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When Bored Ape Yacht Club launched at the height of last year’s NFT frenzy, Ryder Ripps shrugged off the collection’s off-putting imagery. The 10,000 Cartoon Monkeys series was filled with the meme aesthetic of the internet’s darkest corners, but if you spend enough time online, it’s something you tend to just skim over. Then, a few months later, a friend showed him the collection’s logo next to the Totenkopf, a skull-and-crossbones emblem widely used in Nazi Germany. It dawned on him: The monkeys, now viral and widely promoted by crypto-hawking celebrities, might be an elaborate, malicious troll.
“I realized this shit was intentional,” said Ripps, a 36-year-old conceptual artist and creative director who has worked with major artists like Kanye West and Grimes and brands like Nike, Red Bull and Gucci. ART news. “They’re ruining the internet.”
Since December, Ripps has led a crusade against the venerable fundraiser, its parent company Yuga Labs — currently valued at a whopping $4 billion — and founders Greg Solano, Wiley Aronow, Kerem Atalay and Zeshan Ali.
Ripps claims that BAYC, from its logo to Ape’s accessories — like “sushi chef headbands” inscribed with “kamikaze” in Japanese kanji and spiked Prussian Pickelhaube helmets — is filled with racist imagery and ties to the online alt-right. Ripps and Yuga Labs are currently embroiled in a legal battle after the company sued the artist for creating copycat NFTs that Ripps says are meant to satirize the collection. (Yuga Labs and BAYC have previously denied the allegations of racism.)
Casting himself as Laocoon – the priest who begged the Trojans not to let the Greek horse into the city – Ripps warned that Yuga’s founders are trying to slip toxic images and ideas into the larger culture by packaging it as yet another absurd, but ultimately harmless. NFT collection. But is he the best messenger for his warning?
When asked why he is so sure Solano, Aronow and their colleagues are trolls, Ripps laughed. “You have to know one,” he said.
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