Have you ever wished that you could speed up time, slow it down, or
stop it entirely? Maybe we all have, but unless you have Hermione
Granger's Time Turner, the ability to control the clock's hands is
probably not in your toolbox.
However, an invention called the "Slow Dance" frame opens a window into what it might look like to see things move in slow motion in the real world.
When you place them in the frame, delicate objects such as leaves and
feathers quiver and undulate, as you might expect them to when they're
stirred by a gentle breeze. But there's a subtle difference — the
movements appear to happen at a fraction of their normal speed, taking
place right in front of your eyes. [The Most Amazing Optical Illusions (and How They Work)]
Let's do the time warp
Jeff Lieberman, the creator of "Slow Dance," is no stranger to slow
motion. He formerly hosted the Discovery Channel program "Time Warp," a
science-themed show that used high-speed cameras to film everyday
actions, capturing up to 40,000 frames per second (a normal camera's
shooting rate is typically 30 frames per second). Using extreme slow
motion, the show explored dynamic physics principles that were demonstrated by a diverse range of activities — from explosions to body piercing.
Lieberman recognized that watching things happen in slow motion creates
a sense of wonder, and allows the viewer to appreciate the beauty of
movement — something that they might miss if they were watching it in
real time, he said in a statement.
Variable settings change the perceived motion of the object in the frame.
Credit: Jeff Lieberman
But could he take that sense of wonder from watching slow motion on a screen, and recreate it in reality? Lieberman decided to find out.
Building a mystery
Lieberman unlocked the secret of the slow-motion illusion he created in
"Slow Dance" by using strobe lights that blink at a rate that's too
fast for the human eye to register. The pulsing lights flicker on and
off 80 times per second, and are synced to vibrations that animate
whatever object is suspended within the frame. While the light pulses
are too fast to see, they combine with the high-speed vibration to
imperceptibly vary the sequence of moving images, changing how they
reach the eye and creating an illusion of movement that seems to be happening more slowly than normal.
"It creates a weird juxtaposition where everything in front of your
eyes confirms the reality of this thing, but every other experience in
your life has said that this is impossible,” Lieberman said in the
statement.
The illusion of slow-motion movement persists even if viewers touch the moving object.
Credit: Jeff Lieberman
Lieberman crafted the first version of "Slow Dance" as a wedding gift
for two friends who happened to be dancers; they inspired him to create
an object that captured the feeling of paired, graceful movement in a
shared space. Enthusiastic responses from people who saw it in action
prompted him to make the frame more widely available, through a campaign on Kickstarter.
The "Slow Dance" wooden frame measures 12.5 inches (31.8 centimeters)
wide by 14.5 inches (10.2 cm) high. Lightweight objects can be attached
to springs within the frame, and are illuminated by recessed lighting.
Variable controls allow users to cycle between different "frame rates,"
changing the motion patterns of the objects as they move.
"This piece is a metaphor for all the unseen aspects of reality"
that are affecting us all the time, Lieberman said in the same
statement. "It expresses a desire to remind myself, and anyone who uses
it, that there is something beyond what we see with our senses" he
added.
The Kickstarter campaign for "Slow Dance" launched on Aug. 15 with a
goal of raising $70,000, and backers have been anything but slow in
their response. As of Sept. 7 — with six days to go — total pledges
amounted to more than five times that original amount, reaching over
$440,000. The product is expected to ship in early 2017, with "Slow
Dance" slated to appear in stores by late 2017 for $299. Original article on Live Science.
Are "you" just an illusion, a mix of experiences and "stuff" in the universe?
Credit: agsandrew / Shutterstock.com
Robert Lawrence Kuhn is the creator, writer and host of "Closer to Truth,"
a public television series and online resource that features the
world's leading thinkers exploring humanity's deepest questions. This
essay, the first of a four-part series on the “Self,” is based on
"Closer to Truth" episodes and videos, produced and directed by Peter
Getzels and streamed at closertotruth.com. Kuhn contributed it to Live Science's Expert Voices.
My mom just celebrated her 100th birthday. This once vibrant, eloquent,
stylish lady with a sense of pride and a touch of vanity can no longer
walk or talk. But she recognizes family, smiles when her
great-grandchildren visit or her fingernails are polished, and utters
rough phrases of displeasure when caring aides must intervene bodily.
