This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification, as its only attribution is to self-published sources ; articles should not be based solely on such sources.(February 2015) |
Andrew Baron | |
---|---|
Born | Andrew Michael Baron March 31, 1970 |
Nationality | American |
Notable work | Rocketboom |
Andrew Michael Baron (born 1970) is the founder of Rocketboom, video aggregator Magma, the non-profit Humanwire, and the co-founder of Know Your Meme. [1] Baron has taught undergraduate and graduate classes at Parsons School of Design and was teaching IDTech at M.I.T. when he came up with the idea for Rocketboom.
Baron holds a BA in Philosophy from Bates College and a master of Fine Arts in Design and Technology from Parsons School of Design.
In 1999, Baron was the owner of a visual and performing arts gallery, Movements Gallery on 6th Street in Austin, Texas which the Austin Chronicle named 'Best New Multi-Disciplinary Space in Austin' in the 'Best of Austin's Critics Poll'. [2]
An active music composer throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Baron scored numerous scores for Austin-area artists, including "Mad About Harry", a film by AMFILMS awarded as a Hollywood Film Festival, 2000 finalist. He was appointed by the City of Austin Arts Commission to serve as a Mixed Arts Advisory Panelist, 2001. [3]
After releasing Rocketboom in late 2004, Baron established himself as one of the first vloggers and arguably one of the most influential. With Rocketboom, Baron built one of the first large audiences around a video show, and went on to generate the first large-scale advertising deals. [4] [5]
On August 19, 2005, Baron was interviewed on CBS Evening News. In an "Eye on America", segment CBS veteran Jim Axelrod commented on the effort at daily news coverage on a limited budget and Baron's early grasp of the next Internet wave. "You know what they call that? Vision." [6]
Baron directed a portion of "Killer", an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation which aired February 2, 2006. [7]
Steve Jobs featured Baron's Rocketboom on stage when releasing the video iPod [8] and again when releasing the AppleTV. [9]
In March 2006, Baron commented on the sale of a week of advertising for $40,000 on eBay in Brandweek:
"Advertising with us has extra value because we aren't going to accept advertising from someone whose morals are against us, someone like Hummer," said Rocketboom producer Andrew Baron. The creators of the show are acting as ad agency as well as media for the ads for TRM and EarthLink. "We've got to approve the ads and if we like them, chances are our viewers will like 'em." [10]
In 2008, Baron created the first version of the Know Your Meme database, to accompany a spin-off show he created and produced for Rocketboom.
Also in 2008, with one of the most followed Twitter accounts, Baron made international news when he put his Twitter account up for sale on eBay. [11] [12] [13]
Baron released his third major site, Magma, in 2009. [14]
In 2011, Baron sold Know Your Meme to Cheezburger in a reported "low seven-figure deal". [15] [16] [1]
Baron's work had been recognized by the Webbys, [17] the Vloggies and Streamys. [18]
Andrew Baron is the son of trial lawyer Fred Baron. Andrew Baron made international news again in 2008, when he used his blog to plead with a drug company to help save his father's life. [19]
On November 16, 2017, Baron was arrested on charges that he stole money from his non-profit, Humanwire, to which he pled no contest. [20] [21] According to Baron, [22] forensic accounting verified his side of the story and ended the court case. However, he pled no contest in order to end the case as quickly as possible.
Baron was charged with theft in excess of $100,000 from Humanwire, the nonprofit he established to help Syrian refugees. [23] Baron entered a plea of no contest in October 2018. "Prosecutors dropped two counts of theft between $100,000 and $1 million as part of the plea deal." [24] Baron was also given a one-year deferred sentence, charged $26,999.97 in restitution, and made to perform 40 hours of community service. "An investigative report by The Denver Post in 2017 [25] found that the charity, which Baron founded in 2015, struggled with delays in promised aid to refugees. [26] The newspaper found that more than 100 refugees who had been promised aid from Humanwire faced evictions and other deprivations, according to interviews with former volunteers, workers and donors."
