Matt Felker

• Birth name:

  Matthew Nicholas Felker

• Date of Birth:

  11 October 1979 Brookfield, Wisconsin, USA

• Height:

  6' (1.83 m)

Matthew Felker has inadvertently created a campaign that resonates in pop culture and harkens back to the Campbell's Soup Cans done by Andy Warhol. He was not a Warhol devotee, nor did he study his work, the entire concept just happened for him in an organic way. He had an idea to write a film about pop culture and the Internet and networked through Hollywood via myspace in its early stages. He decided to method write the film and devised a plan to bewilder Hollywood by utilizing myspace and placing... more

Matthew Felker has inadvertently created a campaign that resonates in pop culture and harkens back to the Campbell's Soup Cans done by Andy Warhol. He was not a Warhol devotee, nor did he study his work, the entire concept just happened for him in an organic way. He had an idea to write a film about pop culture and the Internet and networked through Hollywood via myspace in its early stages. He decided to method write the film and devised a plan to bewilder Hollywood by utilizing myspace and placing himself in various media grabbing productions such as the Britney Spears Toxic video, the Stacy's Mom video and a jean campaign that appeared on the jumbotron in Times Square. Felker has since documented all of these happenings in a screenplay that he has penned himself which will be made into a feature film by acclaimed Director Penelope Spheeris (The Decline of Western Civilization, Suburbia, Wayne's World, Black Sheep, and in preproduction on The Janis Joplin Story).His whole career was created via myspace, on his own, without the help of a team of industry handlers. Everyone assumed he was an established actor and model, but the reality was that he was a newcomer without a lengthy resume. The idea that he could promote himself and create the illusion that he was already 'somebody' led Felker to toy with the idea of using the media to help blur the line between perception and reality.Like all guerrilla marketers, Felker decided to take the campaign to the next level and decided to hit the streets like famous graffiti artists Shepard Fairey, Banksy and Blek Le Rat. He decided take take his social experiment one step further by removing his own image, making his vehicle and stencil of choice the NO PHOTO symbol that everyone knew from myspace. He knew it was an icon waiting to happen, so he created a character behind NO PHOTO who would soon become, "Brad Lenz". As Felker describes as the "John Doe" of the Internet generation. Felker figured, if every actor in Hollywood can become a brand, why not a grey silhouette named Brad Lenz? "Brad" derived from the word "BraNd," and "Lenz" exploiting the youtube craze.-Page 2-Through viral marketing, subliminal messaging on the Internet and a street team, Felker created a global campaign promoting the NO PHOTO symbol and the name Brad Lenz. Suddenly, people were no longer associating the NO PHOTO symbol with myspace, but with the elusive and mysterious Brad Lenz. Brad Lenz was rapidly becoming an identifiable brand-- where the NO PHOTO symbol showed up-- Lenz was sure to follow.As the hype grew for NO PHOTO/Brad Lenz, Felker knew he had to take the next step, creating merchandise. He approached via myspace entrepreneur Todd Goldman, the controversial artist who founded the David and Goliath clothing line (became famous for his painting "boys are stupid throw rocks at them"), with the idea to make t-shirts. Goldman thought Felker was absolutely crazy, loved the idea, and gave Felker his number. The two collaborated on a t-shirt that read "Who Is Brad Lenz" complete with the NO PHOTO symbol emblazoned on the front. Goldman distributed it through his company in 33 different countries. The t's were distributed as give aways and the public ate them up and loved them. The neck of the t's had a myspace link www.myspace.com/whoisbradlenz333 printed on it. If you were lucky enough to own one, you had to take a picture of yourself in the t-shirt and post it on the myspace page. The response was phenomenal, so Felker decided to take the t-shirt to his attorney and asked him to trademark the name Brad Lenz. Felker's lawyer suggested that he trademark the NO PHOTO symbol as well. As it turned out, the symbol was a free agent not owned by myspace, and would be applied to become the property of Felker. So will Felker go down in history as having created a new pop culture icon and become a sort of Warhol for a new generation? When asked in a recent interview Felker gets uncomfortable being compared to Warhol and was quoted. "You can't compare me to Andy, it's absurd, he molded an entire generation, I'm just trying to make a film that makes a statement about today's society. I feel that current art, fashion and film is quite generic. There is no originality, only mimicry and imitation. Hopefully this film has some originality if anything. That's what attracted Penelope to the project."