She makes an angry face when she senses (quite correctly) that people
are talking about her, and she expresses overt frustration at her
incapacity to communicate orally by scrunching up her face and balling
her fist.
Is she still a "self"? Of course she is. She may not be "her self" —
that is, her old self. But though diminished, she is surely a self.
What about her fellow residents in an assisted-living unit specializing in memory impairment?
Some have advanced Alzheimer's and can no longer recognize their loved
ones. Are they still selves? When does one cease being a self? [10 of the Biggest Mysteries of the Mind]
What is a "self," anyway? What does it mean to be a self? What are the requirements of selfhood?
The nature of self is one of philosophy's perennial and persistent
questions. Self is easy to describe, yet maddening to decipher. Part philosophy of the mind,
part biology of the brain, it combines two elusive ideas: the
philosophy of continuity (how things persist through time) and the
biopsychology of psychic unity (how the brain makes us feel singular). I
see; I hear; I feel. How do separate perceptions bind together into a
continuing, coherent whole? How do sentient properties congeal as "me"?
Look at an old photo, perhaps from primary school. Then look in the
mirror. Those two people are the same person. But how so? They don't
look the same. Their memories are different. Almost all of the cells that composed that child's body have gone from that adult's body.
I feel myself to be the same person who attended high school, went off
to college, started a family and struggled through careers — the same
person, until I look in that mirror. Decades roll by. Experiences
accumulate. Memories multiply.
Yet I sense myself, inside, all together the same. "I" am always "me."
Not just continuity, but unity. Some say my feeling is an illusion.
Is there a "me"?
"The problem with personal identity is, we feel there is a fact that
'I'm me,'" John Searle, a philosopher of mind at the University of
California, Berkeley, said on my TV series "Closer to Truth." "But
that's hard to pin down philosophically, because all of my experiences
change, all of the parts of my body change, all of the molecules in my
body change."
(All quotes are derived from "Closer to Truth.")
The 18th-century Scottish philosopher David Hume denounced the very
notion of a self. Paraphrasing Hume, Searle said, "Whenever I grab my
forehead and wonder, 'Where is the self?' all I get is a kind of
headache. I feel my hand pushing against my head; I may feel a vague
hangover from last night. But in addition to all of my particular
experiences, there isn't any self." [The 7 Biggest Mysteries of the Human Body]
To Searle, we can try to define continuity of self — that is, a self
that remains even as every other aspect of a person changes — by
continuity of body (or of memory, personality,
etc.). But we find that none of those criteria suffices, because any or
all of them can be altered, even eradicated, and we still sense a
continuing, unified self.
"You have to postulate a self to make sense of rational behavior," Searle said. "We want to find a 'soul' that is at the bottom of all this … but, of course, there isn't any."
British philosopher of mind Colin McGinn agrees. To him, our confusion about the self is essentially ignorance about the brain.
"The self is something real," he said, but "the self has got to be
grounded in the brain — the self's unity over time must be a function of
what's in the brain. We don't know how that works, but it must be so."
McGinn stressed that we don't yet have a clear definition of self. "Our
grasp of the concept of the self is very limited because we experience
it from our first-person point of view when we say 'I,' but we really
don't know what that thing ['I'] is at all, except as the bearer of
mental states," he said. "Our imaginative adventures with the concept
reflect our ignorance about what the self actually is and what
constitutes it in the brain."
McGinn worries that theories of the "self" seem "too thin to ground the
idea of personal identity" persisting through time. "All we've got is
the idea that you, at a later time, are causally connected to you at an
earlier time," he said. "That isn't the same thing as you persisting
through time."
But McGinn rejected any sort of supernatural entity, which he called "a
kind of receding transcendent thing that is capable of strange feats."
"People imagine themselves to be capable of all sorts of strange things,
supernatural things, where a self can exist independently of the
brain," he said. "I'm saying that the self is rooted in the brain. … But
we have a really thin conception; it's just the idea of 'I.'"
But how could a conscious self be rooted in a physical brain? By what
mechanisms? I can't even imagine what could count as an answer.
Is self an illusion?
Some say there is no mystery because there is no self; the self does not exist.
Could our internal sense of personal identity — about which we seem so
sure — be an illusion? I asked former parapsychologist, now skeptic,
Susan Blackmore.
