Editing The Pen Addict 188/transcript (section)

== ArtSnacks ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, let's get into it. Let's get into it, Lee. We're not going to start with ArtSnacks, even though I think that's what most of our listeners probably know you by. That's probably the only thing they know you by. But actually, you're kind of a big-deal Tumblr blogger with a blog called EatSleepDraw. I mean, this is no small feat. So why don't you tell us about the EatSleepDraw, which you've been running since, what, 2007 it looks like?

'''Lee Rubenstein:''' Yeah. So, all right. You want the long story. Here we go. Settle in, children. Settle in. So, everyone's familiar with the blogging platform Tumblr, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Lee Rubenstein:''' Yeah. So, I was in the room when Tumblr was created. And let me just kind of back up for a second. So, I was working in this shared office space at the time. And there was a corner of the room where these two guys are working on client work and stuff like that. And it just so happened to be David Karp and Marco Arment. And I became friends with them. I didn't work for them. But they were building all the sorts of stuff. And they had, like, downtime in between projects. And they built this thing called Tumblr. And I thought it was a terrible name.

'''Lee Rubenstein:''' I thought it was a terrible name. And because I was like, what? What are you trying to be Flickr? And he's like, no.

'''Lee Rubenstein:''' So, which is ironic now because now they're both owned by the same company. But. Oh, that's true. So, he created this thing called Tumblr. And I was on Blogger at the time. And Blogger just felt like a lot of work. You know, my background is in art and animation and filmmaking. And I'm just, was very intimidated by Blogger because of the big white box and the blinking cursor. And so, when David introduced me to Tumblr, I was like, all right, yeah, I'll sign up. And then a month goes by and he's like, yo, Lee, did you sign up? And I was like, no. I was like, you should try it. I was like, I'll only try it if I get the username Lee.Tumblr because I can never get that on any social network ever. And so, he's like, fine, I'll give you Lee.Tumblr. So, I signed up. And then from that day on, I never looked back at my Blogger. I totally got it. Super easy to post. It wasn't intimidating at all. You want to post a picture, post a picture. You just want to, you know, copy and paste the chat, you can do that. So, I instantly got it and it was super fun. And so, a couple months go by and me and my buddy Ben were like, oh, let's create our own Tumblr log and just post artwork to it. And so, we did that and we called it Eat, Sleep, Draw. And so, we bought the .com. And it became more of like a ritual. At the end of the day, we would just post our doodles and sketches that, you know, didn't make the cut onto this blog. And it started to gain some traction on Tumblr in terms of followers. And this was back when Tumblr, you can only follow people. There was, I don't even think there was a like button. It was way, way back. And so, we built some momentum. And my friends were interested in Tumblr, so they signed up. And then I went to David because I got people that were interested in posting to our art site. And I was like, hey, David, I got all these people. They want to, you know, post on Eat, Sleep, Draw. How do we do that? He's like, oh, you mean like multiple authors? And I was like, yeah. And in the back of my mind, I'm thinking like, is this in the pipeline or is he just going to build it for me? And so, he built it and we had multiple authors on this blog. And so, any artist that I knew or emailed me would be like, hey, Eat, Sleep, Draw.

'''Lee Rubenstein:''' And then I would have to invite them to sign up for Tumblr in order to become an author. And it just kind of snowballed. After a couple of months, we had 50 authors on this blog posting at multiple times. And it was just totally random. And so, I went back to David and I was like, David, I can't keep fielding these requests for all these artists that like this blog that I made. Can you just build something so people can just like send them, send us their artwork? And if we like it, we'll post it. And he's like, oh, you mean like public submissions? And I was like, what? You totally had that built already, didn't you? So, for the first six months, we were the only Tumblr on Tumblr that had public submissions enabled. So, at the time, Tumblr was maybe 75,000 users, active users. And so, now I would get emails being like, wait, how did you hack Tumblr? I just submitted my artwork and now it's on the site. And so, it was kind of ridiculous. And then he eventually opened up public submissions. And so, now, fast forward, you know, seven, eight years, we're the largest user submitted blog on Tumblr. We have over 700,000 followers on Tumblr on that one blog. And more impressive is, I think, just the amount of artwork that we see submitted to Eat, Sleep, Draw every week. We get about 1,100 to 1,200 pieces of art submitted every week to our website.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Wow. That's insane.

