Hyperallergic
Sensitive to Art & its Discontents
Editor’s note 5/31/22 10:30am EDT: News outlets have reported that the “Lonely Ape Club” was conceived as a prank, as was its shutting down over a lack of women members. Hyperallergic has attempted to reach the app’s creators to confirm the veracity of these claims. The article has since been edited to reflect the facts. We sincerely apologize to our readers for publishing this (sadly all-too-believable) story as factual and promise to do better next time.
In what may be the best crypto prank of the year, a group who claimed to create a dating app exclusively for collectors of the increasingly infamous Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs said they were forced to shut down earlier this month due to a lack of women members.
“Unfortunately due to the vastly uneven ratio of men to women who signed up for our waitlist, we have decided to put the BAYC dating app on hold indefinitely,” read a May 12 tweet by user @y4kxyz. “Too many bros!”
Conceived by a self-described “ragtag team of hackers and NFT collectors interested in how we can integrate crypto and web 3 with the dating space,” the fake “Lonely Ape Dating Club” would have required users to own a BAYC NFT (non-fungible token) to register for the app — already limiting the dating pool, since there are only 10,000 Bored Apes in total.
Owners of the tokens, which depict anthropomorphic cartoon apes that can be used as social media avatars, become members of the “Bored Ape Yacht Club” and include celebrities such as Eminem, Jimmy Fallon, and Snoop Dogg. The price of entry is around $200,000.
Lonely Ape Club may have been a well-orchestrated hoax, but the crypto and NFT space’s gender problem is all too real. At the end of last year, women artists made only 16% of all NFT art. Twice as many men invest in cryptocurrencies than women, and misogyny in the industry has been reported again and again. The industry is heavily male, young, and White.
Unfortunately due to a vastly uneven ratio of men to women who signed up for our waitlist, we have decided to put the BAYC dating app on hold indefinitely.
Too many bros!
We sincerely appreciate your interest and support.https://t.co/PozZOCph0y
After a months-long crash has knocked cryptocurrencies’ valuation down by $1.6 trillion, being explicitly told they do not attract a statistically significant number of women romantic interests was another hit to the crypto “community.”
BAYC tokens, which have sold for more than $1 million, made headlines again last week after one set to star in a TV show was stolen in a phishing scam. Actor Seth Green was planning to have his ape NFT appear alongside him in a new comedy series called White Horse Tavern, but now he’s begging Twitter user @darkwing84 to give it back. It is unknown whether the show will go forward.
Your list of must-see, fun, insightful, and very New York art events this month, including colossal sculptures along the East River, spectral ceramics in a South Brooklyn cemetery, and more.
Your list of must-see, fun, insightful, and very Los Angeles art events this month, including Jesse Mockrin, Ken Gun Min, Farah Al Qasimi, and more.
Students concentrate in either Education or Audience Engagement, and connect learning to practice during internships at iconic Philadelphia museums and beyond.
Photographer Malcolm Varon’s 1977 portraits, on view at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, are some of the only images of the artist late in her life.
Donald Evans concentrated all of his attention on the postage stamp, unlocking its potential to evoke distant, unseen lands.
Organizers, artists, and land practitioners are holding public events at Iglesias Garden in a hub space supported by the Climate Justice Initiative, a project of Mural Arts Philadelphia.
Artist Kyle Staver’s portrayal of the mythic hero feels balanced, as if to say: sure, the 12 labors are absurd, but isn’t all human endeavor?
Her recent film Showing Up features Michelle Williams as a sculptor who’s constantly driven to distraction.
Jo Sandman / TRACES opens with a reception for the artist on June 3 at Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center in Asheville, North Carolina.
The show’s curators called it “a politically motivated threat” toward the artist collective The Question of Funding, members of whom have been the target of antisemitism accusations.
with her name, penetrate earth’s floor remembers the Korean-American creative producer who was murdered in Lower Manhattan at age 35.
As videos shot on film get refurbished for the digital age, we’re discovering more and more fascinating artifacts in the original materials.
Elaine Velie is a writer from New Hampshire living in Brooklyn. She studied Art History and Russian at Middlebury College and is interested in art’s role in history, culture, and politics. More by Elaine Velie
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Hyperallergic is a forum for serious, playful, and radical thinking about art in the world today. Founded in 2009, Hyperallergic is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York.