"There's no reason to suppose that we have real continuity," Blackmore
said. "Because if you look at what a body and a brain are, there's no
room for a thing called a 'self' that sort of sits in there and has
experiences. So then, the question becomes, why does it feel that way?"
To Blackmore, we invent that feeling ourselves. "The illusion of
continuity is created only when you look for it," she said. Though all
things about us change from moment to moment, when we connect all of our
experiential dots, we conjure up our inner sense of self. "So you
imagine this kind of continuous stream of consciousness
when you're awake, but actually, it's not like that at all," she said.
"There are multiple parallel things going on. And every so often, we go,
'Oh, that's me,' and we invent the self-story. [Are We Living in a Computer Simulation?]
"This so-called 'me' is really just another reconstruction," she
continued. "There was an earlier one 30 minutes ago, and there will be
others in the future. But they're really not the same person; they're
just stuff happening in the universe."
"So there's no self to die," she concluded, because there is no self
prior to death and "there's certainly no self to continue after death."
Sue appears rather cheerful in her inexorable mortality, so I asked if she thinks that "no self" is "good news?"
"I'm smiling because it's so beautiful when you get it," she says. "You
can let go and just accept that it's just the universe doing its stuff.
It's not me against the world because there really isn't any me at all.
Death has no sting, because there never was a 'you' to die. Every
moment is just a new story."
To Tufts University philosopher Daniel Dennett, our conception of a
self is an illusion created by our experience of the world. He offered
an analogy of an object's center of gravity, which is an abstraction,
not an actual concrete thing, yet we treat it as something real. "Faced
with complex human sentience, we do the same thing: We try to make
everything cohere around a single point," Dennett said. "That's the self
— the center of narrative gravity.
"What makes a self is a big collection of memories and projects,
desires and plans, likes and dislikes — a psychological profile,"
Dennett continued. "Well, what holds that all together? Opposing
processes in the brain, which tend to abhor inconsistency." And so when
inconsistencies arise, Dennett said, either you have to jettison the
thing that's inconsistent or concoct a coherent story to explain the
inconsistency.
How, then, does the self persist through time, notwithstanding all the
changes to the body and brain? "The notion that the only thing that
could persist is a little, special, unchangeable pearl of self-stuff
seems like a fairly lame solution to the problem," Dennett stated.
"That's just gift wrapping the problem and pretending to solve it.
"But more to the point, what makes you so sure there has to be an
answer to these questions?" he continued. "The conviction that there has
to be a single right answer is a leftover from metaphysical absolutism.
And we should just dismiss it."
But, sorry Dan, I can't just dismiss it. My sense of self — my inner
feeling of personal identity and unity through time — seems so real.
Am I fooling myself? Check back for the next in this four-part series on the "Self: Possibilities and Survival for Your ‘Self.'" Kuhn is co-editor, with John Leslie, of "The Mystery of Existence: Why Is There Anything at All?" (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013). Read more of Kuhn's essays on Kuhn's Live Science Expert Voices landing page and Kuhn's Space.com Expert Voices landing page. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher.
This
file photo taken on July 04, 2013 shows an aerial view of the Grand
Palais museum in Paris. In 2020 the Grand Palais will start a major
renovation, which will require to completely close the building for two
years. Thomas SAMSON / AFP
---- pois pois---- deve ter sido por causa da expo do AMADEO de SOUSA CARDOSO :)))
HONG KONG.-Sotheby’s
Hong Kong will present a sale of Fine Chinese Paintings on 4 October
2016 during this year’s Autumn Sale Series at Hall 3 of the Hong Kong
Convention and Exhibition Centre, offering around 300 works by
celebrated artists and calligraphers. Highlights include neverbeen-seen
masterpieces by Fu Baoshi from a European collection, a rich array of
paintings, calligraphy and seal impressions previously in the M K Lau
Collection, as well as an assemblage of works by 20th-century artists
from the Cheng Xin Xuan Collection. The sale is estimated at a total
close to HK$190 million / US$24 million.
C.K. Cheung, Head of Chinese Paintings Department, Sotheby’s, said,
‘This season, we are delighted to once again assemble important and
fresh-to-the-market works for our discerning clients, leveraging
Sotheby’s unparalleled global network and trusting relationship with
collectors. The sale will see historically significant masterpieces –
many from major private collections – by distinguished modern Chinese
painters and calligraphers, among them include the market debut of
masterworks by Fu Baoshi from a European collector, as well as a
blue-and-green gongbi brushwork landscape painting, Spring Clouds Amidst
Autumn Landscape, by the legendary Zhang Daqian.
