'The Red Ape Family' NFT Animated Series Is Worse Than Normal NFTs

Every single day crypto bros wake, rise, and go about their grim work of making the planet stupider. First, they came for money. Then they came for art. And now, crypto bros are trying comedy and bringing with it the same "I don't understand why some things are valuable, so maybe this garbage is valuable too" attitude that's made them insufferable at everything else.

Announced in late September, The Red Ape Family (TRAF) is an animated show starring everyone's least favorite Twitter profile pic: Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs.

The show is ostensibly about a family of apes, but really it's about shoe-horning in as many NFT references as possible. From mocking yetis and Lazy Lions to naming a spaceship after Elon Musk, and the red apes are a vehicle for this tired parade of cringey greed hype. Instead of calling it The Red Ape Family, they should just call it The Red Ape Show (TRASh).

NFT fans around the world will be shocked to learn that even though there is only one completely unique episode of The Red Ape Family, it is still absolutely worthless. The plot seems to be that a family of apes has stolen a USB drive of NFTs from a German man on a whim. (German?? lol, so random, rawr XD) The apes then leave the planet by booking a ride with a skeleton and bringing along their family doctor. They are held up at customs on whatever planet they head to, then allowed through when the guide magically ascertains that they have a connection to the local government- something the apes never say and we, the viewers, did not know. Finally, a couple of other apes eye the family ominously through their blinds while discussing what may come in episode 2. 

If this plot summary makes no sense, then please understand I've done a better job of cobbling together the story than the episode did, and you didn't even have to hear every character's whiny, quirky, infuriating voice.

The jokes in Red Ape Family range from the nonsensical (playing binoculars like a harmonica) to the tragically dated (Chucky actually drops a Budweiser "Whassup" reference that is now over 22 years old). At times the show seems to think that saying "f**k" is a catchphrase and grunting when you talk is a joke, making it almost as funny as the most annoying kid at a sleepover. They don't seem to grasp that a joke is when you create an expectation in your audience and then cleverly subvert it. The only expectation I had for this show was that it would be bad, and to be fair, they surprised me by making it horrible.

Most NFT scams can at least be passed off as potentially lucrative if you get out at the right time- you could drop a few hundred dollars into a play-to-earn game and make it back when the suckers flock to your digital pastures. But The Red Ape Family is a complete and total waste of time- time that I will never be able to scalp back from rubes. The whole thing feels like it was written by an AI that was fed only crypto memes and LinkedIn profiles, and the only funny thing about it is the crypto bros in the comments who think, "It'll get better!" Maybe this will teach them the lesson that, like Whasssuuuup, some things just get worse over time.

Top Image: The Red Ape Family