About
Is Anyone Up? was an adult media submission website featuring photographs and videos of anyone of legal age submitted to the database, which often included musicians and fans of the hardcore music genre.
History
The domain name for the site IsAnyoneUp[2] was registered on August 12th, 2010 by founder Hunter Moore, who stated in an interview with the alternative culture blog Alt Press[1] that he was inspired to create the site because he experienced “some sort of high" from looking at nude pictures of someone he knew.
On April 19th, 2012, the website was shut down and sold to the anti-bullying site BullyVille[4] for $15,000 according to ABC News,[8] which featured an open letter explaining why the site was removed. The letter has since been removed but was pasted on the Eurogamer Forums[3] on April 20th (shown below).
From Hunter Moore
It’s been a little over a year from the first post on Is Anyone Up and its crazy to think that the few posts I did with my friends to get back at a few girls that broke our hearts would turn into what it did. I started the site with zero dollars, I had -$120 in my bank account and had to ask my mom for her credit card to pay for the $9 Server bill.
Running this site has been an uphill battle to say the least. From the Server Company’s bills to the lawyers taking people’s money promising they could get your images down to Facebook, PayPal, Live Nation, A Day to Remember and the countless others who tried to shut me down, beat me up or the girl who stabbed me and yet we are still here.
The site was started for the scene and I tried to keep it that way as long as I could by supporting bands and giving them reasonable prices on ad space. The bills were getting too insane and I had to turn to the porn game for extra money but it’s too shady and, in my opinion, it ruined the site. That and my appearance on Anderson Cooper didn’t help. The site was a blessing for me and still is, but I am burned out and I honestly can’t take another underage kid getting submitted and having to go through the process of reporting it and dealing with all the legal drama of that situation.
To everyone who got a tattoo, bought a shirt, wrote on your body, self-submitted or came to a party, I truly thank you for the support. Without your support, the site would not have been what it was. To all the girls who submitted those band guy’s and too all the guys who submitted the groupies, you made the Internet fun again. We Got #NBHNC trending on twitter, bands to make music videos about us and a lifetime ban for me on Facebook. Since we launched Isanyoneup.com a year ago, we received over 500 million page views. Girls got naked of all sizes at the IAU parties; we did it from Canada to Vegas. You made it possible for me to have the best life and made me realize what people will do for a few extra friend requests & followers on twitter. I’ll miss a lot of things but mostly the community. I never got to take in everything while it was happening because it was going so fast even though there was drama and lots of tears and pissed off parents, I feel blessed and thankful for all of you who came here to support me. I’ve become friends with the founder of BullyVille, CupidVille, CheaterVille and KarmaVille and he helped me realize that my talents in the programming and social networking world could be channeled in a positive way and we spoke about ways to move on, which is ultimately what I’ve decided to do. I might do some writing on bullyville.com to help people who have been bullied; I’ve been on both sides of the fence. I am putting this message up on Bullyville.com to stand up for underage bullying. I think it’s important that everyone realizes the damage that online bullying can cause. I would love to write everything here but I can’t. I’ll miss you all but once you’re on page 2 nobody cares anymore…."
I also have a new project at www.wepartyforacause.net. This will be all about me organizing parties that benefit different charities. These will be some of the largest and craziest parties you will ever see with a percentage of earnings going to a range of causes.
Features
The site allowed users to anonymously submit nude photographs to be featured on the blog, which would often be accompanied by a clothed picture taken from the subject’s social networking profile page and a reaction image. Most images were either submitted by the subject themselves or maliciously leaked by someone else. The blog also included “Daily Hate” posts, which featured angry emails from people whose photos were displayed on the site without their consent.
Controversy
The site has been criticized for being malicious and unethical, encouraging readers to submit nude photographs of enemies and former lovers. On July 6th, 2011, Forbes[5] published an article titled “Revenge Porn With a Facebook Twist,” which noted that many of the submissions to Moore’s site were maliciously uploaded by people seeking revenge. On November 21st, Moore appeared on the talk show Anderson Live and was confronted by two women who had been featured on the site.
“No one put a gun to your head and made you take these pictures. It’s 2011, everything’s on the Internet.”
On December 4th, the Los Angeles Times[6] published an article titled “Rockers, fully exposed on Is Anyone Up?”, reporting that several bands had issued take down notices for posting nude images of musicians on the site.
FBI Investigation
On May 16th, 2012, The Village Voice published an article titled “‘Gary Jones’ Wants Your Nudes,” which reported that Moore was under investigation by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for having hosted a large number of photographs believe to have been obtained from the hacker “Gary Jones.” On May 22nd, ABC News[8] published an article title “FBI Investigates ‘Revenge Porn’ Website Founder,” reporting that
Traffic
In an interview with The Awl[7] on November 10th, 2011, Moore claimed that the site was receiving over 30 million page views and making $13,000 per month. An article published in the Los Angeles Times[6] the following month reported that Moore revealed that the site was receiving over 1.6 million unique visitors according to Google Analytics.
Search Interest
External References
[1]AltPress – Naked & Famous – How a Risque New Website Pushes Boundaries and Buttons
[2]Wayback Machine – Is Anyone Up?
[3]Eurogamer – isanyoneup is no more
[4]BullyVille – Take the bull by the horns
[5]Forbes – Revenge Porn With a Facebook Twist
[6]Los Angeles Times – Rockers, fully exposed on Is Anyone Up?
[7]The Awl – The Man Who Makes Money Publishing Your Nude Pics