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Bored Ape Conference Attendees Wake Up With Searing Eye Pain, Vision Loss (404media.co) 115

Posted by BeauHD from the no-pain-no-gain dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Attendees at a conference for Bored Ape NFT owners are reporting waking up in the middle of the night following laser and blacklight-heavy performances with extreme eye pain and vision loss. Yuga Labs, the parent company of Bored Ape Yacht Club, hosted ApeFest in Hong Kong from November 3-5. The event was open to holders of Bored Ape NFTs, a crypto project that peaked in 2021 and recently crashed to a two-year low, costing many investors thousands of dollars.

"I woke up at 04:00 and couldn't see anymore. Had so much pain and my whole skin is burned. Needed to go to the hospital," one attendee posted on the last day of the event. "The doctor told me the uv of the lightning of the stage did it. It has the same effect as sunlight. Still can not see normally.." "Same here for me and +1. I had eyeglasses, so was a bit spared, but skin is burned and +1 had the same degree of issues with eyes," someone replied. "The toilets may have been great, but what happened to our eyeballs last night at #ApeFest?" another attendee wrote, as a follow-up to a photo of him sitting on a toilet with his pants around his ankles in a room bathed in intense blacklights. "Been to lots of concerts, festivals, Burning Man, and never have I ever experienced fucked eyes like this."

Even as they woke up in the middle of the night with blinding eye pain, some attendees still praised the organizers for the event. "Thanks for great apefest logistiscs guys @yugalabs & @BoredApeYC. Incredible event and met plenty of amazing people," one wrote. "Still, as dozens of others, I've almost lost sight this night." They suggested others get their eyes checked like they did, and said their eyes were burned by UV. "To the organisers: For the communication & awareness reasons, it would be fair to put together an official statement with recommendations what to do, as dozens of people you care about were exposed to serious health hazards and lots of suffering," they continued. "You're good guys so it should be easy for you to recognise the seriousness of it." Photos and videos from the event show crowds of young men doing some of the worst moshing I've ever seen to performances and conference rooms soaked in blacklight and lasers. Where in the venue the damage was done is still unclear. Bored Ape Yacht Club acknowledged the issue in a post early Monday morning: "Apes, we are aware of the eye-related issues that affected some of the attendees of ApeFest and have been proactively reaching out to individuals since yesterday to try and find the potential root causes," the official account tweeted. "Based on our estimates, we believe that much less than 1% of those attending and working the event had these symptoms. While nearly everyone has indicated their symptoms have improved, we encourage anybody who feels them to seek medical attention just in case."
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Bored Ape Conference Attendees Wake Up With Searing Eye Pain, Vision Loss More

Bored Ape Conference Attendees Wake Up With Searing Eye Pain, Vision Loss

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  • Objection! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by zeeky boogy doog ( 8381659 ) on Monday November 06, 2023 @05:10PM (#63985640)
    as dozens of people you care about

    Assumes facts not in evidence, judging by the whole "temporarily blinded by cancer rays" thing that's going on.

    • It's called photokerititis (Score:4, Informative)

      by jhecht ( 143058 ) on Monday November 06, 2023 @07:54PM (#63986008)
      The ultraviolet can cause photokerititis https://my.clevelandclinic.org... [clevelandclinic.org] It's basically sunburn of the cornea, and the Cleveland Clinic says, it's painful but the symptoms last only a few hours to a couple of days. So they'll live and should be able to see afterwards, and might even have learned how bad an idea that was. Lasers can cause permanent damage, depending on the power. Kinda doubt the light show passed a safety inspection.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        The ultraviolet can cause photokerititis https://my.clevelandclinic.org... [my.clevelandclinic.org] It's basically sunburn of the cornea, and the Cleveland Clinic says, it's painful but the symptoms last only a few hours to a couple of days. So they'll live and should be able to see afterwards, and might even have learned how bad an idea that was. Lasers can cause permanent damage, depending on the power. Kinda doubt the light show passed a safety inspection.

        I doubt it was caused by lasers - UV lights are almost always just broad f

        • Re:It's called photokerititis (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Kisai ( 213879 ) on Monday November 06, 2023 @08:56PM (#63986138)

          Yep, what I think happened...

          - some members probably were too close to the actual lights, and they used the wrong types
          - some lights were not properly mounted (all stage lighting should be like 30' or so in the air, mainly for fire reasons)
          - additional black lights were installed in places that probably shouldn't have been to enhance the glowing effect

          If these were LED based UV lights, there is better than good possibility they used cheap UV LED lights from China that are ineffective for UV sanitization and don't really provide the blacklight glowing effect.

          If you read the descriptions of these lights, they often say to avoid eye exposure. This is why.

