Artist Ryder Ripps and Not Larva Labs founder Jeremy Cahen have been hit with a lawsuit by Yuga Labs, the developer behind Bored Ape Yacht Club, claiming trademark infringement. But Pauly has stated that the real reason is to “silence” anyone who criticizes Bored Ape or calls the brand racist. And this apparently includes some well-known streamers as well.
Cahen and Ripps have been speaking out against Bored Ape for a while now, collecting information that they feels proves that the company is racist and possibly even related to far-right extremists. Some of the gathered information against Bored Ape includes the company’s founder self-publishing a book full of racial slurs, established Neo-Nazis pointing out the “Nazi iconology” used by Bored Ape, and former artists for the company calling the new art racist.
On top of that, Cahen pointed out that many popular YouTubers and streamers have dived deeper into the subject matter and uncovered even more proof that Bored Ape Yacht Club is allegedly run by Nazis. This is something that was brought up in their counter-filing against Yuga Labs.
Cahen recently tweeted that content creators “critical of Yuga” were named in the counter filing. This includes Ethan “H3H3” Klein, Felix “xQc” Lengyel, Hasan “HasanAbi” Piker, and Charles “MoistCr1TiKaL” White Jr.
In the counter filing, it was written that these individuals — and other social influencers — started using the #BURNBAYC hashtag to protest against Bored Ape. This hashtag started to trend thanks to the support of many well-known streamers and YouTubers, becoming “too large to ignore.” The discussion of Bored Ape’s ties to racism became a “viral debate.”
The mentioning of these big names was alarming at first. HasanAbi even responded with shock initially.
“Wait, what’s happening?” he said on stream while reading the counter filing.
But the streamers are not named because they are being sued. Instead, they are being named to show that there was support for the original movement against Bored Ape and explain how the discussion on the brand’s alleged Nazi ties became viral so quickly.
For example, after watching a YouTube video called “Bored Ape Nazi Club,” H3H3 started doing research of his own, publishing further information in his own video on the subject. H3’s video, “Is Bored Ape Yacht Club Run By Nazis,” has started a lot of discussions on the company all over YouTube.
The discussion on Bored Ape Yacht Club’s controversial logo, art, practices, and possibly racist ties has continued to pop up all over the internet, which was cited several times in the lawsuit. Many are claiming that if buyers knew the possibly racist origins of Bored Ape that they wouldn’t have purchased the NFTs and they wouldn’t have been allowed to be sold on various websites.
The lawsuit against Ripps and Cahen’s Bored Ape protest art is ongoing. It’s currently unclear if any of the mentioned content creators will get involved in the situation.
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