Nazi dog whistles throughout the project with ulterior motives. He also listed more than a dozen pieces of evidence to prove that he was not just talking about it.

Ryder Ripps' evidence is overwhelming

The evidence listed by Ryder Ripps is as follows:

1. The BAYC logo looks like the Nazis The Totenkopf sign is very similar and even contains the same number of teeth - 18 - on the skull. And the number 18 has a deep connection with Adolf Hitler (18 is Adolf Hitler's white supremacist alphanumeric code 1=A, 8=H).

Aside from that, both signs have a ragged edge, which Very rare among other round logos.

2. BAYC was started by a company called Yuga Labs, and Kali Yuga is a popular element of alt-right/traditionalist ideology. Yuga Labs worked hard to embed the name of traditionalist philosopher Ren Gunon, alt-right icon elements, apes and other elements into the NFT.

Ren Gunon is credited with introducing the Kali Yuga into Western thought. Not to mention the word ape, a well-known racial slur.

3. One of the co-founders of BAYC calls himself Gargamel. community in the "dark corners of the Internet") is a common term used to discuss Jews.

And Gargamel, whose real name is Greg Solano, is an author whose undergraduate thesis was about Nazi fiction, and expressed interest in incorporating characters such as Hans Reiter (SS officer) into his writing.

4. Another co-founder of BAYC, Emperor Tomato Ketchup, was named after a sexually explicit 1971 film in which a boy in a fascist uniform was raped into adulthood The bride scene. The original film was banned in the United States and other countries on the grounds of child pornography.

5. One of the co-founders of BAYC calls himself Gordon Goner, whose pronunciation is quite similar to Drongo (Gordon) Negro (Goner). Drongo is a common 4chan and Stupid in Australian slang. So the meaning of this name can be understood as "stupid black".

Gordon Goners, whose real name is Wylie Aronow, has very little information online. But Ryder Ripps claimed to be able to find someone who knew him and said "I have no doubt that they are crypto-fascists."

6. The last co-founder of BAYC is SASS. The SA (Sturmabteilung) was the original paramilitary faction of the Nazi party, while the SS (Schutzstaffel) was the main paramilitary Nazi faction. So his name SASS combined the two main military branches of the Nazis.

7, BAYC's video games, and the covers of the Rolling Stones feature rats, a common anti-Semitic association. The game also features bananas arranged to look like swastikas, the meaning of which is believed to be self-explanatory

8. On the Yuga Labs website, they indicate another NFT The series - The Hashmasks, is a good inspiration. Hashmasks are made by the Swiss company Suum Cuique Labs, a phrase used by the Nazis on the gates of the Buchenwald concentration camp. And this sentence is also used on the face of the Prussian helmet in the BAYC series. Yuga Labs was inspired by Suum Cuique Labs, even their terms of service are taken from Suum Cuique Labs.

9. The symbols, content and attitude of the BAYC image itself have references to neo-Nazi ideas and war, such as "Prussian helmet". Many of the more specific characteristics are similar to 4chan, the community known as the "dark corners of the Internet".

10. Gargamel, the co-founder of BAYC, admitted in an interview that nothing in the collection of BAYC NFTs is "random", and they all have hidden cryptographic meanings , and quoted the "iceberg theory" to illustrate. In the same interview, Gargamel quotes Ludwig Wittgenstein's famous quote "Let the ineffable be conveyed ineffable".

As for the other meanings? They haven't explained it yet and seem very evasive. The following picture is the complete Gargamel quotation:

11, another project "The Otherside" under Yuga Labs and Bored Ape Yacht Club itself were all in April when Hitler died officially launched on the 30th.

12. In the Otherside virtual plot held by the co-founder of BAYC, Emperor Tomato Ketchup, There is a character named "Stone Hole Jackson", referring to the Confederate General "Stonewall Jackson".

When this evidence comes out, people can't help but feel shocking. At present, the facts are still unknown, but only from my own perspective, I have already had some inclinations in my heart after reading these contents. For these evidences, Yuga Labs must give a positive and comprehensive response, otherwise web3 may have no place to stand in the future.

BAYC's copyright loophole

In addition to collecting and publishing the above-mentioned evidence, Ryder Ripps also created the RR/BAYC series of NFTs. There are a total of 10,000 NFTs in this series, and its external image is almost the same as that of BAYC.

According to the usual situation, this kind of imitation disk-like approach should usher in only one way to be removed from the shelves. As Opensea is a highly centralized trading market, it should be removed from the shelves very quickly this time.

But what is unexpected is that RR/BAYC did not usher in the imagined delisting (To be precise, it was removed first and then restored). At the same time, on June 21, RR/BAYC’s 24h trading volume directly surpassed the two leading players of BAYC and CryptoPunks, topping Opensea’s 24h trading volume list, and its floor price once exceeded 1 ETH. This is undoubtedly a slap in the face of BAYC.

The price takeoff of RR/BAYC can explain two problems:

1. BAYC's own copyright is problematic. Because the current operation team of BAYC does not include the creator of the ape image, he cannot enjoy complete copyright. Naturally, it is impossible to ask to remove RR/BAYC. For example, BAYC can prohibit others from stealing its own image, but it cannot prevent others from drawing the same thing as itself.

2. RR/BAYC can be regarded as a challenge to Yuga Labs by Ryder Ripps. The take-off of its price actually reflects the public's attitude towards this matter. Regarding racism and Nazi dog whistles, Yuga Labs must respond positively.

Conclusion

Encryption The circle has been really uneven recently.

It was originally thought that the defoaming of the encrypted market and institutional assets would become the main theme of the next bear market . Unexpectedly, following closely behind, there is the problem of someone carrying private goods and coercing ideology.

However, whether it is defoaming at the financial level or finding out the mice Not a bad thing. This shows that the encryption market is moving forward under supervision, and the direction of progress is also full of positive meanings, so all this makes me feel that the future is promising.

The bear market is long, but don't lose faith, investing can never be just a sprint, be patient and dormant, crypto and us will all usher in the light.