          At any rate, these people will live, and unless they were sticking their faces directly within 12" of the lights, they probably haven't done any permanent damage.

          • "If these were LED based UV lights, there is better than good possibility they used cheap UV LED lights from China"

            If they are cheap enough, you don't even need the UV part on the label, it comes for free with them.

        • I once spent 5 hours in broad sunlight on a snow covered mountain peak in Switzerland WITHOUT any sunglasses. In the middle of the night I woke up from sleep as it felt that pins are being put into my eye and I could not even open the eyes. The hotel staff to me to a hos[ital in the middle of the night and the doctor told me it is snow-blindness and will get over it with medicines. While I could open my eyes post the eye drops, It took me full 9 days to overcome the blood-red eyes and had to wer dark sungl

        • Or they sourced cheap UVC lights from Aliexpress or similar. It's happened before with places like nightclubs buying "blacklights" from dubious sources and frying their patrons. The symptoms described in TFA certainly match UVC exposure.

        • I believe welder's eye is caused more by IR than UV.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by eric76 ( 679787 )

        A few years ago, I sunburned the hell out of my eyes twice.

        On one July afternoon, I was on the roof of our office building in the middle of the day and got a hell of a sunburn of the eyes. Then about three weeks later in August, I was on the roof of our city hall in the middle of the day and got another sunburn of the eyes, nearly as bad as the first. On both occasions, I was wearing a cap. It clearly provided no help.

        The following July 3rd, I got a light sunburn outside in the middle of the day while we

    • I woke up at 04:00 and couldn't see anymore. Had so much pain and my whole skin is burned. Needed to go to the hospital," one attendee posted

      Thank God she had a braille-equipped iphone.

  • Bored Ape dupes are blind (Score:5, Funny)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Monday November 06, 2023 @05:15PM (#63985660)

    What else is new?

  • for the Corey Hart fans (Score:5, Funny)

    by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Monday November 06, 2023 @05:16PM (#63985662) Homepage Journal

    80's kids already know how to stay safe: I wear my sunglasses at night

  • So basically... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rei ( 128717 ) on Monday November 06, 2023 @05:16PM (#63985666) Homepage

    Headline: "People Who Wasted Absurd Amounts Of Money On Links To Ugly JPEGs Rendered Unable To See Them"

  • Irony is not dead!

  • People who made bad decisions before (Score:5, Insightful)

    by e065c8515d206cb0e190 ( 1785896 ) on Monday November 06, 2023 @05:22PM (#63985678)
    are making bad decisions now. News at 11

    • Seriously. Was this just the end product of going with the lowest-bidding Chinese company, or did one of the organizers decide "I can do this myself" and incorporate as some sort of shell corporation (to scam more money, of course)?

      • Re:People who made bad decisions before (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 06, 2023 @05:58PM (#63985752)

        Seriously. Was this just the end product of going with the lowest-bidding Chinese company, or did one of the organizers decide "I can do this myself" and incorporate as some sort of shell corporation (to scam more money, of course)?

        This happens a lot more often than you'd think.

        Sometimes yes there is someone at the club that went DIY not knowing anything about UV.
        Sometimes it's lighting from dubious suppliers selling UV-A lights that are actually UV-C.
        Lately even reputable and well known suppliers have found this crap working its way into their own supply chain, but at least then most of it is caught by testing before selling it on.

        It's suspected that a huge hoarded supply of UV-C lights during the pandemic is being offloaded by any means they can, including out right labeling fraud.

        In this instance, since laser light shows are also involved, I'd lean more towards DIY or lowest bidder too.

        • There's also misuse of legit products. For example, ceiling-mounted UVC with tight horizontal beams that are *supposed* to be mounted above eye level.

          • Another thing I've heard of is faulty fluorescent or HID lights. These use mercury vapour which e its UV, which is absorbed by a phosphor coati g that then glows in the visible spectrum. But if for some reason or another the phosphor coating is damaged or missing, then they've basically unintentionally become UV lamps.

      • Re:People who made bad decisions before (Score:4, Informative)

        by BKX ( 5066 ) on Monday November 06, 2023 @07:24PM (#63985932) Journal

        This exact thing has happened a few times now. All the previous times it's been people using UVC fluorescent bulbs because they look really cool, (they do look cool), but not knowing that they're dangerous. So, that's probably what happened this time as well. Pro-tip: If the lights are purple and you can smell ozone, get the hell out of there.

        • All the previous times it's been people using UVC fluorescent bulbs because they look really cool, (they do look cool), but not knowing that they're dangerous.

          This guy on YouTube [youtube.com] made a rather interesting video about these UV bulbs a few years back. He also came to the same conclusion that the portion of visible light they put out is rather pretty, which makes the bulbs all the more insidious.

