John Sumpter, the Editor-in-Chief of Tripped Media was up before the sun rose this morning to document today’s Occupy Wall St. activities.
“Besides only launching a week ago and being featured on every continent and in over 65 countries, I think we have some pretty good stuff in the works,” says Sumpter. “We are currently working with individuals abroad to completely launch our international travel section, we’ve recently been accepted onto Kickstarter, our company has already managed to make Lou Reed hate us and every writer in NYC is breaking down our doors. We take that last point as a sign that digital media and a reputable millennial site for opinions and journalism is something that everyone is looking forward to.”
Tripped Media launched on October 3rd, 2011 with 3 full-time staff members- 22-year old Sumpter, his 23-year old co-founder David Krebs, their 22-year old COO Ryan McManus- and an army of freelancers and volunteers. With the decline in jobs for recent graduates and a need for a magazine truly designed for the millennial generation, Tripped Media wants to shake things up in the editorial industry.
“When we originally thought of creating this digital magazine we knew we had many things we wanted to incorporate into it,” said Sumpter. “There were multiple routes we could possibly take with doing something on this scale but in the end we knew we wanted to publish material that people could utilize and have fun with.”
The site is an online blend of journalism and blogging and of newspapers and magazines. It features topics ranging from travel, food & drinks, NYC culture, nightlife, art & design, the new iPhone and top 10 lists to articles about the Human Centipede. Sumpter, the Editor-in-Chief, graduated in May of this past year. He moved to the big city to fulfill his lifelong dream of landing a full-time job in New York, but found it tough to do so. He and his friends took a long, hard look at today’s online media. They looked at Vanity Fair, GQ, The New York Post, and even The New York Times and found themselves dissatisfied. “We read lifestyle articles that weren’t targeting the lifestyle of our generation,” Sumpter says.
Tripped Media’s content is free and the project is completely self-funded at the moment. The boys will be seeking seed money and venture capital later this fall. Tripped Media writers are paid out of a pool of 35% revenue share so as the site grows, the writers grow with it. Sumpter says he looks for writers with a mix of sass, intelligence and wit. “If I had to give Tripped Media a personality, it’d be a 25-year old ex-college student still looking for a job but who has a lot to say,” he says.
Watch their pick for Video of the Day, “The Accidental Hipster.” It’s pretty funny.
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