Andrew Michael Baron (born 1970) is the founder of

Rocketboom Rocketboom was a daily vlog produced by Andrew Baron in the format of a newscast with a comedic slant. Since 2004 Rocketboom has presented oddities, vlog excerpts, social and political commentary. The Rocketboom weblog and Apollo Pony featured su ...

, video aggregator Magma, the non-profit Humanwire, and the co-founder of

Know Your Meme Know Your Meme (KYM) is a website and video series that uses wiki A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki ...

. Baron has taught undergraduate and graduate classes at

Parsons School of Design The Parsons School of Design is a private art and design college under The New School located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhattan art ...

and was teaching IDTech at M.I.T. when he came up with the idea for Rocketboom.

Early life

Baron holds a BA in Philosophy from

Bates College Bates College () is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Lewiston, Maine. Anchored by the Historic Quad, the campus of Bates totals with a small urban campus which includes 33 Victorian ...

and a

master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admi ...

in Design and Technology from Parsons School of Design.

Early career

In 1999, Baron was the owner of a visual and performing arts gallery,

Movements Gallery Movement may refer to: Generic uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Movement (sign language), a hand movement when signing * Motion, commonly referred to as movement * Movement (music), a division of a larger co ...

on 6th Street in Austin, Texas which the

Austin Chronicle Austin refers to: Common meanings * Austin, Texas, United States, a city * Austin (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin (surname), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin Motor Company, a British car manufac ...

named 'Best New Multi-Disciplinary Space in Austin' in the 'Best of Austin's Critics Poll'. An active music composer throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Baron scored numerous scores for Austin-area artists, including "Mad About Harry", a film by AMFILMS awarded as a Hollywood Film Festival, 2000 finalist. He was appointed by the City of Austin Arts Commission to serve as a Mixed Arts Advisory Panelist, 2001.

Online video

After releasing Rocketboom in late 2004, Baron established himself as one of the first

vloggers A vlog (), also known as a video blog or video log, is a form of blog for which the medium is video. Vlog entries often combine embedded video (or a video link) with supporting text, images, and other metadata. Entries can be recorded in one ta ...

and arguably one of the most influential. With Rocketboom, Baron built one of the first large audiences around a video show, and went on to generate the first large-scale advertising deals. On August 19, 2005, Baron was interviewed on ''CBS Evening News''. In an "Eye on America", segment CBS veteran

Jim Axelrod Jim Axelrod (born January 25, 1963) is the Chief Investigative Correspondent for CBS News and reports across all CBS News programs and platforms. Axelrod was one of CBS News' embedded correspondents in Iraq and was the first TV reporter to broa ...

commented on the effort at daily news coverage on a limited budget and Baron's early grasp of the next Internet wave. "You know what they call that? Vision." Baron directed a portion of "Killer", an episode of '' CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'' which aired February 2, 2006.

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...

featured Baron's Rocketboom on stage when releasing the

video iPod The iPod Classic (stylized and marketed as iPod classic and originally simply iPod) is a discontinued portable media player created and formerly marketed by Apple Inc. There were six generations of the iPod Classic, as well as a spin-off (the ...

and again when releasing the

Apple TV Apple TV is a digital media player and a microconsole developed and marketed by Apple. It is a small piece of networking hardware that sends received media data such as video and audio to a TV or external display. Its media services include ...

. In March 2006, Baron commented on the sale of a week of advertising for $40,000 on eBay in ''Brandweek'': In 2008, Baron created the first version of the

database, to accompany a spin-off show he created and produced for Rocketboom. Also in 2008, with one of the most followed Twitter accounts, Baron made international news when he put his Twitter account up for sale on eBay. Baron released his third major site, Magma, in 2009. In 2011, Baron sold Know Your Meme to

Cheezburger I Can Has Cheezburger? (abbreviated as ICHC) is a blog-format website which features videos and image macros. It was created in 2007 by Eric Nakagawa and Kari Unebasami. It is one of the most popular Internet sites of its kind, receiving up ...

in a reported "low seven-figure deal".

Awards

Baron's work had been recognized by the

Webbys The Webby Awards (colloquially referred to as the Webbys) are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over three thousand industry experts an ...

, the Vloggies and

Streamys The YouTube Streamy Awards, also known as the Streamy Awards or Streamys, are an awards show presented annually by Dick Clark Productions and Tubefilter to recognize excellence in online video, including Television director, directing, acting, ...

Personal life

Andrew Baron is the son of trial lawyer Fred Baron. Andrew Baron made international news again in 2008, when he used his blog to plead with a drug company to help save his father's life.

Arrest for fraud

On November 16, 2017, Baron was arrested on charges that he stole money from his non-profit, Humanwire, to which he pled no contest. According to Baron, forensic accounting verified his side of the story and ended the court case. However, he pled no contest in order to end the case as quickly as possible. Baron was charged with theft in excess of $100,000 from Humanwire, the nonprofit he established to help Syrian refugees. Baron entered a plea of no contest in October 2018. "Prosecutors dropped two counts of theft between $100,000 and $1 million as part of the plea deal." Baron was also given a one-year deferred sentence, charged $26,999.97 in restitution, and made to perform 40 hours of community service. "An investigative report by The Denver Post in 2017 found that the charity, which Baron founded in 2015, struggled with delays in promised aid to refugees. The newspaper found that more than 100 refugees who had been promised aid from Humanwire faced evictions and other deprivations, according to interviews with former volunteers, workers and donors."

References

*Axelrod, Jim. ''CBS Evening News'': "Eye on America" (August 19, 200

*Farhi, Paul. "Rocketboom!": ''American Journalism Review'' (June–July, 2006

External links

Andrew Baron's Official BlogAndrew Baron's Biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baron, Andrew 1970 births American television directors Television producers from New York City American Internet celebrities Living people Parsons School of Design alumni Bates College alumni