Thirsty Thursday: David Karp

There is an internet god and his name is David Karp.  People worship him and what he has created; Tumblr.  Tumblr has become a huge blogging platform that ranges in content such as politics to funny cat pictures.  It is described as Twitter meets YouTube and Wordpress.  At the age of 21, Karp founded the massive blogging website in the bedroom of his mother's apartment in New York.  His main goal for the website was to create something that inspired creativity and didn't just contain creative content.  For this reason, Karp speaks out about websites such as YouTube, the most popular video streaming website, and says, "They take your creative works - your filmed that you poured hours and hours of energy into - and they put ads on top of it.  They make it as gross an experience to watch your film as possible.  I'm not sure it will inspire any creators." 
Karp's Tumblr has seemed to encompass a philosophy all on it's own.  Check out the quote to the right from Jim Jarmusch.

"It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to."

Tumblr seems to support this idea that originality is dead but authenticity is not.  What exactly does this mean?  Well, originality is something that has never been done before (in all aspects) while authenticity is taking an idea we have seen before or possibly know well and shaping it into a foreign species that we've never contemplated before.  There is a big difference.  The site supports taking from places and using anything to produce something genuine because everyone gets ideas from somewhere and nothing is purely original. 
A great example of originality versus authenticity is the Walt Disney collection of animated classic movies.  Each one of them, especially the princess ones (though not limited to), is set up in a specific format.  The films always start with a character who is different from the pack and wants more out of their everyday mundane existence.  The story will consist of slap-stick humor using two side characters (ex. - Timon and Pumbaa, Cogsworth and Lumiere, Genie and Abo, etc.).  There will be a villain that is ugly in some way with triangular artistic features.  There will most likely be a love story fit into the picture.  And every character gets their happy ending.  In a sense, none of the films are original because each one is the same format.

However, each film is authentic.  Each film has an original movie score and beautiful, fun tunes to sing along to.  Each film brings in a completely different story line that makes you look at the world differently than before.  The movies contain underdogs (ex. - Aladdin and Quasimodo) and we experience a whole new world through a new set of eyes and each film really challenges us and makes us question what it means to be a human being.
This philosophy is something I believe in 100% and that is why I chose David Karp for this week's drink.  Now I am signing off and as usual, I quote the world's most interesting man - "Stay thirsty my friends."  See you guys next time!