Editor | Luke H. Walker |
---|---|
Categories | Underground magazine |
Frequency | Monthly |
Publisher | Alt Variety |
Founded | 2012 |
First issue | April 1, 2013 |
Final issue | July 2013 |
Company | Alt Variety LLC |
Country | United States |
Based in | New York City |
Language | English |
Alt Variety was a New York City-based monthly publication dealing with alternative and subversive themes that launched online in February 2012 and closed in July 2013. Its founder was Luke H. Walker, who ran the magazine under the pseudonym Lee Wong. [1] [2] [3] The magazine was inspired by early internet Usenet groups, [4] [3] which were obscure and largely unregulated newsgroups masked by arcane prefixes (e.g. alt.) used in place of World Wide Web prefix (www). The alt. prefixed Usenets were frequently used to disseminate subversive, illicit and sometimes criminal themes and content. The alt prefix in Alt Variety Magazine was subtle nod to Usenet with bold and frequently offensive content, and anti-censorship agenda. [5]
Alt Variety was launched in February 2012, first as an online magazine and then via an iTunes app. [6] [7] In March 2013, it published a print form, ceasing publication of all forms of the magazine in July of that year. [8] [9]
Alt Variety published celebrity interviews, advocated fringe culture, the arts and First Amendment rights and covered themes such as recreational drug use and pornography. [9] During its short tenure, Alt Variety published several notable exclusives with prominent counter culture figures such as Tommy Chong, film director Abel Ferrara, Ted McIlvenna (founder Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality), and "Death Rapper" Necro, to name a few. In the wake of the Sandyhook school shooting, Alt Variety published a gun issue that featured a pro-second amendment interview with Bobcat Goldthwait, who had recently released his provocative shooting spree comedy film, God Bless America. Celebrity photographer Robyn Von Swan k contributed exclusive cover story photography to the same issue. [10] The same issue featured a gun, cheese and narcotic pairing chart. For its third issue, Alt Variety published a controversial race issue featuring an exclusive interview with David Duke in which Duke was pressed on his sentiments about then president Barack Obama. The same issue saw a post card addressed to the magazine from Charles Manson, sent from Corcoran State Prison, with a cryptic hand-written message to the editor, an interview with Charles Sampson, the world's first Black rodeo star, and a male escort centerfold.
In addition to publishing alternative news and entertainment, altvariety.com also hosted an alternative social media platform called Distinct Variety, which was a spin-off of Walker's defunct website, uglypervert.com; an online community for uncensored fringe art.
Alt Variety was initially envisioned to launch with a Dark Web portal incorporated directly into the website interface of altvariety.com by employing a tor emulator to encrypt user data via the surface web. The concept was discussed with Silk Road marketplace founder Ross Ulbritch, but Ulbritch, perhaps fortuitously, declined partnering with Alt Variety. In lieu of a dark web portal, Alt Variety instead launched with a craigslist-like surface web community marketplace called the alt marketplace. Despite being heavily clad with disclaimers and warnings to its users the alt marketplace became a pre Backpage outlet for illicit posts [11]
Alt Variety’s most notable project to date was the theater and film adaptations of the play, The Wake of Dick Johnson.
In May 2013, Robert Duffy, president and co-founder of Marc Jacobs (MJ), having followed and been a fan of the magazine, proposed to Walker that Alt Variety be distributed at Marc Jacobs retails stores worldwide. Walker agreed, and an initial shipment of 20,000 issues was sent to MJ headquarters in New York City that month. After receiving the magazines, legal representatives from MJ did a content review of current and past issues, and strongly urged Duffy not to move forward with the distribution deal due to the extreme and offensive, uncensored nature of the stories and images. Duffy heeded the advice of his legal team, and the magazines were never shipped to stores.
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, which devastated Coney Island, Alt Variety was responsible for organizing, curating, and hosting a concert benefit for the Coney Island Mermaid Parade at Bowery Ballroom, featuring headliners Amanda Palmer, Mina Caputo, and Abel Ferrara. [12] [13] [14] [15] Alt Variety also enlisted Judah Friedlander to help raise public awareness about the imperiled parade after founder and editor in chief Lee Wong asked the comedian to create a service announcement to solicit donations. [1] [16]
In 2013, subsequent to the collapse of Alt Variety Magazine, began the slow emergence of multimedia production spin off Alt Variety Media. Since 2017, Alt Variety Media has functioned largely as a not-for-profit community arts entity, producing a number of low budget music videos and social media content aimed at nurturing emerging artists. In 2021, Alt Variety rebranded as a full-service film production company, based in Hollywood, CA.
James Parry, commonly known by his nickname and username Kibo, is a Usenetter known for his sense of humor, various surrealist net pranks, an absurdly long signature, and a machine-assisted knack for "kibozing": joining any thread in which "kibo" was mentioned. His exploits have earned him a multitude of enthusiasts, who celebrate him as the head deity of the parody religion "Kibology", centered on the humor newsgroup alt.religion.kibology.
A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are discussion groups and are not devoted to publishing news. Newsgroups are technically distinct from, but functionally similar to, discussion forums on the World Wide Web. Newsreader software is used to read the content of newsgroups.
alt.sex.stories is a Usenet newsgroup for erotic stories created on May 7, 1992, by Tim Pierce as an alternative to pre-existing alt erotica newsgroups. The group was initially unmoderated, a feature that was not shared by some of the other Usenet or altnet newsgroups. This feature allowed for greater user freedom.
