Manchester City forced to intervene as Pudgy Penguins draws India backlash

Barely a week after the NFT project announced its partnership with English football club Man City, the former UCL winner has been dragged into a social media uproar against a racial statement. 

Pudgy Penguins posted a message on X last week commenting on the social platform’s efforts to curb reply spam and so-called “AI slop” Information Finance posts. The post insinuated that the crackdown might “actually have a significant effect on India’s economy,” which many users interpreted as stereotyping Indians as the largest community in InfoFi.

Manchester City contacted Pudgy Penguins after the post circulated, asking the NFT platform to apologize to a community member who called it out as xenophobic. The Premier League club entered a commercial partnership with the NFT project last Thursday.

Manchester City forces Pudgy Penguins to apologize for mocking India

Dan Sickles, director of the NFT documentary project New Here, said Pudgy Penguins was “trafficking in base, xenophobic, colonial humor,” owing to how its American marketing team runs similar engagement farming campaigns like InfoFi. 

“I’ve met their guy, he’s great at his job, and he’s not from Mumbai,” Sickles said, referring to the project’s social media manager.

The backlash first began when an X user and Offline protocol developer named Satvik reported the post to Manchester City. Satvik said he took it up with the club after other users attempted to minimize the issue and deemed it harmless.

“Everyone commented on his post that it’s not serious and it wasn’t racism, let’s let the partners decide for themselves. 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,” he complained.

Satvik later shared an email response he received from Manchester City, which read: 

According to the programmer, Pudgy Penguins’ CEO Lucas Netz should be “incredibly ashamed” of his team for allowing the post to be published. As of the time of writing, neither Netz nor the company had issued a public apology on their own channels.

Satvik later quoted his original post and said he wanted clarity on how Pudgy Penguins intended to prevent another xenophobic statement from being made. He wanted to hear what company policies Netz will enact “to prevent incidents like this from happening again, and for him to condemn xenophobia and racism more generally.”

“I’d also love to hear why the post stayed up so long despite people sharing feedback immediately,” he continued.

PENGU token drops 3.7% in 24 hours

The price of Pudgy Penguins’ token, PENGU, jumped by 5% after the project announced its partnership with Manchester City on January 15. But the rally proved short-lived as traders began taking profits soon after the announcement. 

PENGU has since fallen below $0.01, a drop of about 16% and a weekly plunge of 20%, coinciding with the community backlash over its now-deleted X post. Moreover, market participants believe that factors like the fading of the speculative interest after the partnership news was fully absorbed caused a negative price correction on the token.

According to its press statement, the Manchester City partnership debuted a premium digital collectible and merchandise for the football club’s fans. Yet, some netizens noted that Pudgy Penguins’ social media presence clashes with its family-friendly branding. 

While the brand markets itself through child-oriented products, its online posts frequently lean into trending topics in finance and technology, sometimes using edgy or provocative language to drive engagement, much similar to what InfoFi influencers and projects do. 

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