Jenkins the Valet’s eyes are piercing under his newsboy cap. His neat cravat and pressed vest indicate his level of attention to detail. He has a knowing expression and he bites his lip because “Loose Lips Sink Ships.”
He stole our hearts when he said that his mother cried upon hearing that he secured a valet job at Bored Ape Yacht Club.
That Jenkins was not a minted adoption but a secondary adoption is a detail I have come to love about him.
He is special and chosen and destined to become a legend.
“I was drawn to Jenkins’s clothing and his determined eyes. His avi art struck me and I felt like there was a story behind him. His outfit screams ‘valet’, and his ‘vuh’ phoneme mouth looks like he’s trying to hold back from spilling the dirt. When I first looked at Bored Ape #1798, I didn’t know he would become Jenkins, but I knew there was more to him. That said, I find this to be true with almost every ape, and that is a credit to the BAYC team,” says Jenkins.
Beyond the traits that BAYC did such a great job at honing, the ease in which their stories manifest is a common observation among BAYC members.
Jenkins’ mythology is known far and wide in BAYC circles for the creative license taken to develop a full-fledged backstory.
“You don’t really know who the character is until you start writing. You see what works and what feels right. That day in the coffee shop, Jenkins’s personality really came through and I was excited by what landed on the page.”
After Jenkins’ origin story went viral, other BAYC members contributed their own narrative to his story — and as far as street cred is concerned, Jenkins is it — just ask the Crypto Punk rapper @SpottiWifi, whose rap song “Elite Ape” featuring @Gold-Rilla immortalized Jenkins as the hub of the BAYC network.
“I pull up to the club toss the keys to Jenkins/My homie he got stories we got stories that we rather not mention…”
For all the stories he can’t tell, there is a treasure trove of stories he can alongside the BAYC community.
In fact, Jenkins the Valet is one of a handful of @BoredApeYachtClub awarded grantees, and his new venture called “Jenkins the Valet Writer’s Room NFT” is catapulting him into a completely new realm of NFT.
“I wrote the first story as a prompt to encourage other apes to let Jenkins tell their story, but I didn’t expect it to grow into a full-fledged NFT. That said, the reception was so positive and the community grant from BAYC was so generous that I kept pushing it forward. I asked my best friend @SeeApeFollowApe and Solidity dev @Foobar to join me, and the rest is history.”
In the vast OpenSea and land where collectibles and avatars have come and gone, Jenkins the Valet has introduced a totally fresh direction that may very well become the model for the crossroads of literary art and membership.
“For me, the Writer’s Room is going to be a place where we crowdsource content and prove that decentralized storytelling can create amazing output. For the community, I hope that it serves as a new form of utility in the NFT space. I hope that the community feels that membership to the Writer’s Room makes them owners and authors of the story that we create. I hope that the community has fun.”
What is Jenkins the Valet’s Writer’s Room NFT?
Jenkins the Valet’s Writer’s Room NFT aims to create the world’s first community-generative NFT book.
It is the first instance where members can “exercise votes on the creative direction of every Jenkins story (title, genre, plot, ending, cover art, illustration, etc).”
The project consists of 6,942 NFTs at .069420 ETH and a blind mint total of four different tiers, each with its own set of perks:
- Tier 1: 69 WAGMI Yachts with a .99% chance of being pulled
- Tier 2: There are 297 Valet Stands with a 4.28% chance of being pulled
- Tier 3: There are 1,371 Yacht Keys with a 19.75% chance of being pulled
- Tier 4: There are 5,205 Valet Tickets with a 74.98% chance of being pulled.
That means 69,420 total votes can be exercised on each book proposal and if a member holds a Writer’s Room NFT of any tier when the book is launched, that member receives a fraction of that book NFT for free or their own book ERC721 token for free and the member is inscribed in the book.
What do you get with a Writer’s Room NFT?
- Access to members-only Writer’s Room to vote on the creative direction of the story
- Opportunity to license a Bored Ape if you own one in exchange for licensing fee
- Fraction of final 1/1 book via partnership with Fractional.art or your own unique book NFT
- Physical copy of the final book
- Access to a Writer’s Room in the Metaverse (first one is in the Real Estapes Sandbox plot)
- Opportunity to license other avatars in future stories
- Opportunity to control creative direction for future stories
- Access to exclusive Writer’s Room and Yacht Valet merch
- No Writer’s Room NFTs will ever be created after this primary sale
“Every member of the Writer’s Room will receive a physical copy of the book, and I’m thrilled that people will get the chance to display them wherever they like. We also plan on making a larger physical copy that represents the ultimate, original 1/1 book. I think in the true fashion of a community-oriented service ape, the members of the Writer’s Room should vote on where that book is displayed.”
It is not a stretch to think that the unique setup of Writer’s Room NFT could be a glimpse into new forms of collectively engaging in literary works.
What is certain is that the Writer’s Room NFT contributes to literary works reaching a publishing milestone — both as a community project and living on the blockchain. I asked Jenkins how he sees his NFT changing the landscape.
“My focus is entirely on delivering an amazing Writer’s Room experience for our community and on creating a great first book. Certainly, we’d like to create more than one book and we have aspirations to license many other avatars besides apes for these stories in the long run. To even consider for a second that the Writer’s Room could represent a milestone in publishing-at-large is incredibly humbling. I hope we do the best work we can possibly do. If that means we end up showing the literary world that decentralized storytelling results in beautiful, fun work then that’s a massive bonus.”
Also interesting is how the Writer’s Room NFT experiments with licensing Bored Apes.
The opportunity to license a Bored Ape if you own one in exchange for a fee has not been fully explored yet and we will be able to witness an instance where mass licensing may take place and how it will play out.
“Tally Labs, the parent company behind Jenkins the Valet, has a mission to dream up worlds, characters, and tools to make the Metaverse a better place. I think that central to that mission is the idea that the characters can be owned fully by members of the community as NFTs. Within that paradigm, licensing is critical, and we hope to be a model for how licensing can and should work for future derivative projects.”
Jenkins and his team have worked so hard the last two months to bring the full experience of the Writer’s Room to market.
The hype around the project is so real — every day I see people posting and reminding and planning for the drop.
It allows people to take ownership of the project when they’re involved in the bigger picture.
He fully recognizes the support he has behind him.
“I want to acknowledge that this project would not exist without the support of BAYC and the entire ape and greater NFT community. I am a service ape, and everything I do is focused around the goal of contributing more to the community than I take. I hope this NFT accomplishes that goal.”
Thank you, Jenkins! See you in the Writer’s Room.
Mint your NFT on August 4, 2021, at 7 pm EST at https://www.jenkinsthevalet.com/
Listen to our interview with Jenkins the Valet on the NFTeach Podcast.
