Introduction
Kemonokaki is a unique and cute art derivative of the milady style NFT Collection, created by artist and creator @OekakiConnect. This limited edition collection consists of hand-drawn PFPs inspired by kemonomimi and neo-chibi aesthetics. However, the collection has recently found itself caught in the middle of a censorship controversy on the @Base chain.
Isolated Incidents Lead to Sweeping Bans
The controversy began with reports of some isolated users making offensive comments in the Base Discord. Unfortunately, these incidents resulted in a wide-ranging ban of Kemonokaki from the Base Discord. This decision escalated when the Oekaki Connect Discord server was deleted, and thousands of Discord users were put to a limited status. Discord also made thousands of accounts that were merely members of the Oekaki Connect Discord server subject to complete banning if they were found to be repeating "harassment and bullying" offenses.
A History of Controversy
This is not the first time Kemonokaki has been involved in controversy. Back in June 2024, during the mint and launch of the Kemonokaki collection, major NFT marketplaces, Opensea and MagicEden, were accused of shadowbanning the trending collection from their trending pages. Despite the collection being hyped and trending on all on-chain metrics, it was repeatedly suppressed. It was later discovered that some front-end code showed they had purposely signed out this collection for suppression.
Base Chain Ignores Kemonokaki
Adding insult to injury, Kemonokaki was ignored by Base chain in their recent on-chain summer promotional summary video, despite being one of the biggest and most popular NFT collections on the chain. To make matters worse, the collection did a record-breaking open edition mint on the Coinbase-operated Base chain L2, which minted almost 400k on Magic Eden.
Calls for Reconciliation
There are now calls for Jesse Pollak, the lead figure of Base chain and development, to make amends and contact Discord to address these sweeping restrictions on Oekaki Connect Discord members who have reportedly not offended anyone. This brand brush approach to censorship has riled up the community of builders on Base and exposed the centralized nature of some L2 chains, showing that despite their claims, they may not truly be for everyone.
The Streisand Effect
Once again, Kemonokaki is caught up in a Streisand-type effect where the suppression of its reach has the opposite effect and attracts more attention to the collection and how censorship is increasing in so-called Web3 and decentralized crypto. This has awakened more people to what is truly decentralized in crypt and urges them to look deeper at the protocols and chains they interact with and build on.
UPDATE 16/09/24: The @OekakiConnect Discord server for @kemonokaki has been reportedly restored and all strikes from those affected have been revoked.
Do you Stand with Kemonokaki? Follow @newsereum on X
newsereum.eth is a minter of the Kemonokaki collection and the NFTS are featured in this post
