I’m Loren Feldman, a creator, writer, and performer, and one of the earliest pioneers of original web video. I’ve been making content online since the early 2000s, long before YouTube launched in 2005, and well before anyone was using terms like influencer, creator economy, or content marketing.
Back then, it wasn’t about algorithms it was about a few of us trying to figure out this new medium.
I’ve collaborated with the likes of Adobe, Microsoft, Panasonic, and countless others through my company 1938 Media.
Some think I helped pioneer the era of web video. They are right.
If you know me it’s probably for the puppets.
The Rise
In 2006, I was living with my sister and her four kids when I grabbed one of their puppets just to make them laugh. Something about it stuck. That spontaneous moment turned into a new direction using puppets to take aim at startup culture and Silicon Valley’s growing self-importance. It was strange, and I was good at it.
I began doing puppetry that parodied startup hype and Silicon Valley culture. My work earned coverage in Cnet, Wired, The New York Times, TechCrunch, and SiliconANGLE, and I found myself an important voice in tech.
In 2007, my puppet interviews sparked enough buzz that TechCrunch reported I landed sponsorship for the parody show, while the original host remained unsponsored. (TechCrunch). I signed a deal, one of many, with a new payments company, Zong. It was started by David Marcus who would later run PayPal.
Tom Foremski of SiliconANGLE dubbed me “the jester in the court of Web 2.0,” noting that my puppets represented a who’s who of tech personalities from Steve Ballmer to Mark Zuckerberg. (SiliconANGLE)
I was a big deal.
I was being flown all over the world. London, Paris, Ireland, Amsterdam, Israel. I was everywhere speaking at conferences.
I signed a deal with Podtech, a new online network of videos and podcasts.
I was added to the Wizzard Media Network.
“Loren Feldman of 1938 Media is a notable social media and featured video blogger at The Huffington Post, making his debut in the Android Marketplace.”
Oh yeah, I was the first video show at the Huffington Post.
Oh yeah I forgot, Google wanted me to introduce Android to the world.
The Fall
One day I created a video called Where Are All The Black Tech bloggers? I played a black guy, way over the top sorta like Gene Wilder did with Richard Pryor in Silverstreak. I thought I was making a point about diversity and tokenism in tech. Other people not so much.
The video sparked a wave of criticism, including coverage in Wired, Valleywag, and every other outlet. Some saw it as bold funny commentary, many saw it as racist. I took it down. I’ve been called a lot of things, provocative, offensive, even smart, but Racist? Yikes.
What’s really horrible is that supposedly trusted media like Wired and NPR just lied and said I was in blackface.
Podtech fired me, even though they approved and aired the episode. This was a hard time.
The Comeback
Eventually, the storm passed. In 2008 after laying low and regrouping, I didn’t just come back, I came back swinging. From a basement on Long Island, with no team, no manager, no backing I closed what would become the biggest independent web video deal of its time.
I signed a national distribution deal with Verizon Wireless. My videos were set to stream on Verizon’s V CAST platform, reaching over 3 million mobile users and 1 million FiOS broadband subscribers. This was 2008. There was no TikTok, no Instagram Reels, no creator economy. It was just me, a camera, and a puppet.
I also signed a deal with Cnet.
At a time when brands still didn’t know what to make of internet video, I got one of the biggest telecom companies in the country to bet on it. I was about to become the next Jim Henson.
TechCrunch reported on the deal, calling it a surprising but bold move by a major carrier to embrace web-native talent.
The Fall Part 2
It wouldn’t last though, as soon as the deal was announced suddenly the video controversy from a year earlier was back to haunt me. There were calls for boycotts of Verizon. I was out. It even made the TV news.
Verizon never issued a public statement beyond pulling the content, but by then, the damage had been done.
Losing the Verizon and CNET deals was devastating. I’m not sure there’s another word for it. These weren’t just big money deals, they felt like validation after years of doing things my own way, pushing boundaries when most people were still trying to figure out what web video even was.
What made it harder was that the video that cost me those deals. The Techni**a clip had been made over a year earlier. By the time Verizon and CNET walked away, I had already paid for it. I’d lost the PodTech deal because of it. I’d apologized. I’d gone quiet. I thought the worst had passed.
But then, just when things were finally coming together when I had real distribution, when major platforms were giving me a shot it all came crashing down again. Overnight. No warning. Just gone.
It wasn’t about disagreement or critique. It felt like erasure. Like all the work, the risks, the innovation, I was doing web video before YouTube existed, people liked me, none of that mattered anymore. Just one mistake, frozen in time, was enough to cancel it all out. I’ve always felt it was the Silicon Valley guys who were behind the coordinated campaign.
It knocked the wind out of me. And for a while, I didn’t know if I’d come back from it.
