Yuga Labs And Bored Apes Responded To “The BAYC Racism Debate"

After some members of the NFT community accused The Bored Ape Yacht Club of being racist, the club and the BAYC community responded.

Earlier this morning, Pauly0x, Ryder Ripps, among other members of the NFT community held a Twitter space titled “The BAYC Racism Debate.”

After the space ended Yuga Labs, the parent company of the BAYC, posted a 13 tweet Twitter thread addressing some of the issues raised.

“1. What's the inspiration behind the name Yuga Labs,” the BAYC parent company tweeted? “We're nerds, and Yuga is the name of a villain in Zelda whose ability is that he can turn himself and others into 2D art. Made sense for an NFT company.”

The bored Ape Gazette googled “Yuga Zelda” and discovered that there is in fact a character in the popular video game named Yuga, according to Zelda.fandom.com.

“Yuga is an evil sorcerer and one of the two primary antagonists of A Link Between Worlds,” the Zelda fandom page explained. “At the beginning of the game, Yuga hunts the descendants of the Seven Sages from Ocarina of Time/A Link to the Past, as well as Princess Zelda, in an attempt to resurrect Ganon and use his power to rule the worlds of Hyrule and Lorule, and ultimately take his place among the gods.”

In the thread, Yuga labs went on to explain the idea behind the Bored Apes and their yacht club.

“There's a long history of people affectionately referring to themselves as apes in crypto,” Yuga Labs wrote. “Which is why some of the rarest and most valuable NFTs in the Cryptopunk collection are the apes. We liked the idea of creating a whole collection around apes who became so wealthy because of crypto's rise, that they became extremely . . . bored. What is a bored ape to do? Perhaps retreat to a secretive club in the swamp.”

The club then touched on the design and logo of the BAYC and explained why the founders chose the visuals that they did.

“We never wanted to take ourselves too seriously, so the look of the club is ramshackle and divey, Yuga Labs explained. “Everything about the BAYC was meant to convey a spirit of irreverence and absurdity. It's a 'Yacht Club' that's actually falling apart and smack dab in the heart of the Everglades. As such, it needed an appropriately grimey, intriguing logo. We went with an ape skull to help convey just how bored these apes are - they're 'bored to death'.”

After explaining the club’s origins and logo design, the Yuga Labs revealed new information about the club’s four anon founders. “We're all real-life friends with diverse backgrounds - Jewish, Cuban, Turkish, Pakistani. We started work on what would become the BAYC in February of 2021, and worked with a team of artists on the apes, the look of the club, logos, etc. To date, we have 11 full-time employees and many contractors who work on every aspect of the BAYC, from video games to merch, digital and physical experiences, scavenger hunts, etc.”

Following Yuga Labs’ Twitter thread, BAYC members thanked the founders for everything they have done so far and for their prompt response to the earlier Twitter space.

“And yet another example of why BAYC never misses,” BAYC member Jonathan Long tweeted. “Fucking handled perfectly. @BoredApeYCto the fucking moon.”

Following Yuga Labs post, Bored Apes took to Twitter to publicly voice their satisfaction with the BAYC and tell the world how long they have been members.