{"id":11934,"date":"2022-06-29T22:39:56","date_gmt":"2022-06-29T22:39:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nftandcrypto-news.com\/nft\/its-time-to-talk-about-the-baseless-bayc-nazi-claims\/"},"modified":"2022-06-29T22:39:58","modified_gmt":"2022-06-29T22:39:58","slug":"its-time-to-talk-about-the-baseless-bayc-nazi-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nftandcrypto-news.com\/nft\/its-time-to-talk-about-the-baseless-bayc-nazi-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Time to Talk About the Baseless BAYC Nazi Claims"},"content":{"rendered":"
On October 2, 1984, author and media theorist Neil Postman gave the keynote address at the Frankfurt Book Fair.\u00a0In that address, Postman presented an essay entitled \u201cAmusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Showbusiness.\u201d During his talk, he surprised the crowd by saying he thought the fair\u2019s theme, which was focused on George Orwell, was a mistake. <\/p>\n
Of the two defining dystopian novels of the 20th century, Postman argued that Aldous Huxley\u2019s Brave New World<\/em> got it right, not Orwell\u2019s 1984<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOrwell missed the mark completely,\u201d he explained in a statement that remains, for some, as startling today as it was almost 40 years ago.\u00a0Why was Orwell off base? According to Postman, he failed to accurately identify the thing that truly plagues humanity. \u201cAs Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited<\/em>, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny \u2018failed to take into account man\u2019s almost infinite appetite for distractions,\u2019\u201d Postman explained in the essay.<\/p>\n Yes, distractions. <\/p>\n And the NFT community is now dealing with one such distraction \u2014 possibly the biggest distraction it has ever seen, given the financial and cultural significance of the individuals and entities involved. And we have to talk about it, as we\u2019ve all fallen for the very trap Postman so eloquently described in his keynote speech. And we must do better.\u00a0<\/p>\n As you undoubtedly have heard by now, Yuga Labs, the founders of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), have been accused of being racist nazis. The main proponent of this theory is an individual by the name of Ryder Ripps, a creative director who has worked with world-famous brands and stars as big as Kanye West.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ripps, who was raised in a Jewish family, has been assembling his case for months, periodically pumping out what he views as evidence on Twitter and YouTube. His claims are obscure, tenuous, and (most importantly) have been largely discredited by experts from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an organization devoted to stopping the defamation of the Jewish people. <\/p>\n Just as an example, Ripps argues that BAYC\u2019s symbol, a white ape skull bordered by white text on all sides, is a reference to the Nazi Totenkopf<\/em> symbol.\u00a0Except that, along with the other allegations that Ripps has made, the claim is baseless. In this particular case, the ADL Center on Extremism analyzed the logo claims, and they said they find nothing that backs up Ripps\u2019 assertion.\u00a0<\/p>\n We aren\u2019t going to go through and debunk all the claims, as there are many articles and organizations that have already done so. And they are all easily discoverable via common search methods. <\/p>\n Either way, on June 24, after being at the receiving end of months of Nazi accusations, Gordon Goner (Wylie Aronow), one of BAYC\u2019s co-founders, took to Medium to put to rest the rumors and set the record straight once and for all. The post, which you can make up your own mind about, is relatively short and directly addresses the four main assertions brought against them.\u00a0<\/p>\nBAYC Nazi allegations\u00a0<\/h2>\n