Rocketboom was a daily vlog produced by Andrew Baron in the format of a newscast with a comedic slant. Since 2004 Rocketboom has presented oddities, vlog excerpts, social and political commentary. The Rocketboom weblog and Apollo Pony featured supplemental material unfit for the vlog.
Amanda Thornton Congdon is an American former video blogger. She began her on-screen career as the first anchor of the online daily news show Rocketboom which she hosted and produced until June 23, 2006.
A lolcat, or LOLcat, is an image macro of one or more cats. Lolcat images' idiosyncratic and intentionally grammatically incorrect text is known as lolspeak.
Caitlin Alexandra Hill is an Australian YouTube personality under the name TheHill88. She produces, edits and uploads her videos from her home in Brisbane, and since 2008 from New York City.
I Can Has Cheezburger? is a blog-format website featuring videos and image macros. It was created in 2007 by Eric Nakagawa (Cheezburger), from Hawaii, and his friend Kari Unebasami (Tofuburger). The website was one of the most popular Internet sites of its kind receiving as many as 1,500,000 hits per day at its peak in May 2007. ICHC was instrumental in bringing animal-based image macros and lolspeak into mainstream usage and making Internet memes profitable.
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Malek Jandali is a Syrian-American composer and pianist, whose music integrates Middle-Eastern modes and Arabic Maqams into Western structures of classical music. He is the founder of the nonprofit organization Pianos for Peace, which aims to build peace through music and education. Jandali immigrated to the United States and studied music in North Carolina. Since then, he has performed with orchestras across the world and composed a number of modern classical works. His music was described as "a major new addition to the 21st century symphonic literature" by Fanfare magazine. with "heart-rending melodies, lush orchestration, clever transitions and creative textures", according to American Record Guide. Jandali's music ranges from chamber works to large symphonic compositions integrating Middle-Eastern and Western influences. He is the biological paternal cousin of Steve Jobs and Mona Simpson.
Kimbal James Musk is a South African restaurateur, chef, and entrepreneur. He owns The Kitchen Restaurant Group, a collection of restaurants located in Colorado and Chicago. He is the co-founder and chairman of Big Green, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has built hundreds of outdoor classrooms called Learning Gardens in schoolyards across America. Musk is also the co-founder and chairman of Square Roots, an urban farming company growing food in hydroponic, indoor, climate controlled shipping containers. Musk currently sits on the boards of Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, both of which his brother Elon is the current CEO. He was on the board of Chipotle Mexican Grill from 2013 to 2019. He is the brother of Tosca Musk, son of Errol and Maye Musk, and a major shareholder in Tesla.
Know Your Meme (KYM) is a website and video series which uses wiki software to document various Internet memes and other online phenomena, such as viral videos, image macros, catchphrases, Internet celebrities and more. It also investigates new and changing memes through research, as it commercializes on the culture. Originally produced by Rocketboom, the website was acquired in March 2011 by Cheezburger Network, in turn acquired in 2016 by Literally Media. Know Your Meme includes sections for confirmed, submitted, deadpooled, researching, and popular memes.
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Jamie Wilkinson is an internet culture researcher and software engineer. Wilkinson started Know Your Meme, a database of viral internet memes whilst working at Rocketboom in New York City. Wilkinson also co-founded VHX, a digital distribution platform targeting independent filmmakers, which was acquired by Vimeo in May 2016.
A rage comic is a short cartoon strip using a growing set of pre-made cartoon faces, or rage faces, which usually express rage or some other simple emotion or activity. They are usually crudely drawn in Microsoft Paint or other simple drawing programs, and were most popular in the early 2010s. These webcomics have spread much in the same way that Internet memes do, and several memes have originated in this medium. They have been characterized by Ars Technica as an "accepted and standardized form of online communication." The popularity of rage comics has been attributed to their use as vehicles for humorizing shared experiences. The range of expression and standardized, easily identifiable faces has allowed uses such as teaching English as a foreign language.
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