Neil Strauss knows how to write about weird subcultures. His infamous bestseller “The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists,” released in 2005, introduced the world to concepts like “negging” and “peacocking.” (If you ever set foot in a club in the 2000s, you’ve heard the terms.)
More bestsellers would follow. Ten in total. Books on survivalism, heavy metal, porn stars. But Strauss might have just stumbled into the wildest subculture of his career: The Bored Ape Yacht Club. (In the unlikely event you clicked on this story but are unfamiliar with the BAYC, you’ll find a quick primer in my conversation with its anonymous creators.)
This interview is part of Culture Week, which explores how crypto is changing media and entertainment.
So how is Strauss involved with the Bored Apes? It started with Ape #1798. This would be an Ape that goes by Jenkins, or rather “Jenkins the Valet.” The owner of Jenkins, in a legitimately inspired burst of creativity, invented an elaborate backstory for his Ape. Jenkins (the Ape) comes from humble roots, and now he works as a valet for the Yacht Club. Jenkins is always listening. Jenkins knows the Club’s juiciest secrets. Now Jenkins is ready to write a tell-all memoir about the Apes’ shenanigans.
And Jenkins will have help. During the real-life mayhem of NFT NYC, as Jessica Klein reported for Input, one of the Apes (or technically a human who owns an Ape) told the ecstatic crowd, “We needed to find the best memoir writer that ever existed … So, we found Neil Strauss.” The Apes cheered.
Now, this is where things get interesting. What, exactly, does it mean to write a “memoir” about a group of NFT avatars that kind of exists but kind of doesn’t? “That’s up to the community,” Strauss tells me. And this is literally the case. Through a clever use of NFTs within the BAYC ecosystem, the Apes can purchase the right to enter the “Writers Room 2.0″ – essentially a group conference call with Strauss. If you’re an Ape who splurges on a top-tier “yacht” NFT, then you get to be an actual character in the book. Your Writers Room NFT also gives you voting privileges, letting you help shape the narrative of the book.