    • Re:People who made bad decisions before (Score:4, Funny)

      by VampireByte ( 447578 ) on Monday November 06, 2023 @06:15PM (#63985802) Homepage

      Big missed opportunity to sell them saline solution but telling them it's a "miracle sight restoration eye drops" for thousands of dollars a bottle. With this crowd a scammer could have banked serious coin.

  • This is good for bitcoin! (Score:5, Funny)

    by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Monday November 06, 2023 @05:27PM (#63985684) Journal
    The dangers of ionizing radiation just prove the importance of storing your DNA on the blockchain for immutability.

  • The stupid! It burns! (Score:4, Funny)

    by AmazingRuss ( 555076 ) on Monday November 06, 2023 @05:31PM (#63985692)
    As it should.

  • How would you know? (Score:3)

    by pi_rules ( 123171 ) on Monday November 06, 2023 @05:39PM (#63985708)

    I'm honestly not sure if I'd know the difference if in the same situation. Not that I'm going to an NFT party, but just UV lights in general.

    I do typically wear transition lenses which need UV to dim. They don't get set off by proper black lights but now I'm wondering if UV-C would dim them.

    Maybe there'd be some ozone smell? That's usually easy to pick out.

    • Re:How would you know? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by pbry4n ( 7208566 ) on Monday November 06, 2023 @05:51PM (#63985740)
      I read a story in 2017 about an amateur venue host inadvertently using UVC gemicidal lamps instead of blacklights, with the exact same symtoms: https://www.hongkongfp.com/201... [hongkongfp.com] bigclivedotcom on YouTube examines a number of UVC lamps, and discusses why they're unsafe to expose to human eyes and skin. Here's one: https://youtu.be/CpRMud6EFtE [youtu.be]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by weirdow ( 9298 )
        I'm so glad you already posted this as I was reminded of the same BigClive video. Some cheapskate buying some lamps because they have a pretty glow.
    • Mercury vapor / fused silica tube germicidal / EPROM erase lights (253.7 nm) certainly generated ozone.

      • The frequency band that produces ozone is pretty narrow. They do create UV-C lights with a narrow band filter to absorb the part of the spectrum that creates ozone. Others without this coating do make ozone.

        You can specify which you want when you buy them, but if you are buying from ebay/aliexpress merchants often don't know which they have, and often think they have one but actually have the other, and you can often get ozone when you order non-ozone lights.

        And anyone why buys a UV-C light to use on the st

  • Not the first time. (Score:5, Informative)

    by hey! ( 33014 ) on Monday November 06, 2023 @05:46PM (#63985728) Homepage Journal

    There as been at least one past incident [wwd.com] in Hong Kong where event attendees have been injured by UVC exposure. The cause was using disinfecting lamps as black lights; the disinfecting lamps emit powerful UV-C which is blocked by lamps intended for this purpose. It's likely the disinfecting tubes got used because they were cheaper. They'd work fine as black lights, but they'd also give you sunburn and retinal damage.

    It seems pretty likely we have a case of history repeating itself here. The last time was an international incident so you'd think regulators would have taken some steps to prevent it happening again, but China has very weak regulatory oversight. As China continues to consolidate its control over Hong Kong, you can't travel there and expect first world levels of hygeine and safety anymore.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dpilot ( 134227 )

      How long ago was that, and have they been tracked for cataracts? UV in general is helpful in developing cataracts.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by robbak ( 775424 )

        Long-term exposure of UV-A and UV-B can make cataracts. But UV-C is absorbed by the outer layer of the cornea, so doesn't reach the lens to cause problems. That's also why it causes blistering of the cornea - all the UV energy is dumped into the very outer layer of the cornea.

    • > The cause was using disinfecting lamps as black lights

      Holy smokes, those are viscious.

      The English Common Law system was better for Hong Kong. This venue company will probably skate. Hopefully not.

  • it was the plan all along (Score:4, Funny)

    by jovius ( 974690 ) on Monday November 06, 2023 @05:50PM (#63985738)

    The city required the NFT nerds to be sanitized

  • I don't know where to start. I guess we can expect lawsuits and possibly criminal investigations against the organizers of the event for ignoring saftey regulations.

  • Why safety regulations matter. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Monday November 06, 2023 @06:03PM (#63985770)
    For all those bitching about the difficulties with American regulations in safety, this would be a prime example of what happens when youâ(TM)re in a country with little or none. Apparently UV sanitizing black lights were abused as stage lighting alternatives? Hell of a way to get a sunburn and lose vision.
    • The US has mishaps all the time, but there's at least a chance of being able to hold the people who violated the regulations financially or criminally responsible (though this isn't always the case in the US either) whereas China probably doesn't give a shit. They probably wouldn't care if it happened to their own people, but if it's a bunch of foreigners there aren't going to give a damn. Even if China were inclined to care, there are so many dodgy fly-by-night businesses that could have been responsible f

  • criminal negligence (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Walt Dismal ( 534799 ) on Monday November 06, 2023 @06:12PM (#63985790)
    In years to come these poor bastards will get cataracts earlier than normal. Their corneas and their lenses have been overloaded with UV.