Another notable highlight is the first ever presentation of seal
impressions at Sotheby’s Hong Kong’s Fine Chinese Paintings auction. The
opportunity to present a complete picture of Chinese art with a sale
that encompasses Chinese calligraphy, Chinese paintings and seals,
together in one place, is truly one not to miss!’
Sale Highlights
Zhang Daqian (1899 – 1983) Spring Clouds Amidst Autumn Landscape
1948 Ink and colour on paper, framed, 138.5 x 61cm Est. HK$30 – 50
million / US$3.8 – 6.4 million
Spring Clouds Amidst Autumn Landscape is a birthday gift from Zhang
Daqian to his confidant, Li Qiujun. Zhang and Li’s brother were best
friends, and later developed a very close rapport with the rest of his
siblings.
During Zhang’s travel to Sichuan’s Mount Qincheng, he painted eight
landscapes using the mountainscape as his subject matter. In celebrating
Li’s birthday, Zhang travelled to her hometown in Shanghai and gifted
her with this Gongbi brushwork landscape painting.
Masterpieces by Fu Baoshi from a European Collection Fu Baoshi
(1904 – 1965) Warriors on the Night March 1945 Ink and colour on paper,
hanging scroll, 106.2 x 60.7 cm Est. HK$15 – 20 million / US$1.9 – 2.5
million
Making its auction debut this October, Fu Baoshi’s Warriors on the
Night March was a work dedicated to the father of French-Vietnamese
collector Doan (1914 – 1978), and have been kept in a private European
collection ever since. Doan was tracing the path of his ancestry and
roots in China, and commissioned Fu to use a piece of history related to
his Chinese last name as the key context of this painting.
Deviating away from the artist’s usual subject matter, Fu drew
inspiration and reference from Book of the Later Han, one of the
official works documenting the history of the Han Dynasty. He vividly
portrayed warriors marching in the night, with their heads solemnly
bowed in solidarity. In this work, the artist brilliantly addresses the
common issues of traditional Chinese paintings – such as the lack of
perspective and distance as well as the relationship between light and
shadow – by adding lighter shades and tones to depict an empty space and
the moonlight. Fu employs a modern approach through traditional ink
medium to express both simplified and intense brushstrokes. Finely
detailed, deeply evocative, Warriors on the Night March is a masterful
depiction of a 20th-century war scene.
Works by 20th Century Artists from the Cheng Xin Xuan Collection
Jiang Zhaohe (1904 – 1986) Old Women 1938 Ink and colour on paper,
hanging scroll, 116 x 53cm Est. HK$1.8 – 2.5 million / US$230,000 –
320,000
Old Women is created by Jiang Zhaohe during the late 1930s which
demonstrates traces of realism by portraying the daily lives of the
lowest stratum of social class living in Beijing.
Based in Beijing during and following the Second Sino-Japanese War,
Jiang Zhaohe was a teacher at Jinghua College of Fine Arts and painted
numerous works depicting war-era devastation. Merging Eastern and
Western painting techniques, Old Women portrays a homeless, elderly
Manchu woman in ragged clothing, evoking the artist’s compassion for
those left in the wake of conflict. The work’s title is translated in
Chinese as Fate of the Manchu, referring to the plight of the Manchus
following their fall from power after the Qing dynasty.
Calligraphy and Seal Impressions Previously in the M K Lau Collection
Xu Beihong (1895–1953) Seal Impressions of Xu Beihong (partial)
1939, Album Each album: 21 x 15.2 cm Est. HK$250,000 – 350,000 /
US$32,000 – 45,000
In September 1939, Xu Beihong organised an exhibition in Singapore
and stayed with Huang Mangshi during his time there. Huang created two
sets of impressions from the seals that Xu used often, and the album on
offer at this Autumn Sale is one of the two. The album contains a total
of 83 seal impressions, each with an annotation written by Xu to explain
whether the seal was for his own use or created for someone else. The
seals themselves were crafted by a total of 17 individuals, including
seal masters such as Chen Shizeng, as well as Xu’s close friends – Qi
Baishi, Yang Zhongzi and Chen Zifen.
