misteraven

Definitely have a stash set aside. Will reach out when I have it in hand.

Someone just sent me this... People waking up -

super handy man, try it out...

Move up this way!

Cool... If anyone else has missed out on a release, feel free to DM. Doesn't hurt to at least ask.

I still have some stuff stashed away as part of archive and contests. Hit me up if there's any tees you missed. Might be able to dig some stuff up for you.

Yeah, might have to look into it once I have a little more momentum and the dust settles.

Yeah, I did a bunch of shots for that book... https://www.12ozcollective.com/supreme-new-york/ Also helped orchestrate some of the recent Supreme x Timberland collabs that came out the last few years.

@MercerWow man, what an awesome freakin story... Congratulations man, makes me very happy to hear someone taking the road less travel and with some smarts and unorthodox thinking, turn it in to something great. Would assume if that side gets busy enough to qualify your own full time involvement, that you'd likely slide in to that sort of thing yourself? Also, if you guys are both stacking chips as well as it sounds like, why not get yourself a decent spread out in rural PA or VT where you can still ease in and out of the city, yet have a bit more control over your own setup? Anyhow, good for you man... Have to catch up by phone more regularly. Thanks for sharing on here... This is the sort of thing that I hope inspires more people to pull things together and drop out of the rat race, while also improving their situation across the board.

Is it possible to go into more detail about what your wife did and how she managed to improve her position going at it solo? Perhaps time to bump the crypto thread?

Who remembers this?

HOLY FUCK! Just found the Jesus Potato on an ancient backup!

So after posting in the 12ozProphet History thread, as well as seeing a couple more OG user names starting to post regularly, thought I'd bump this thread with the hopes that you guys will help me review where we're at and to help coordinate a new push to reach out to some key members that are still missing or perhaps never found their rhythm and haven't been passing through regularly. It is really freakin cool to see a fair sized group of OG's that have been on pretty regularly since the relaunch, as well as a few more OG's that have resurfaced and seem to be enjoying posting again. Likewise, there's still a steady stream of people registering that seem to be lurking (according to stats), so maybe we can give this another push and see if we can add to the regulars on here. Instagram sucks and is only getting worse and maybe there's a half way decent opportunity to convince people that its worth moving the discussion back to 12oz. Regardless, please skim this thread and drop a note if you see anyone missing that hasn't been mentioned and especially if you're in touch with any OG's and can maybe reach out and have them swing through. Really on all of us and sincerely believe we're making and pretty good progress and that if we can turn the 8 - 15 people I see on here most the day, every day into 35 - 50... We'll see a tipping point that'll take on a life of its own. Need your help guys... Oh yeah and for the people just coming in for the first time in ages... I'm still happy to send out free stickers.

