Last week, Wylie Aronow, one of the co-founders of Yuga Labs and co-creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs, refuted long-standing accusations that the artwork contains Nazi imagery. And yet the rumours persist.
So Planet Crypto spoke to anonymous insider at Yuga Labs and asked – are you secretly Nazis?
Yuga Labs
Of course not. It’s laughable. The way we’re being interrogated, it’s like something out of the Nuremberg Trials. Or, you know, a war crime tribunal that’s not about Nazis.
Planet Crypto
Right, yes. Your accusers say Nazi sentiments have been a part of the Bored Apes from the very start. Were you there at the beginning?
YL
I was. The idea for the apes actually happened very innocently when I was in charge of a work camp. That’s what we’d call our camping retreats where we’d come up with ideas.
PC
I see.
YL
They were fun weekends. We’d blitz down there in a convoy of Volkswagens we’d get from Hertz. I know those are German names, but that’s just coincidence.
PC
Right. And at those retreats, there was no discussion of Nazi ideology?
YL
Absolutely not. The apes were inspired by nature, not Nazis. In fact, we nearly brought out some NFTs based on a gang of wolves we saw, and there’s absolutely nothing German about a wolf gang… apart from Wolfgang Willrich who I don’t know much about except that he created powerful art propaganda for the Nazis. But again, that’s not really relevant here.
PC
I see. It’s been alleged that ‘Yuga Labs’ is a nod to ‘Kali Yuga’, an alt-right meme about struggle. Is it?
YL
There’s absolutely nothing extremist or Nazi about our name. We’re called Yuga Labs because we like to experiment. We knew with the Bored Apes, for example, that we had a good idea for an NFT and that we were in a race to master it. That’s why the working title of the project was ‘The Master Race’, because that was the best way to describe something that had nothing to do with Nazism.
PC
O…kay. Finally, you know the founders of Yuga Labs very well. Have you ever seen any signs of Nazi sympathies?
YL
None at all. We’re just a bunch of friends who sometimes hang out in SS uniforms and reminisce about the glory days… I’m talking about Seattle Sounders uniforms, of course, two-time winners of the MLS Cup in US soccer.
PC
Huh. Well thank you for clearing all that up. I think.
YL
You’re welcome. One more thing – I know I said I’d prefer to remain anonymous, but actually I want to end this stupid rumour that it’s because I’m called Adolf Hitler. My name is not Adolf Hitler, obviously. It’s Steve.
PC
That’s a relief.
YL
Steve Hitler.
