“My mom cried when I got the job as valet at the Bored Ape Yacht Club, one of the preeminent social clubs for apes. She hooted and grunted and peel
“My mom cried when I got the job as valet at the Bored Ape Yacht Club, one of the preeminent social clubs for apes. She hooted and grunted and peeled open one of our finest bananas. ‘Jenkins,’ she said, ‘you’re going to rub shoulders with some of the finest apes from around the world.’ I rolled my eyes. She had a knack for embellishment, and I was only going to be a valet after all.”
Jenkins the Valet is a wide-eyed, brown-furred service ape rather ordinary in appearance, but in the attire of his work vest and Irish boho hat, widely regarded as a diligent professional, true embodiment of discretion, and perhaps one the most boring apes in the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) universe.
While originating as another token in the BAYC, Jenkins has since evolved into a project and story in and of itself. Jenkins is voiced across various platforms by an anonymous individual who studied creative writing at college and spent the last six years working as a product manager for a large consumer technology company. Jenkins partner, Safa, is a self-described serial entrepreneur, and has a full-stack marketing background and runs his own creative agency.
Six months ago, Jenkins revealed his affiliation for storytelling, and in doing so, his intentions to reveal unfathomable secrets, first-hand accounts, and quite possibly, suspicious criminal activity within the Bored Ape Yacht Club.
In the words of Jenkins himself, “Hell, I even killed a man.”
Jenkins the Valet: The Writer’s Room is a collection of 6,942 nonfungible tokens (NFT’s) which serve as virtual compasses to the creative direction of Jenkins metaverse tales, the first of which will be a full-length fictional novel, supported by global talent agency Creative Artists Agency, and written by New York Times best-selling author, Neil Strauss.
Categorized into four tiers, Writer’s Room NFT’s ascend in voting power from the lowest-value Valet Ticket with five votes, to the Yacht Key and Valet Stand which hold 10 and 50 votes respectively, through to the premium WAGMI yacht which grants 215 votes.
These owners are designated exclusive chairs at the table of Jenkins illustrious Writers’ Room, a phrase synonymous within the filmmaking industry, but here in Web3, represents a digital portal to facilitate questions and proposals posed by Strauss and fellow community members on the genre, plot, characters and general concept of the narrative.
Character participation within the novel will range from a simple acknowledgment to a main character feature depending on their level of asset.
Once the book is published, licensors will be entitled to 50% of net profits from all forms of distribution, including the NFT book’s primary sale, commissions from the secondary marketplace, royalties from physical sales, as well as film and television adaptions of the work.
Overseen by metaverse firm Tally Labs, the project is supported by a six-team advisory board consisting of Fractional founder, Andy Chorlian, Redbeard Ventures founder, Drew Austin, and investor, Gmoney.
Throughout Cointelegraph’s conversation with Jenkins and Safa, it was clear that the pair view this project as a propitious intersection of their respective interests, skillsets and career backgrounds, and as such, signifies the pinnacle of their creative endeavours until this point.
This Zoom interview has been slightly adjusted for clarity, and condensed to suit reading constraints.
.@jenkinsthevalet x @Cointelegraph
Probably nothing. Soon. pic.twitter.com/LNyY1zNVPt
— Jenkins The Valet (@jenkinsthevalet) December 1, 2021
Cointelegraph: Jenkins, Safa, thanks for joining us today. First of all, can you tell us your current roles within the Jenkins project, and what does that entail day-to-day?
Safa: We both wear a ton of hats, but generally anything tech related goes to Jenkins. This is as well as writing, the voice of the character that you see on socials and Town Halls, and the overseeing of our entire development team.
I do a lot of the marketing, social media strategy, finance and operations. We both do community management. Honestly, aside from tech, we both overlap quite a bit.
Jenkins: There’s one other thing that I would say that you do (Safa) that I think is really important. You gave me credit for the Jenkins voice, but you have built the Jenkins brand, and you spend a lot of time thinking about the way the project is perceived by others. I think that’s something our community, and the community at large really admires about our project.
Jenkins cites the physical valet stand displayed at NFT NYC last month as a prime example of how Safa’s branding experience enabled them to converge their social audience to a physical monument, and how that was appreciated by the community.
S: From running an agency, I have a lot of experience working with clients and designers overseeing visual and brand identities, and so we’ve tried to treat…
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