'''Lee Rubenstein:''' How do you manage that? So... You're not managing that directly, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I mean...

'''Lee Rubenstein:''' No, no, no. So, my longtime great friend, Anthony Lamberti, who I went to college with and we have, you know, we both went to art school. And so, we know what art is good. And so, he runs the day-to-day operations of the site. He's the one that's looking at all of the art that's coming in. And I would say we approve one out of ten of every art submission. So, about 10%.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's a lot. I mean, that's a huge amount for the quantity that's coming in, I believe.

'''Lee Rubenstein:''' Yeah, yeah. And, you know, the vision, it's really his vision of, you know, what art is topical. And, you know, we care more about the quality of the art. We don't care, you know, what artist you are or if you have a big following. In fact, we've really gotten good at spotting up-and-coming artists and publishing them first. And Tony's been really, really great about that. And, yeah, it's just... I think one of our users or followers described it best as just this marvelous fountain of art. And that's basically what it is. So, he looks at all the art. And then we queue it up. And then so about every hour or so, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all year, a new original piece of art that was user submitted gets published to Eat Sleep Draw. That's fantastic. Yeah, it's just an ongoing art gallery, really.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So, I followed Eat Sleep Draw since I kind of first ran into you. I didn't know about it before. You know, I do a little bit on Tumblr. And that's kind of, you know, where, you know, it's kind of like my inspiration board. You know, I'll save things and like things on there that I like. But I never knew this story until I started digging into this this week. And like my mind's like totally, totally blown. You're like Tumblr user number seven. And it's your fault there's user submissions. And essentially ask me anything or whatever, you know.

'''Lee Rubenstein:''' I don't know if asked me anything. I just wanted people to submit their art. I mean, I was in a very unique position at the time. And to have, you know, the guys in the room that created this thing that is awesome, you know, I'm not going to abuse that. Sure. That environment. I'm going to be like, okay, what can I do that's positive? What can I do that's, you know, would be exciting for this new community? And I just really like art. And I'm being very selfish when I'm like, I just want to look at amazing art before anyone else. And if we like it, we'll just publish it to the world. I mean, that's, that's the, you know, the core of the idea is just awesome art. We call ourselves an art gallery, but we don't really sell any art. We just like it, you know.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So what were you doing at the time, you know, in that, that working, that workspace? I mean, this wasn't your job at the time. What was your, what was your job at the time? Or what were you working on?

'''Lee Rubenstein:''' I was working for Frederator, Frederator Studios. They're the largest independent producer for cartoons for Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. Yeah. Yeah. So I was working there. And Fred, whether Fred knows it or not, I mean, he's really been like an unspoken mentor. I've just, my time with him, learning from him. I mean, he would pull me into pitches.

'''Lee Rubenstein:''' What is it? Adventure Time. That was way back, 2007, when no one even knew what that was. And I got to see the pilot and that sort of thing. So it was really, really exciting time. And then got, you know, kind of caught up in this internet video thing. And so then I worked for like an internet television, internet content company and got really close with Marco and David. I went to Marco's wedding. So it's like, you know, it really felt like, it really felt like a really small community. And part of me misses that. But art has always been constant in my life. And so I'm really excited to have eSleep Draw as this thing that keeps living on on the platform.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I hope David and Marco at least have taken you out to a nicer lunch than the chicken deli that you used to visit, right?

'''Lee Rubenstein:''' That chicken deli is still around. It's awesome. It's so crazy. They're not open on Saturday or Sunday, but yet they're still in business. I don't understand.