The alt.* hierarchy is a major class of newsgroups in Usenet, containing all newsgroups whose name begins with "alt.", organized hierarchically. The alt.* hierarchy is not confined to newsgroups of any specific subject or type, although in practice more formally organized groups tend not to occur in alt.*. The alt.* hierarchy was created by John Gilmore and Brian Reid.
Robert Francis "Bobcat" Goldthwait is an American comedian, actor, director and screenwriter. He is known for his black comedy stand-up act, delivered through an energetic stage persona with an unusual raspy and high-pitched voice. He came to prominence with his stand-up specials An Evening with Bobcat Goldthwait—Share the Warmth and Bob Goldthwait—Is He Like That All the Time? and his acting roles, including Zed in the Police Academy franchise and Eliot Loudermilk in Scrooged. Since 2012, he has been a regular panelist on the radio-quiz show, Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!.
The Royal Automobile Club of Victoria (RACV) is a motoring club and mutual organisation. It offers various services to members, including insurance and roadside assistance.
Xbox Games Store is a digital distribution platform currently used by Microsoft's Xbox 360 video game console and formerly by the Xbox One. The service allows users to download or purchase video games, add-ons for existing games, game demos along with other miscellaneous content such as gamer pictures and Dashboard themes.
Complex Networks is an American media and entertainment company for youth culture, based in New York City. It was founded as a bi-monthly magazine, Complex, by fashion designer Marc (Ecko) Milecofsky. Complex Networks reports on popular and emerging trends in style, sneakers, food, music, sports and pop culture. Complex Networks reached over 90 million unique users per month in 2013 across its owned and operated and partner sites, socials and YouTube channels. The print magazine ceased publication with the December 2016/January 2017 issue. Complex currently has 6.02 million subscribers and 1.8 billion total views on YouTube. As of 2019, the company's yearly revenue was estimated to be US$200 million, 15% of which came from commerce.
Epicurious is an American digital brand that focuses on food and cooking-related topics. Created by Condé Nast in 1995, it is headquartered at the One World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York City, where it is part of the publisher's Food Innovation Group that also includes Bon Appétit, with significant overlap in staff between the two companies.
Usenet, USENET, or, "in full", User's Network, is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was established in 1980. Users read and post messages to one or more topic categories, known as newsgroups. Usenet resembles a bulletin board system (BBS) in many respects and is the precursor to the Internet forums that have become widely used. Discussions are threaded, as with web forums and BBSes, though posts are stored on the server sequentially.
Issuu, Inc. is a Danish-founded American electronic publishing platform based in Palo Alto, California, United States. The company's software converts PDFs into customizable digital publications that can be shared via links or embedded into websites.
Exact Editions is an integrated content management platform for magazine and book publishers. It was launched in 2005 by Adam Hodgkin, Daryl Rayner and Tim Bruce. The platform expanded from a web-based subscription service into developing branded iOS apps for Apple’s Newsstand. These use the freemium model, offering subscriptions via an in-app purchase. They allow users to sync issues for offline use, share app content via social media and email, and bookmark pages to return to.
Windows Phone Store is an app store platform, developed by Microsoft Corporation for Windows Phone letting users installing various apps on their device. It initially launched with Windows Phone 7 in October 2010. With the rollout of Windows Phone 7.5, Microsoft unveiled the online Marketplace that offers over the air installation of apps. In August 2012, Microsoft renamed Windows Phone Marketplace to Windows Phone Store. In 2015, Microsoft announced that Windows Phone Store would be killed out and replaced by Windows Store which would act as a unified store for all Windows-powered devices. This process was complemented by the Apps on Windows website, an interim solution before the unified Windows Store.
Fiverr is an Israeli multinational online marketplace for freelance services. Fiverr's platform connects freelancers (sellers) to people or businesses looking to hire (buyers), encouraging a wide range of services in a free market. Fiverr takes its name from the $5 asking price attached to all tasks when the company was founded in 2010 in Tel Aviv, though many sellers now charge more.
An app store, also called an app marketplace or app catalog, is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the computer itself. Complex software designed for use on a personal computer, for example, may have a related app designed for use on a mobile device. Today apps are normally designed to run on a specific operating system—such as the contemporary iOS, macOS, Windows, Linux or Android—but in the past mobile carriers had their own portals for apps and related media content.
Purch Group, Inc. was a New York City-based digital media company. Originally established in 2003 as TechMedia Network, Inc., it was positioned as a "portfolio of brands and products focused on purchasing decisions"—consisting primarily of websites focusing on reviews of consumer electronics, positioned to marketers as outlets to "directly engage with buyers in the right place, at the right time".
Podio supplies a web-based platform for creating no code solutions and automated workflows. The feature set includes organizing team communication, business processes, data and content in project management workspaces according to project needs.
Sketchfab is a 3D asset website used to publish, share, discover, buy and sell 3D, VR and AR content. It provides a viewer based on the WebGL and WebXR technologies that allows users to display 3D models on the web, to be viewed on any mobile browser, desktop browser or Virtual Reality headset.
Sole Collector is an American media brand and publication founded in Portland, Oregon which focuses on sneaker news and sneaker culture. The company is currently based in New York and owned by Complex Networks.
Alt-tech is a collection of social networking services and Internet service providers popular among the alt-right, far-right, and others who espouse extremism or fringe theories, typically because they employ looser content moderation than mainstream platforms. The term "alt-tech" is a portmanteau of "alt-right" and "Big Tech". In the 2010s, some prominent conservatives and their supporters began to use alt-tech platforms because they had been banned from other social media platforms. Alt-tech platforms describe themselves as protectors of free speech and individual liberty, which researchers and journalists have alleged may be a dog whistle for antisemitism and terrorism.