Manhattan went right into a lockdown in March final 12 months and that is when Tommy Marcus began the Instagram meme web page Quentin Quarantino (@quentin.quarantino), which now has 654k followers. “I was making the people laugh during a tough time,” recollected Marcus on a Zoom name with Gadgets 360 earlier this week. What began as a meme web page is now could be a platform that speaks out in opposition to social injustices and raises funds for burning social points. Marcus has witnessed his private transformation from a meme-artist to a prolific fundraiser throughout this era. He is presently elevating funds for India’s COVID-19 disaster and stated he has managed to lift greater than Rs. 3.3 crores for the trigger. We caught up with Tommy Marcus and talked about his web page, life, and his fundraising initiative.
Talking about his motivation to lift cash for India, he noticed, “I was drawing comparisons with what’s happening in India and America, what happened here during the earlier months of COVID, the comparisons of the leaders, [them] not listening to science… that’s when I kind of decided to ditch the humour on my page for a few weeks and raise funds for India.”
“It is all the community feeling and the connection among the people that keeps these fundraisings going,” Marcus added. When the conservative American radio host Rush Limbaugh died this February, Marcus raised over $1 million (roughly Rs. 7.3 crores) and donated it to Planned Parenthood, an American non-profit that Limbaugh had lambasted throughout his lifetime. “The Rush Limbaugh project helped me realise the potential of my followers to do a good thing,” Marcus remarked with a smile.
Marcus stated about 5 p.c of the fanbase of Quentin Quarantino are from India. “It is really sad how the government can’t be taking care of the people. There was this sense of privilege surrounding me which made me feel like I wanted to do something for India after reading some articles about what is happening out there. My followers and I have collected this money largely on behalf of the American people. Now we are all in a place of safety. I’ve been vaccinated. The situation in America is getting a lot better. But to see this same cycle that we were in last year happening somewhere else. What was happening in India really hit close to home for all of us… I wouldn’t say it felt like an obligation, I felt like I really wanted to do something for the people there. That really pushed me into this direction,” recounted Marcus.
When requested about how he made positive that he selected a reliable organisation to affiliate with to lift the funds for India, he stated his precedence was to guarantee that the organisation was not affiliated to the federal government. (*3*) For the India COVID-19 disaster fundraising, Marcus has joined arms with GiveIndia, a non-profit organisation based mostly in Bengaluru.
“The NGO sends me an update everyday regarding how they’ve used the funds, their hands are tied that way too… I can’t say the exact statistics but some tens of thousands of oxygen cylinders have been given out already using the money… It is not like at the end of the fundraiser a lump sum will be sent, the money is already being sent to the charity,” described Marcus.
Treading the social house
Before beginning Quentin Quarantino, Marcus ran @unhinged, a dating-based meme web page on Instagram with 308k followers. @unhinged had an enormous company sponsor. But there have been a number of restrictions as to what he might put up on the web page. Thus when the lockdown struck, he began Quentin Quarantino with the purpose of placing up 25 posts a day. “I’ve always been a very political person. All the posts (on Quentin Quarantino) were rooted in humour. It continued to be funny through the months leading to the [US presidential] elections… But when I started calling out stuff, I started losing some Trump-fan followers,” Marcus stated.
Looking again on the transformation of his web page, he stated, “When I started the page, I thought, ‘Holy sh_t, I’m gonna make so much money’. But now I’m like, ‘Holy sh_t, I’m gonna change the world’.”
He recalled his expertise as he began to navigate the social house with political content material, “I’m friends with a lot of the popular meme-makers on Instagram… when it comes to posting political stuff, a lot of them stay away from it. A lot of the people are shy to do any controversial stuff. When I started posting the serious stuff, a lot of them started messaging me, asking me if I really wanted to get into the controversial stuff.”
“I’ve never made money on my page selling a single ad,” he defined. “It is kind of difficult to describe my particular space on the Internet. But there is so much solace and purpose in doing what I’ve been doing.”
He stated that he has a routine for a typical workday. “But a lot of unexpected things keep coming at me throughout the day. I’m on Instagram for some 10 hours a day… I still don’t have a future vision about the page, but I think that’s to my benefit, right now I’m taking it one day at a time,” Marcus added.
The title of the web page is a by-product of Quentin Tarantino, his favorite film director, with a play on the phrase ‘quarantine’. When requested in regards to the one factor that he’d need to inform Tarantino if ever will get to fulfill him, Marcus gushed out with amusing, “Quentin, how have you not followed me yet?”
