Brooklyncartoons (gen why's unfiltered selfie) is an Instagram account that focuses on the intersection of becoming an adult and the entrenchment of technology in our every days.
HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN CREATING CARTOONS OR DRAWING AND WRITING?
I drew all the time as a kid, creating my own worlds on paper. I formed the current cartoon aesthetic in my last two years of college; I was getting published on a weekly basis in my college's alternative newspaper and it took me about a year of trial and error to finally find the observational voice that people would recognize now.
HOW DID BROOKLYN CARTOONS BEGIN? HAPPY ACCIDENT OR INTENTIONAL?
After graduating in 2006, I moved to Brooklyn and tried to keep cartooning, but I was in my early twenties and it was impossible to draw with all the exploring, going out, and life lessons to be learned. Nevertheless, it was during this time that I first put the words “Brooklyn” and “Cartoons” together but waited out the recession studying architecture in graduate school, putting cartooning on hold for four years. It wasn’t until I graduated, got married, settled down in Williamsburg, and then moved out to Los Angeles in late 2014 that I finally had the time to build the account.
YOU WRITE ON THE INTERNET ABOUT THE INTERNET. I CONSIDER YOU A REBEL. DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF ONE?I appreciate the compliment, but I definitely do not consider myself a rebel, mainly because I know that there are artists and designers out there doing far riskier, badass, and rockstar things than I ever could.
SINCE YOU WORK IN THE VIRTUAL WORLD WITH MANY PEOPLE HAVING DIRECT ACCESS TO YOU HOW DO YOU HANDLE THE OVERSTIMULATION OR OVERUSE FROM SO MANY COMMENTS, DM'S, AND OPINIONS OF YOUR WORK VIA KEYBOARD? IS IT VULNERABLE TO BE SO "OUT" THERE?
I've been in the trenches of Instagram obsession for just about three years, and the best lesson that I can pass along is to try your bestto not give a fuck about what anyone else thinks, especially the algorithms. This isn't easy though, and while I long ago learned to ignore negativity or ad hominem attacks in my comments, I'll freely admit that my day can get derailed if I've poured hours of my time into a cartoon and it doesn't do well.
CAN YOU DESCRIBE WHAT A DAY IN YOU LIFE LOOKS LIKE FOR YOU?
In addition to doing all the things that are involved with brooklyncartoons, I also run a design studio with my wife Clementina. We call ourselves ASTVDIO and right now we’re focusing primarily on residential, interiors and small commercial projects. So my day is split between being on construction sites, sketching design concepts, drafting plans and details, managing clients, and then looking at memes on Instagram, developing caption/scene ideas, and drawing cartoons. I feel super fortunate to be building these two endeavors
in parallel.
WAS THERE SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED TO GIVE YOU AN AH-HA MOMENT IN HOW OUR CURRENT SOCIETY IS USING TECHNOLOGY?Yeah, when I noticed that tangible spaces were being designed specifically for Instagram and social media marketing. We take this for granted now, but a few years ago this was not the norm. Our physical world is now inundated with Instagram bait, little visual triggers that trick us into snapping a selfie and posting what is essentially free marketing. On the other hand, I think that in our efforts to prop up our digital selves with quality content that proves how interesting, cool, and cultured we are, we are curating experiences for ourselves that otherwise we wouldn't have.
CLOSE YOUR EYES AND WHERE ARE YOU IN 20 YEARS?
Mars.
FAVORITE WORD, QUOTE THAT HELPED YOU BECOME WHO YOU ARE...AND MIGHT BE HELPFUL TO OUR READERS WITH THE SAME AMBITIONS AS YOU.No seas cautivo de idiomas e ideologías...which is a song lyric from "En Todas Partes" from a movie called Habana Blues. It basically translates from Spanish to "don't be held captive by language or idealogy" and it's a solid breakdown of how I try to live my life.