Calligraphy and Seal Impressions Previously in the M K Lau Collection
Qi Baishi (1864 –1957) Book of Seal Impressions A Set of three
albums (partial) Each album: 19.5 x 13 cm Est. HK$120,000 – 18,000 /
US$15,000 – 23,000
A gift from Qi Baishi to his wife, Hu Baozhu, the seals impressed in
this set of three albums were all crafted by Qi Baishi, with an
annotation on each album. Majority of the seals documented here were
carved by Qi for other people, including families and friends, as well
as government officials, scholars and painters such as Ma Lian and
Takeuchi Seihō. This important collection illustrates Qi’s extensive
network and relationships with influential figures from all walks of
life
Amy
Joy Watson, 'Floating Sequence', 2012. Balsa wood, watercolour,
gouache, polyester thread, lead weights, balloons, helium. Dimensions
variable. Courtesy of the artist. Photography by Andy Nowell.
SYDNEY.-The Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences
is collaborating for the first time with Penrith Regional Gallery &
The Lewers Bequest to present an exhibition exploring our fascination
with gravity and its invisible governing of the world’s movement, the
shape of space and the flow of time.
Gravity (and Wonder) is presented from 3 September to 27 November
2016 at Penrith Regional Gallery, bringing together the work of leading
international and Australian contemporary artists who examine gravity
through their practice, including renowned American artist Richard Serra
and a new commission by Australian artists David Haines and Joyce
Hinterding.
Director of the Penrith Regional Art Gallery & The Lewers
Bequest, Dr Lee-Anne Hall comments: “In Gravity (and Wonder) audiences
are offered a three-month journey of discovery, where art, science and
creativity are brought together in a exciting program including
exhibition, education, artist and scientist residencies, performance,
public symposium and star-gazing.”
This exciting new collaborative exhibition includes a sculpture by
Richard Serra; installations by Australian artists Sandra Selig and Amy
Joy Watson; paintings by Mabel Juli and Rusty Peters from Warmun,
Western Australia; kinetic sculptures by Marley Dawson; and video work
by Japanese artist Hiraki Sawa.
Australian artists David Haines and Joyce Hinterding have been
commissioned to create a world-first event where by the artists dropped a
sound from the edge of space. Their new work presents vision and sound
captured in the process of sending a payload with recording instruments
via latex weather balloon to 33700 metres above the earth. At very low
pressure the balloon bursts, a parachute partially deploys, and allows
the instruments to rapidly descend to the earth. On exhibition are two
large format screens adjacent to each other. The screens show two edited
excerpts 16 min duration. One screen shows the ascent (slow and
lyrical, the arc of the earth appearing) the second screen shows the
rapid descent (this piece is particularly exciting to view as we observe
the blackness of the upper reaches of the stratosphere become blue sky,
and see the earth and its form grow immense. The Aeolian sound of the
instrumentation is particularly haunting and is clearly heard when
standing in front of the screens.
Gravity (and Wonder) presents a vibrant three-month program with a
range of events, workshops and programs extending the themes of the
central exhibition. The project collaborators are joined by education
partner, Western Sydney University, bringing its Penrith Observatory and
academic expertise into the project alongside science events to
intrigue the community.
The works in Gravity (and Wonder), curated by Penrith Regional
Gallery Director Dr Lee-Anne Hall and MAAS curator Katie Dyer, explore
gravity through scientific investigations and artistic explorations: as
phenomena and effect, mass and attraction, motion and acceleration, time
and space and ultimately transcendence alongside rare scientific
instruments and inventions, specialist objects and archival material
from the collection of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences.
Most people think that being an entrepreneur is about having that big
idea. And it is. To start something new, you need to have an idea that
works: something people need, something they’ll want, and most
importantly — at least for the people investing in your idea — something
that’s scalable.
But what I’ve found from interviewing multiple entrepreneurs who
focus on consulting, the internet, and software development is that
without the capacity to execute an idea — to take an idea and turn it
into a living, breathing, viable organization — you’re doomed to fail.
And for many entrepreneurs who are thinkers, rather than doers, this is a
frightening notion.
