New Animated Video Revisits REKT's "Ape Tax" Thesis

Nearly a year after publishing the original "Ape Tax" essay in December 2020, the outlet released its second major video production — an animated take on the culture of online crypto gambling that revisits the same themes in a new format.

The piece opens with a nod to Kaa's line from The Jungle Book, "Now don't try to kid me man cub, I made a deal with you," before laying out its core framing: roughly four billion years after life first emerged from the primordial soup, a new stage of evolution is now underway, playing out over blockchain blocks rather than millennia. As the piece frames it, ape season has returned, and the ape tax must once again be paid.

Subtitles are currently available in multiple languages, with additional translations planned. Viewers were also pointed toward the outlet's Gitcoin Grant for those wanting to support the project.

The video closes on the same refrain used in the original piece, borrowed from the Jungle Book song "I Wan'na Be Like You": "You see it's true, an ape like me, can learn to be like someone like you."

Watch the video.