Soon after their launch, the Jungle Freaks NFTs were the source of controversy. Some in the NFT community accused the creator of using racist depictions in the art for the NFTs.
Controversy
Following revelations that Trosley, the artist behind the collection, had created some racist artwork in the past, the price fell significantly. At the time, the average sales price fell from 2ETH to around 0.4 ETH.
Besides that, trading volumes for the NFT collection fell by nearly 80% within 24 hours.
To make things worse, Trosley was accused of including a Nazi General’s Hat as one of the attributes for the collection. As the controversy began to gain momentum, some famous people, including Elijah Wood, began to dump the collection.
Details of the Collection
The Jungle Freaks NFTs collection comprises 10,000 zombies fighting against genetically modified gorillas in the year 2077.
They were the brainchild of George Trosley, who used to work at Hustler Magazine as a cartoonist.
Trosley Defends Himself
Trosley later put up a blog post to defend his work. In the blog post, he stated that his previous work had been satirical. He bolstered his argument by pointing out anti-KKK as well as other cartoons he drew while working at Hustler Magazine.
Trosley pointed out the close association with Larry Flynt, who was shot and left partially paralyzed after Hustler posted a scene that evoked a white woman and a black man.
While Trosley put up a good argument to defend the cartoons, the damage had been mostly done. Jungle Freaks lost a significant chunk of their valuation after the allegations came forward.
Public Cancellation
A major reason for this is that most famous people who promote NFT collections simply refuse to associate with a collection that has a whiff of toxic ideology associated with it.
In the current atmosphere of political division, everyone has strong feelings regarding racism, which is exemplified by the success of the BLM movement. NFTs were seen as a way to build communities based on novel technology.
Most people still believe in that goal, which is why the Jungle Freaks NFTs collection lost so much of its valuation when the controversy came to the fore.
Are Jungle Freaks NFTs Still Available?
At the time the allegations came to the fore, there were calls to have the collection banned from leading marketplaces. However, after Trosley gave a lengthy explanation via the medium blog, some of the tempers tampered down.
However, the damage was already done. They have never rebounded to their original floor price of 4 ETH. On Open Sea, the collection has a floor price of just 0.34 ETH.
Summary
With the weak defense plus the reputational damage done to Trosley, it is unlikely that he may want to launch another NFT collection.
However, if he does, it is not likely that it will do much better than the current one. In the era of the internet, nothing truly goes away. However, those who still wish to invest in the collection can do so via the OpenSea marketplace.