For example, an owner of a software company told me about how anxious
he felt making sales to customers. He loved developing the product, and
he also enjoyed speaking about the product to potential clients,
because he truly believed in it. But when it came time to making the
“ask,” he’d freeze. He’d stumble, bumble, and in many cases, simply not
even ask for the sale. The CEO of a small consulting firm I spoke with
lamented how hard it was for him to spread the word about his company at
conferences and networking events because of his introverted and shy
nature. And the CEO of a start-up internet company deeply believed in
the mission of his company, but struggled morally when pitching
potential employees on the “dream” without disclosing the full reality:
they might not have enough runway of cash to make it through the month.
How can idea-oriented entrepreneurs become doers and learn to raise
money, pitch to investors, hire, and fire employees — especially when it
forces them outside their personal and professional comfort zones?
The first step is to actually recognize — and own up to — the
challenges. None of us likes to admit our weaknesses and flaws, but in
order to improve, we have to. Each of the successful entrepreneurs I
spoke with ultimately recognized the importance of these necessary but
difficult tasks and that, in many cases, they were things they had been
avoiding or procrastinating about — to the detriment of their business.
The next critical step is to embrace your purpose and mission,
because that is going to give you the motivation and courage to actually
take the necessary leap. For example, Maran Nelson, CEO of Clara Labs, said this about the power of conviction
with respect to acting outside her comfort zone as a CEO, especially
when fundraising: “The most important thing I’ve learned about
fundraising is just really fundamentally believing in what you are
doing. Knowing that it is good. You have to know what you are doing is
good and that it must exist in the world.” Conviction is the feeling,
deep down, that what you’re doing — and even struggling with — when
acting outside your comfort zone is worth it. That the pain is worth the
gain. And given the inherent challenge many tasks present to budding
entrepreneurs, having this conviction is a critical part of the puzzle.
Finally, the last piece of advice I learned from speaking with
entrepreneurs is the importance of finding your own way. Just as there
is no one-size-fits-all strategy for becoming an entrepreneur, there
also is no one-size-fits-all strategy for learning to act outside your
comfort zone. For example, if you need to pitch to investors but hate
asking for money, script out the first few sentences of your message, or
bring a colleague with you who makes you feel more confident or who can
help with your pitch. Or remind yourself of your mission before
stepping into the room, so have purpose top-of-mind, which may make it
easier to pitch. Whatever it is, you can find your own way of handling
these necessary but difficult moments. The entrepreneurs I spoke with
who were successful at acting outside their comfort zones were able to
find simple ways like these to be effective, without losing themselves
in the process.
In the end, most people equate entrepreneurship with ideas. But for
many, the real entrepreneurship happens internally — with the process of
stepping up, having courage, and doing things that you never thought
you’d be able to do. By flexing your behavior and learning to act
outside your comfort zone, you’ll be well on your way toward achieving
your goals.
Just 25 years old, Tebele created the famous Instagram account known as “----Jerry.”
In five years, Tebele’s Instagram account has amassed nearly 10 million
followers, which has helped turn his memes into money with
corporate-sponsored posts.
“I like to post things that people normally wouldn’t say out loud or
really think about,” he said. “And then you read it and it’s super
strangely relatable.”
For example, he said, “The post I put up today on ----Jerry, when you
flip the pillow over to the colder side and the owl looks like he’s …
having an orgasm. That’s not really something you say out loud, but
everybody does it and it’s the best feeling. Stuff like that.
Playability.”
What’s even better is the account has attracted some super famous followers, from Justin Bieber to Katy Perry to the Kardashians.
The account is now growing social media empire with a New York City office.
Tebele said it all began five years ago when he was bored and started
posting pictures to his Tumblr page. A year in, he turned the Tumblr
into an Instagram account and now a business with 10 full-time
employees, including his childhood friend and partner, Ellie Ballas.
“We kind of all have our role in the company, which I think makes us
really efficient,” said Director Ben Kaplan. “So all content decisions
Elliot takes care of and anything that involves being really smart Ellie
takes care of. He graduated from Stanford with a major in symbolic
systems, which is like the hardest major in the world, and then all the
easy stuff I do, so together we each have our role.”
Even Tebele’s wife, Jessica, joined in and runs the wildly popular
Instagram account, Beige Cardigan, which has a wider female audience
than Jerry.
Ninety percent of Jerry’s followers are between the ages of 16 and 35
years old -- a critical group for most advertisers. Tebele and his team
declined to disclose numbers but some experts estimate top social media
influences like them are making upward of $75,000 per branded post on
Instagram.