I did come back from it. Eventually. After everything fell apart, I stepped away for a while. I needed the break. The whole thing had taken a toll not just on my career, but on me personally. After some time off, I slowly started making public videos again. Not for platforms, not for sponsors, not to chase trends just to make something fun.
I never got the same traction I had in the early days. I missed the “influencer” wave completely. By the time that whole world took off, I was already a footnote. I was too early. I was doing web video when most people thought you were wasting your time if it wasn’t on TV. But it is what it is.
Another Comeback
I started making videos again. Just for fun.
I made a film. Yes it’s a puppet movie, I promise you’ve never seen anything like it.
I made an ambient film about surfing.
I developed a new group of puppets and shot a short about the news. I was early on that too.
Politics - 2016
I didn’t know who Mike Cernovich was when he first reached out. I mean that literally. I wasn’t plugged into that world, whatever “that world” was. He told me he wanted to produce a documentary about free speech, and that he thought I was the right person to write and direct it. I just made a short doc about Tech writer turned political writer Milo Yiannopoulos. I knew Milo from the old days when he was tech reporter in England. He was moving to America and getting into politics. I made a little doc about him.
I signed on. We made Silenced. Say what you will about the politics my focus was on the voices. I wanted to capture people who felt pushed out of the conversation, whether I agreed with them or not. The cast was over 40 people and included a who’s who of people who would become lunatics including;
Scott Adams, James Altucher, Dave Rubin, Andrew Auernheimer, Anthony Cumia, Alan Dershowitz, David Horowitz, Chuck Johnson, Gavin McInnes, Candace Owens, Milo Yiannopoulos
Here’s the trailer.
The irony wasn’t lost on me. I’d just spent the last few years basically persona non grata because of a video I made way back one I’d already paid for in full: lost deals, public shame, radio silence from every direction. So yeah.
In retrospect though, I never should have made Silenced. At the time, it felt like a lifeline, a chance to direct again, to tell a story, to get back into the game after everything that had happened. I didn’t know much about Mike Cernovich or his politics. I just knew he wanted to fund a documentary about free speech, and I knew how to make one. That was it.
They weren’t entirely wrong. When someone finally said, “Hey, we believe in your voice,” I didn’t stop to ask why. I just said yes.
Silenced wasn’t propaganda when I made it, at least not in my mind. I tried to treat every subject fairly, to let people speak without filter or spin. But context matters. And who you align yourself with matters. And I realize now that my involvement gave certain people and ideas legitimacy that I don’t feel good about.
If I’m honest, I regret it. Not the work I did my best with the material. But the situation. The people. The timing. It all felt off, and I ignored that instinct.
Then after the film is released, out of nowhere, I get invited to lunch with Eric Weinstein, a Peter Thiel money guy. We went to Canter’s on Fairfax. Eric starts talking to me, and within minutes he says something like, “You know, the FBI probably orchestrated the collapse of your career. You were touching nerves that aren’t meant to be touched.”
I just sat there blinking. I’d never heard anything like that. Then he goes, “You ever try microdosing psychedelics? You might want to. Might rewire some things.” Okay.
And then it got weirder. He says his boss Peter Thiel had seen the film. Liked it. Thought it was brave. Eric asks me if I’d want to come up to Thiel’s place, meet some people, talk about possibly doing more.
I told him no.
It wasn’t a protest or a rejection it was instinct. I’d already lived through one professional implosion, and something about all this just felt... radioactive.
I buried the film.
But looking back now, I think I see the bigger picture. I think I was being used. Not just hired, but targeted. My name had already been dragged through the mud years earlier. I’d lost major deals with Verizon and CNET because of a video I made long before people knew what “cancel culture” even was. I’d paid the price for that publicly and privately. And I think some people saw that pain, that bitterness, and figured I could be weaponized. That maybe I’d want revenge. That maybe I was angry enough to help them push their agenda. It was absolutely bonkers. The whole project.
The whole foray into politics has basically converted me into a socialist.
Now
I still run 1938 Media helping people and companies and people tell their stories.
I still dabble in puppet arts.
Here’s Kanye Puppet.
Here’s Elon Puppet.
This has been my story one that’s played out both in public and in private. Online, I’ve been praised, criticized, mocked, and misunderstood. I’ve gone viral and gone quiet. I’ve been called a pioneer and a pariah, often in the same breath. Offline, I’ve just tried to keep going making a living, staying creative, figuring out who I am when no one’s watching.
I’ve made mistakes. I’ve had moments I’m proud of, and others I’d take back in a heartbeat. But I’ve kept creating, because that’s what I do. That’s how I process the world. That’s how I stay grounded when everything else feels uncertain.
This has been my story. What’s yours?