Jacked from: https://www.12ozcollective.com/12ozprophet-brand/ Some maybe interesting facts... Issue one was a school project for college. I never intended to do more than one issue and the whole think was just me fronting. Figured I could get school credit for doing something I would have done on my own anyways, as well as maybe open people up and kick the other magazines a kick in the ass for the benefit of me being able to buy better quality mags in the future. At that time, as crazy as it sounds, laying out a magazine on a computer was a new idea especially for a graffiti zine. There were a couple in Europe that had been doing it, but most USA zines were cut and paste scans. Also, believe we were the first to use photoshop to edit the seams out of the put together shots. Again, in an era where very few people had used a computer, even less had even heard of Photoshop. At that time Photoshop version 3.2 was something like 12 floppy discs to install. It had no layer feature so you had to use alpha channels. Computers back then were lucky to have 24MB of RAM and so it was a tedious effort to edit photos like we did. Regardless, in the early issues, I'd have fun and sometimes hide weird shit in the photo edits that were done very subtly. Like change the phone number in some background signage to my own number to see if anyone would call. And yes, the can really was set on fire. I used a nail and hammer to pop the bottom and let out the pressure of a few cans. I shot them before they were lit and then shot a few as they burned. I used rubber cement to control where it would catch fire and then used several photos of it to edit together a shot I liked. The background was scans of some photo out of National Geographic I swiped from the school nature lab, that I edited to look like some pseudo spiritual horror thing (Was a huge Danzig / Misfits / Samhain fan). Issue 3 was the last issue done at school and wound up being my degree project. After the success of the first issue, I figured it was fun so I'd continue. Also, like most projects I work on, I learn so much during the process, that by the end I just want to start over. So I had a lot of ideas I wanted to explore and kept doing them. Crazy to think the original artwork from Twist was sent to the school mail room. I remember sitting outside on the street opening up the package Barry sent me and then lugging it around to class all day, showing it to a few friends. Also, issue 6 was supposed to have an entirely different cover. Os Gemeos sent me some artwork to photograph, that would have been more like a diorama. I just couldn't get the photo to be as good as I wanted with the tech of that era and the equipment I had available to me. By this point I was really enjoying the "digital collages" I was doing... Scanning random shit and layering it up in Photoshop (still using alpha channels to do so). Issue 5 was the first time I had enough confidence in my "design skills" based off several issues of doing layouts for the magazines and also several mailorder catalogs (Straight from the Bottom and later, 7th Heaven). The other covers were either collaborations or I saw them as more like an illustration, but issue 5 was actually graphic design (or at least that's how I saw it). So when the diorama idea didn't work out, I continued exploring the digital collage direction and trying to simulate the grimy layers I was documenting with photo, into a computer generated collage made up of scans and edits with Photoshop. Though by this time I had a pretty badass computer (in fact, it blew minds at the time since computers were still pretty rare), which was a Power Computing Power Tower Pro 225 with like I think 128 GB of RAM and like 16 GB of VRAM running a two monitor setup. Back then, this was like having a super computer in my bedroom since most people had barely seen a standard Mac like the old Performa series and I was running some crazy optimized, custom built workhorse. Anyhow, my computer crashed as I was wrapping up the cover of issue 6, which was the last step in the process. I had already committed to a press schedule and after having spent like a week and a half on the cover to that point, had to quickly rebuild the entire thing in like a day using the various bits and pieces, scans etc. Sounds retarded, but there was no auto save and worse, it wasn't unusual for an app or computer to crash and corrupt the entire file, meaning you couldn't even open it if you saved. So, to mitigate that possibility, you'd "save as" and have dozens of versions of it in progress, which helped save it. Regardless, it was a minor miracle at the time. Also, theVapors Project Issue 1 (not pictured here), was significant in that it was a reflection of where my head was at that has ironically come full circle... At the time, I was frustrated by how "commercial" graffiti had become. This was many years before "street art" but the scene became more about these organized legal walls with all this coordination and strategy and endless hues of Euro paint and less about the true spontaneity and rebelliousness of what drew me to graffiti in the first place. Spending time with Twist (issue 3) was still fresh in my mind and I really appreciated what I felt was the true essence of graffiti... The act of forcing a name down everyone throat, but balancing out originality and style under the pressures of doing it illegal, at night and often in dangerous locations. Likewise, I was feeling a lot of pressure to follow the trends and expectations people had of 12oz, since by that point it had become the defacto standard for showcasing the entire scene. Coupled with the fact that when an issue dropped, everyone wanted to get down and companies would send me all kinds of free shit, but then after months would barely bother with a call back... theVapors Project was a sort of "FUCK YOU" to everyone. It was chance to start clean and was an opportunity to dive back under ground as graffiti was reaching new heights in the main stream. The goal was to deconstruct graffiti back into its basic elements and showcase the hero's and villains of graffiti rather than the massive teams doing those mega productions that defined the 1990s and early 2000s. Anyhow, its not too far from where things are now in that I walked away from the "media platform" side of 12oz rather than continue pushing to make 12ozProphet sit at the center of street art. Likewise, moving away from the obvious shit and instead exploring themes like I've done here on the forum and in some of the product like living off-grid or American gun / tactical culture, is sort of like another "FUCK YOU" that takes 12oz back down deeper into the rebellious spirit and counter culture that inspired it from the very beginning. Probably not doing myself justice with this *somewhat* brief explanation, but hopefully you guys get what I'm saying. We can continue that line of discussion more if anyone is interested, but in any case, here's some decent shots of all the 12oz mags and some other cool stuff from way back.

This is from 2004...

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Going to post a random assortment of graphics since I'm digging through old files. Lets see how many of you guys remember...

Gone up a lot these last couple months. Back in January, I managed to buy the regular at $1.90 after a discount from the super market connected to it that gave me $0.20 off a gallon. Now the same shit costs $2.98. Gave up on buying premium after listening to several podcasts that said modern engines dont really benefit from them like the old used car engines did unless its a highly tuned engine.

Also, bumping this one as a reminder to get back on it. Anyone interested in anything in particular?

