Reddit Co-Founder's Book Release Video Is Amazingly Strange

What's This?

By Christine Erickson2013-09-04 11:02:27 -0400

Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian is known for his unconventional Internet entrepreneurship, but this video really takes the cake.

To promote his upcoming book, Without Their Permission, Ohanian turned to NMA (Next Media Animation), a Taiwanese company notorious for its bizarre lampoon animation.

See also: Alexis Ohanian Leaks First Excerpt of His Book on Reddit

The avant garde press release is jam-packed with Internet culture and randomness. At one point, an animated version of Ohanian hangs out with Cookie Monster, then he flies a hybrid Nyan Cat-Totoro kitty bus to school.

The video is to promote a 100-stop college book tour. Over the course of five months, the new author and NMA-proclaimed "Internet Champion" will visit 65 colleges across the U.S.

Ohanian wrote in a blog post that the tour is not your typical, stuffy meet-and-greet. Each school's subreddit will decide discussion topics for each keynote, based on upvotes — followed by an AMA (ask me anything). There will also be an alum from each school interviewed as a special guest. The customary book signing at the end of each stop will include a networking event, "so everyone can put their newfound enthusiasm towards planning their foray into entrepreneurship, not standing in a long line."

Y Combinator, the startup incubator and accelerator that first funded Reddit before it was acquired in 2007, is funding the tour. Partner and co-founder Jessica Livingston told Mashable the company has never sponsored anything before, but this was an exception.

"This tour is going to introduce a lot of people to ideas that would be hard to find elsewhere," said Livingston.

Without Their Permission hits shelves on Oct. 1. It is currently available for pre-order on Amazon, Barnes & Noble's website and IndieBound.

Image: YouTube, Alexis Ohanian

Topics: alexis ohanian, books, Business, Media, NMA, reddit, Video, Videos