Music and culture magazine Rolling Stone is getting slammed online for partnering with one of the biggest names in NFTs, Bored Apes Yacht Club. The collaboration will see a minted NFT digital cover image for the magazine along with seven total pieces from Bored Apes Yacht Club.

"We are thrilled to collaborate with Bored Ape Yacht Club," said Gus Wenner, President and COO of Rolling Stone. "The cultural groundswell associated with these artists is in line with movements Rolling Stone has covered for decades. The Bored Apes’ shared love of music and counter-culture made them fantastic collaborators to bring this unique project to life with."

Rolling Stone also held an interview with the Bored Apes team, who said of themselves, "Are we the Beastie Boys of NFTs? Because, right after our initial success it felt like the Beastie Boys going on tour with Madonna: Everyone was like, ‘Who the fuck are these kids?’"

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The article itself is particularly fluffy, with writer Samantha Hissong writing of the Bored Apes collective, "If Bored Ape Yacht Club is essentially this band of brothers’ debut album, there’s really no telling what their greatest hits will look like."

Despite Rolling Stone and BAYC's stated excitement at their collaboration, many online did not share their enthusiasm, describing the collaboration and accompanying article as transparently cynical, with some describing it as a "pump and dump" scheme.

Still not over how bleak that Rolling Stone digital ape profile (pump and dump promo) is. I can’t imagine putting my name on something so transparently advertorial, wanting so bad to be COOL, something so facile and dreary and clearly dishonest. It’s worse with each new reading https://t.co/vvfrctQ6vr

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) November 2, 2021

Full Disclosure: We are doing a Pump & Dump https://t.co/ZSuJkitaOF pic.twitter.com/Ia7vXvofsy

— ˚✧₊⁎❝᷀ົཽ≀ˍ̮ ❝᷀ົཽ⁎⁺˳✧༚ (@stuffianthinks) November 1, 2021

trying to imagine a way that rolling stone can be less cool https://t.co/d0wOEupKzG

— joey daniewicz (@joeydaniewicz) November 2, 2021

Actually reading the Rolling Stone nft thing and lol, lmao pic.twitter.com/qvuXnTM1ba

— gaygay gaybrams (@queenbuttpirate) November 2, 2021

the rolling stone piece about nft bros has enormous "what's up fellow teens" energy

— So I Married A Jacquesmurderer (@jephjacques) November 1, 2021

Time will tell if Rolling Stone is truly attempting to break into the crypto market or if they will simply go back to putting Dave Grohl on the cover every month.