I’m pro-gatekeeping for that reason. I want somebody who is an expert. You are someone who’s studied photography in college. You worked jobs, you shoot as well as edit, and you’re a real student of the game. I trust you, and if you put it in front of me, I look at it differently than if I’m aimlessly scrolling Instagram.
Normalize gatekeeping again.
People act like I’m crazy, but some people dedicate their lives to these things, and we have to respect that and recognize that it’s valuable in society.
People get uptight about that word [“gatekeeping”], but it means being thoughtful and careful. It’s just as much about building something and creating a space people trust and are excited to visit.
Tim Barber
A lot of what you were showing back then was considered pretty edgy, and like you said, there were no rules. As you restart the site, do you have to look at it differently? Do the same rules still apply?
I mean, rules change. When I went to rebuild the website, I re-edited the entire thing, and I took out some stuff because I didn’t think it was interesting anymore. Some stuff was, I’m not going to say too edgy, but— those things that you think are funny when you’re in your twenties aren’t that funny anymore.
In 2006, if I showed it to my parents, they would’ve lost their minds.
When I was working there, my parents looked at Vice Magazine, and I think they were worried about me.
“Tim, you’re telling us they pay you to do this?” But there weren’t American magazines or culture magazines that led with photography. The magazine and your site introduced a broader population to photographers like Ryan McGinley, Dash Snow, Jason Noctio, Peter Sutherland, and Ed Templeton.
