Been here long enough to know that a lot of what drove @BoredApeYC in 2021 came from the culture and value created by the community members purely taking initiative. I remember being @Swickie’s +1 at the first community-led BAYC irl meetup hosted by @beijingdou , where @NFTBA_ was born over a smoke sesh with @TheeHustleHouse and @seanana, and later met Mr. Community Utility himself @17ikoola on the courts. It was also there Josh Ong and I decided to pitch the founders on supporting a yacht party we wanted to throw for Apes at NFT NYC, which we then watched that Yuga support turn that into the first ApeFest. I watched Swickie work that ApeFest line for 8 hours verifying wallet addresses on a spreadsheet while handing out the very first and very last wristbands to a line that stretched for BLOCKS just to make sure no apes were left behind. And before that, I remember @mfigge making custom BAYC sneaker concepts for holders before eventually blessing the space with @10KTFshop, still imo one of the most community-centric and creative projects with some of the most inspiring story telling that brought this space together like no other. All of this helped establish the club DNA and most of this was before MAYC, Otherside, Kodas, ApeCoin, HVY MTL, etc. Those came later that were rewards for a community that had helped create this cultural phenomenon. But somewhere along the way, it feels like we lost the plot of where value came from got conflated with rewards given. Floor price and volume measure market activity and demand. Airdrops are rewards and incentives. But that demand existed because the culture was strong, people wanted in, and Apes were out here building shit because it brought us together as a community which then created value in the form of opportunities not unlike stonkbrokers. These are GOOD things because it’s creating opportunities regardless and it happened because WE said so. No official collab. No Yuga shill. No permission needed. We believed back then that evolution of BAYC should be to take this club beyond Web3 and by proxy this space. But that isn’t happening if we think only Yuga led initiatives, proper merch drop mechanics, more airdrops, web3 rewards, or party access are what made this the best club in the world. And vice versa for Yuga themselves to assume they can come close to replicating the culture without truly understanding what it means to be an ape. Don’t lose the plot fam. Stay bored 🍌