Going to bump this thread and possibly pin it. Lots of great tips that I still get asked about fairly regularly and will remind me to keep adding to it. Question: How many of you guys keep the activity feed page open all the time? This page has pretty much become my go to page for jumping off into threads.

Yeah, he's trained to pack in addition to leading. He's also good around guns so you can take him hunting as well.

Here's a couple from this weekend... Seems this thread has turned into more of a photo share than a discussion on the logistics or decision making process of leaving the big city for a more self sufficient and perhaps simpler lifestyle. Not sure if there's still a few people lurking this thread or maybe a couple that just haven't asked the questions, but just a note to tell anyone that on the fence to feel free and ask questions if you have them... Happy to answer them based on my own experience from having lived in the heart of downtown NYC to now living way off the beaten path. Also, though it might be interesting to hear @Mercerchime in. I know I call him out quite a bit, but we're friends in real life and definitely a lot of overlap and synergies in our experience and outlook. Anyhow, I know Mercer is sort of caught in the city for at least a while longer, but also recognize he'd probably rather have a nice piece of property he owns out away from the nonsense. Thought maybe you can share a little of your own experiences with trying to make the best of the situation until you can pull that move off. Anyhow, here's some new stuff...

?

This hit me pretty hard. Might be obvious, but dont think its been mentioned or at least not quite so concisely. Though I disagree with what you say later here... I think things will likely come full circle. Not to say it'll be a rehash of the early days or take the same form, but I think we're seeing the end of a particular era that has been defined not just by social media, but social media apps on tiny screens. And this isnt to say that people will wake up and throw their smartphones away... Only that I think in general people have largely evolved past the bite sized chunks of content and constraints of those platforms and are realizing they gave up convenience for much more meaningful interactions and experiences and that someone will eventually come along that will provide a solution to this. I heard recently someone in the marketing space say that the worldwide web was dead. That all investments should be made into social, namely IG. I completely disagree with this and in fact think that the fatigue and frustration is bad enough on IG, that we night actually see a resurgence on forums until something better comes along. In any case, appreciate the time you took to compose your thoughts on the subject @Hayabusa

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/04/30/tech/instagram-hiding-likes/index.html Interesting move (and telling) that Instagram is beta testing hiding likes. At first I was like, fake news- ain’t going to happen... But then thinking it through and now seeing it happen (in Canada, verified by @Kults), it makes sense. Here’s what I think is happening... the success of Instagram, like this forum, is in fact the average user. That’s the foundation in any community. Instagram has obviously evolved to a powerful platform and they’ve added features / tools to enable ‘super users’. In fact, they cultivate it by adding ‘verification’ badges and adjusting their algorithm to ‘promote’ these ‘super users’. Seems what’s happened, however, is it’s become an echo chamber. That for the most part, these super users aren’t actually contributing content, but rather using it as a platform to promote themselves or often, their company. Those same super users have metrics and tools that allow them to optimize every post, and no doubt their also think of post content the same way. So they’re driving hard for likes, and in comparison to the average user (and metrics), getting them. They by product of that is that you have to work far harder to get ‘likes’ as it’s no longer an organic process. The average user is seeing likes decline and feeling increasing stress since the super users are driving hard, getting extra help from the platform and seeing huge ‘likes’ counts. Its inevitable that on top of the fatigue (that’s very real), that the average user is contributing less and less. Instagram recognizes this as a death spiral, even if far off. The move to hide likes is a reaction to lesson that stress and get their base contributing again. Though their overall traffic might sustain, largely due to the addictive qualities of this whole thing (which is also very real) and also because there simply hasn’t been a compelling alternative to Instagram, they know this is a very bad sign. That drop off in contributions is what we observed and discussed previously, and why there’s so many suggestion on who to follow and hash tags you can follow, which is now taking up more and more of a persons feed. Obviously, they’re trying very hard to promote engagement / growth. Instagram is basically a steady stream of advertising at this point. Obviously, not in the traditional sense (though even that can be debated most of the time), but self serving content with obvious agenda and strategy. my prediction, and there’s already evidence of moves their making to this end, is that they’ll soon start to really focus on the comment side of things. They’ll add whatever tools and features to encourage discussion as yet another method to mitigate the death spiral. Likewise, I predict they’ll also implement further features or things that encourage their base; the average user. Instagram is dead. They just don’t know it yet. Also a ton of people have made real investments into their accounts and the platform. They’ll also resist, which will help drag out the process. Just my observation, followed by two cents.