Welcome to our second Tumblr Tuesday, where every Tuesday we celebrate our love of Tumblr. Tumblr, a New York City based startup, is like the FFFFound for the rest of the world. It’s as shareable and fast-paced as Twitter but populated with more in-depth text and rich images.
In the past week, the world has taken a hard look at social media’s role in the London riots, such as the need for Twitter news curators. Last week, we wrote about the statement the UK Prime Minister David Cameron made in Parliament, that the Government is considering the role social media plays in organizing violence, and its looking at whether it would be ‘right’ to try and put stops in place to hinder communications.
While there was some talk that the Government would shut off access to social media, the notion was thankfully short lived. Now, as we’ve seen happen before, social media is playing an integral role in the community re-building and clean up efforts. A new Twitter handle: Riot Clean Up was created last Monday and already has nearly 90,000 followers. There’s also Riot Remedy, which has less of a following on Twitter but is organising clean up events on Facebook as well. Two highly entertaining Tumblr accounts have popped up that inject a necessary dose of satire into the rebellious and senseless events. One is photoshoplooter, which plans to publish a book with all profits going towards cleaning up the riots. The second, and the one that is our Tumblr Tuesday pick this week is Loot-alikes, which juxtaposes photos of looters against their celebrity doppelgängers.
We caught up with Loot-alikes creators Rachel Bishop and Ian Byrne for an interview. Check it out just after Eva…
Ages?
Not telling
Day Jobs?
Yes, we work in the creative industry.
Where in London do you live?
North and East London
Favorite place to go for a pint?
Dirty old boozers and underground cocktail bars.
What was your motivation for building Loot-alikes?
The volume of looter galleries appearing on the Internet in the aftermath of the UK riots spurred on the idea for the blog. We hope it helps to spread awareness of the people involved in recent acts of violence.
When did you know it was going viral?
Receiving over 1,000 hits within the first hour of setting up the blog.
How many visits have you received since you started it?
55,000 when we last looked.
Have any of the looters been caught by the police because of your blog?
Not directly, as far as we know. We hope it has helped to spread awareness of the people involved in the riots.
How do you match them up so accurately?
Ian’s creative eye. The public have started submitting some hilarious picture too.
Are there any lookalikes you’re particularly proud of?
Prince and Eva are pretty special.
What’s the energy like in London right now? How does it feel to be on the streets?
To be honest where we’re based life’s pretty much getting back to normal. We can’t speak for deeper affected areas of Hackney and Croydon. There’s a lot of anger but also a sense of camaraderie and community.
What will happen to Loot-alikes when the looting is over?
The blog has a very limited shelf life but we hope to have helped to deliver a bit of fun with a serious point.
Check out our Tumblr Tuesday from last week: Meet the man behind “Animals Being Dicks” and stay tuned next week for Foodspotting Amy Cao‘s favorite food Tumblr blogs.
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