- Pudgy Penguins will apologise after a racist post on X prompted a complaint from its $5.3 billion football partner, Manchester City.
- The post suggested X’s crackdown on reply spam and “AI slop” could “actually have a significant effect on India’s economy,” relying on a xenophobic stereotype.
- Pudgy Penguins removed the post and said it was inappropriate, and plans to contact the X user who flagged it to offer an apology.
- X users including Satvik and crypto founder Dan Sickles publicly called out the post and demanded policy changes and condemnation of xenophobia.
- Pudgy Penguins has branched beyond NFTs into books, games, collectibles and football; the company and CEO Lucas Netz had not publicly apologised at the time of reporting.
Pudgy Penguins said it will apologise after a social post on X last week that prompted a complaint from football partner Manchester City. The post suggested that X’s crackdown on reply spam and “AI slop” might “actually have a significant effect on India’s economy,” a claim that users described as xenophobic. See a series of screenshots.
The project’s press office acknowledged the post “was inappropriate and does not reflect its company values.” The office said it had removed the post and planned to contact the X user who flagged it to “express their apology on the matter.”
X user Satvik reported the post to Manchester City after other users tried to downplay it. Satvik said “[Netz] should be incredibly ashamed” of the team’s post and later wrote, “I’m fucking tired of how normalized racism against Indians has become on this platform, every single day we endure hurtful comments for simply existing online.” See Satvik’s reports at this thread and an earlier post.
Crypto founder Dan Sickles captured the original post in a screenshot and shared it on X at this tweet. He later called for company policies to prevent similar incidents and asked CEO Lucas Netz to condemn xenophobia and racism more broadly in his follow-up post.
The post’s language leaned on a stereotype linking India to bot or spam activity in the so-called “InfoFi” sector. InfoFi refers to services and markets built around information as a traded asset, including attention-driven accounts and automated engagement techniques.
Pudgy Penguins began as an NFT project of cartoon penguins and has expanded into children’s books, mobile games, designer collectibles and football partnerships. The company’s public tone has at times focused on trending finance and tech topics rather than child-friendly content.
Protos has reached out to Pudgy Penguins for comment. For tips, send an email via Protos Leaks. Follow Protos on X at https://twitter.com/protos, on Google News at their publication, or subscribe to their YouTube channel at https://youtube.com/protosmedia.
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