    • UV-C gets absorbed by the outer layer of the cornea - causing serious damage to it which results in the symptoms described, but those symptoms quickly heal. But it can't get through that layer to damage the lens.

      Cataracts are linked to chronic UV-A and UV-B.

  • so why do you need your eyes?
    You only own the blockchained crypto link to this ugly monkey.

  • Please don't sue us! We can't afford it because for some reason our NFTs appear to be worthless.

  • How does this even happen? What's the sequence of events that leads somebody to say, "We're out of regular bulbs, let's light up the auditorium with tanning bed elements".

    • I would guess someone was looking at black lights, noticed they are also called UV lamps, then searched for UV lamps and found some cheaper ones but didn't bother looking up what "germicidal" meant.

      • I would guess someone was looking at black lights, noticed they are also called UV lamps, then searched for UV lamps and found some cheaper ones but didn't bother looking up what "germicidal" meant.

        And yet they were 'smart' enough to invest in cartoon chimps...

  • ...Who's had multiple surgeries to keep my retinas intact, I'd say don't visit these things if they'll cause problems! I'd never visit something like was mentioned in TFA because my eyes couldn't handle it.

  • NFT's are still a thing? (Score:4)

    by upuv ( 1201447 ) on Monday November 06, 2023 @09:41PM (#63986240) Journal

    I'm being serious here.

    Didn't these things devalue to effectively zero?

    I'm genuinely shocked that there is enough interest to even generate a conference. Let alone a conference that has enough cash to fund a large light show.

    • I assume a lot of these people think that the NFTs are still valuable because they haven't tried to sell them yet.

  • UVC. (Score:2)

    by redback ( 15527 )

    UVC Lights. Idiots.

  • Snow blindness (Score:4, Informative)

    by Hoi Polloi ( 522990 ) on Monday November 06, 2023 @10:53PM (#63986360) Journal

    Congrats, you got corneal sunburns like with snow blindness. You'll need steroid eye drops and time and it will heal. In the meantime your eyes will weep like mad and it will feel like you have sand in your eyes.

  • Before most of you were born, I was told not to look at black lights, which made white stuff glow whiter than white.

    I noticed this knowledge seemed to be lost with raves, on TV anyway, where intelligent people wouldn't use such things, at least for any length of time.

    Is this unknown knowledge to many of you?

    • By that I mean safety people on shows wouldn't allow it. Which is still very irresponsible to portray.

    • The young'ns have missed out on developing common-sense safety concerns.

      Our generation (ye olde boomers) was the one that prompted the safety warnings to come into being, usually by being injured by toys like Lawn Darts and Home Chemistry Kits. Safety protocols were put in place for all kinds of stuff and a lot of it was taken off the market, period.

      So of course things are safer today (and they are, truly) but that doesn't mean everything is safe. I'm pretty sure I'd have taken a look inside, thought "WTF,

  • And now they burned their eyes out? Talk about adding injury to insult?

  • Just sell one or two of your NFTs for a massive profit and pay for eye surgery. Simple!

  • You'd think even the densest, most impermeable brain would have figured out by now that Bored Ape always was, and always will be a scam. But apparently not if enough of these dummies exist to justify an event to sap even more cash from their wallets. Oh well.

  • What the bet that some bright spark decided to install some very pretty blue UV-C lights (also very dangerous, can cause damage to your eyes and skin)

  • They went to a party/dance thing that was flooded intentionally with UV lighting so things glowz and lookz all coolz.

    Welcome to skin cancer.

    Hope you get enough eyesight back to see it happen.

    Still you "had a great time". Try telling youself that in 20 years time...

  • Can't wait for the articles where ninnies forget to wear their blackout glasses on the tanning beds.

  • All the vision surgeries in the world won't let these people see that it was artificially inflated nonsense where rich people sold them to each other or in outright fake sales to make them look valuable.

  • Bored Ape Yacht Club acknowledged the issue in a post early Monday morning: "Apes, we are aware of the eye-related issues..."

    Wow, can I still get in on all this crypto-coolness or am eye too late?

  • ...it wasn't acid coming out of the sprinkler system.

  • Miller : Oh. My. God. What happened to your eyes?

    Dr. Weir : Where we're going, we won't need eyes to see.

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