Lately, I keep seeing this cartoon monkey bopping around. I find the monkey mostly unremarkable, generically familiar, and not very much to my liking if not wholly offensive. It has shaggy jowls and eyes that are either closed or obscured, its frowning monkey mouth and round monkey ears wilting with ennui. The monkey takes many different forms, allowing a person who is willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for its digital image to say, “Tag yourself, I’m this guy.” Feels like someone else’s problem and definitely not mine, you are scoffing. Only tell that to the celebs. This monkey keeps coming up because they keep bringing it up. They really want us to enjoy this monkey, clap for this monkey, know what this monkey is. They can’t make me. I won’t let them.
Who are the main offenders in this monkey business? So glad you asked. Eminem is one: He updated his Twitter avatar to indicate that he is now the monkey, wearing an army cap and a look of general disdain.
Here’s Snoop Dogg. Sorry, everyone, I think we’ve lost him:
Serena Williams recently tweeted her own version, a pink monkey with watering eyes. This one feels more sympathetic, but still, it’s nothing to do with me.
And Monday night, Paris Hilton and Jimmy Fallon showed off their monkeys (wearing a leather-daddy cap and heart glasses plus a captain’s hat, respectively) on the Tonight Show, trying to teach us all a lesson about how the Bored Ape Yacht Clu — nope, sorry, that’s as far as this train goes. End of the line, last station, everybody please get off. We are not doing this today.
Please remember, none of us is under any contractual obligation to care about the monkey or even know anything about it just because the celebs are trying to bully us into caring about “non-fungible tokens.” I must defend my boundaries and pull up the drawbridge on my mind palace at first mention of cryptocurrency or when someone tries to tell me this dumb monkey is actually an ape and what makes it interesting is that it’s an NFT. Wow, as in no fucking talking? Sounds great, thanks!