The group has done posts for Bud Light, Totino's Pizza, FanDuel and more
than 50 others, but their first foray into paid content was one they
did for Burger King. It was a tense moment for the team because they weren’t sure how the audience would react.
“I was definitely reading every comment, making sure anyone saying, ‘Oh,
this is spam,’ ‘Ads,’ ‘Sellout,’ all that good stuff, but it turned out
great,” Tebele said. “I think the content’s strong enough. We make sure
that it is as funny as anything else you’re going to see in the feed,
so there’s no reason to hide anything.”
Tebele and his team are more than meme makers now. He founded Jerry
Media, a digital agency that helps brands with social media management
and media buying. The team also launched their own online business,
Jerry’s World, selling everything from $55 flipflops to a $40,000 dog to
a $500,000 indoor swimming pool.
Their latest venture is a card game called “What do You Meme?” -- a sort of Cards Against Humanity style photo game funded by Kickstarter.
“Over six million people see every post,” Tebele said. “Some of our best
clients are film and entertainment because with one post in a few hours
six million people will see something. And, if there is a show airing
or new series, it’s a great way to let people know with a post.”
Sponsored Stories
How This Entrepreneur Turned a Tumblr Page Into a Multimillion-Dollar Media Business
By Meredith Frost
Rebecca Jarvis
Lauren Effron
Sep 7, 2016, 10:29 AM ET
Meredith Frost/ABC
WATCH This Entrepreneur Turned His Tumblr Into a Social Media Empire
Just 25 years old, Tebele created the famous Instagram account known as “----Jerry.”
In five years, Tebele’s Instagram account has amassed nearly 10 million
followers, which has helped turn his memes into money with
corporate-sponsored posts.
“I like to post things that people normally wouldn’t say out loud or
really think about,” he said. “And then you read it and it’s super
strangely relatable.”
For example, he said, “The post I put up today on ----Jerry, when you
flip the pillow over to the colder side and the owl looks like he’s …
having an orgasm. That’s not really something you say out loud, but
everybody does it and it’s the best feeling. Stuff like that.
Playability.”
What’s even better is the account has attracted some super famous followers, from Justin Bieber to Katy Perry to the Kardashians.
The account is now growing social media empire with a New York City office.
Tebele said it all began five years ago when he was bored and started
posting pictures to his Tumblr page. A year in, he turned the Tumblr
into an Instagram account and now a business with 10 full-time
employees, including his childhood friend and partner, Ellie Ballas.
“We kind of all have our role in the company, which I think makes us
really efficient,” said Director Ben Kaplan. “So all content decisions
Elliot takes care of and anything that involves being really smart Ellie
takes care of. He graduated from Stanford with a major in symbolic
systems, which is like the hardest major in the world, and then all the
easy stuff I do, so together we each have our role.”
Even Tebele’s wife, Jessica, joined in and runs the wildly popular
Instagram account, Beige Cardigan, which has a wider female audience
than Jerry.
Ninety percent of Jerry’s followers are between the ages of 16 and 35
years old -- a critical group for most advertisers. Tebele and his team
declined to disclose numbers but some experts estimate top social media
influences like them are making upward of $75,000 per branded post on
Instagram.
The group has done posts for Bud Light, Totino's Pizza, FanDuel and more
than 50 others, but their first foray into paid content was one they
did for Burger King. It was a tense moment for the team because they weren’t sure how the audience would react.
“I was definitely reading every comment, making sure anyone saying, ‘Oh,
this is spam,’ ‘Ads,’ ‘Sellout,’ all that good stuff, but it turned out
great,” Tebele said. “I think the content’s strong enough. We make sure
that it is as funny as anything else you’re going to see in the feed,
so there’s no reason to hide anything.”
Tebele and his team are more than meme makers now. He founded Jerry
Media, a digital agency that helps brands with social media management
and media buying. The team also launched their own online business,
Jerry’s World, selling everything from $55 flipflops to a $40,000 dog to
a $500,000 indoor swimming pool.
Their latest venture is a card game called “What do You Meme?” -- a sort of Cards Against Humanity style photo game funded by Kickstarter.
“Over six million people see every post,” Tebele said. “Some of our best
clients are film and entertainment because with one post in a few hours
six million people will see something. And, if there is a show airing
or new series, it’s a great way to let people know with a post.”
Comments