Strength in numbers is one of the
culminating principles of our society and used to be a task requiring
hours of legwork, promotion, extensive time and willpower. Although the
Internet is often used for maleficent, scandalous or purely monetary
means, occasionally an entity comes along that uses the rapid and
influential power of the web and social networking to support the
greater good.
For those of you who haven’t
heard of James McGibney or his emerging 'Ville' empire, allow us to set
the stage. The former Marine seems to have found the formula for social
media success in short order. Each one of his “Villes” continuously
draws massive national media attention. His appearances include ABC
Nightline, Dr. Phil, Maury Povich, Dr. Drew and Extra. His latest
brainchild, BullyVille.com has exploded within the social networking
scene, quickly outpacing the already wildly popular website he
launched last year,
CheaterVille.com.
CheaterVille is best described as
a dating resource tool for anyone who is looking for a version of Yelp,
for people. He had the idea after returning home from an overseas
deployment with one of his Marine buddies who discovered that his wife
was having an affair during their entire deployment. He’s also launched
KarmaVille, SlingerVille and CupidVille.com, which is a dating site that
references the CheaterVille database. In essence it weeds out all of
the cheaters so you don’t have too.
We recently sat down with James
to discuss the tempered chaos which his life has become; it’s easy to
see why he has so many fans, along with his fair share of
enemies.
CNN: Your first duty station was with
Third Surveillance Reconnaissance Intelligence Group; is this where your
background in Server and network technology began?
JAM: I’ve
always had a ridiculous addiction to anything related to technology. I’m
the product of what happens when you have few friends growing up and
literally no friends in high school. I turned to information technology
as an avenue of self-expression. Code doesn’t ridicule, code is factual.
It gives you exactly what you put into it.
CNN: We
find it interesting that you’ve done the exact opposite of what any
Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist would advise for a startup company.
The business rule of thumb is that you focus on one company, yet you’ve
launched five within two years. Why go against a proven business
model?
JAM: Why not? As long as you believe in
what you’re doing, keep doing it. I could be dead tomorrow so I’m most
certainly not going to have any regrets today. Some VCs think they know
everything and founders know nothing. We just came up with the idea that
they’re hoping to capitalize on. When they do get involved, they want
half of your company and will dilute your vision in the process. There
are some great innovations collecting dust in the valley because a VC
helped drive them into the ground. Having said that, there are a few
VC’s who really do get it, who I admire; they’ll always be founders in
my book.
CNN: We’ve noticed that BullyVille has
been aggressively going after and shutting down revenge porn websites.
You took down the largest, Isanyoneup.com a few months back. On Friday,
you tweeted the following from your BullyVille account; “If going after
sc**bags who run revenge-porn websites & post naked underage
girls makes me a "bully," then so be it.” Was this tweet in retaliation
to a complaint that was filed with the Better Business Bureau against
BullyVille and yourself by the owners of another revenge porn website?
They have accused you, and others, including the group Anonymous, of
bullying them. Are you a bully?
JAM: When
it comes to this specific instance, yes I am. Sometimes you have to be a
bully to beat a bully. You can’t have a logical conversation with
anyone who posts underage naked girls on their website and then tries to
claim “free speech” as justification for running the site. When I
referred to these revenge website owners as being scumbags, that’s free
speech. When they take completely naked photos of victims, some of whom
have been hacked and are underage; and post them on their website,
that’s not free speech. That’s someone who needs to be bullied back.
Just like cheaters hate CheaterVille, bullies hate BullyVille. As
Winston Churchill once said, “you have enemies? Good. That means you’ve
stood up for something in your life.”
CNN: Hunter Moore started making his
rounds again, claiming that he not only was going to launch a website
with naked images of girls, but also post their home addresses
implementing Google Earth for the exact location and directions to the
victims house. The group Anonymous stepped in and systematically
dismantled his life. Do you agree with what they did?
JAM: Do I
agree with it? Yes, I absolutely 100% unequivocally agree with it. I’m
still a little shocked that Anonymous wasn’t chosen as Time Magazines
Person of the Year. Anonymous does so many great things for our society,
and they’re efficiency and precision is noteworthy. When they make a
call to action you better believe people listen. They recently went
after the Westboro Baptist Church after the church said it would picket
the funerals of the victims of the school shootings in Newtown
Connecticut. Picket the funerals of innocent children whose young lives
were senselessly taken away by some deranged sociopath? I guess this is a
prime example of the price some are willing to pay for invoking “free
speech.” Anonymous has ensured that the ringleaders running the
Westboro’s Bapist Church are paying a hefty price for their free
speech.
CNN: Dj ASHBA – lead guitarist for Guns
N Roses - is your spokesman and Becca Tobin from Glee on FOX is your
female spokeswoman for BullyVille. That’s about as far opposite as you
can get, what led to that decision?
JAM: Dj is
one of my closest friends and quite frankly, the guy’s a genius. His
story on BullyVille has been read over 900,000 times, he’s an
inspiration to millions. He’s done such a great job as our spokesman and
he’s one of the most technically astute rock stars on the planet.
Ironically Becca plays a bully on Glee but she’s far from one in real
life. I’m so proud of her and she’s become such a great role model for
her ever growing fan base.
CNN: Next
Ville you plan on launching?
JAM: Decisions,
decisions.
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