Marc LaFountain
Community Director
Richmond, Virginia
Marc gets email. A lot of email.
As Community Director, Marc manages Tumblr’s entire support infrastructure. From tackling general community issues to solving technical support requests, he’s personally read and responded to thousands upon thousands of email messages regarding browser cookies, forgotten passwords, and more.
Yet, Marc wants to emphasize that he is, in fact, an actual human being. You see, a common misconception he encounters is that he’s a fake persona we created to make Support more personable. Emails addressed to “Whoever Really Reads This” and “Marc, Yeah Right” are a surprisingly regular occurrence.
But after a rigorous interrogation and full-body scan, we can attest to him being a real human who is pleased to help with any of your Tumblr needs.
“One of the nice things about support work is the immediacy of the results. Someone couldn’t log into Tumblr and now they can. Someone wasn’t sure how to do something, and now they know,” he says.
As for the future, Marc is orchestrating the expansion of Tumblr’s Support team to better serve our community as it grows over the coming months and years. We just passed 100k total customer service requests in our internal support system today. Here’s to 200k!
Personal data
He has a lovely wife named Francisca and two sometimes-lovely cats named Zora and Gracie.
Favorite support email
“How harmful is it swallow a small amount of nail polish remover?”
Fun fact
Marc was Tumblr’s third employee, hired after two emails and a phone call insisting he could respond to support emails faster than David. He was right.
Name Hunson Nguyen
Location Portland, Oregon
First Post December 2007
Graphic designer Hunson Nguyen is a student at Portland State University, creator of popular Tumblr themes, and former competitive swimmer. A prolific blogger, Hunson helps run several group Tumblrs including Typolicious, I Heart Oregon, and Graphic Everywhere. He can recite pi to 15 decimal places, he loves Pokemon, and he takes public transportation as often as possible. Hunson’s favorite fonts are “Neutra Text” and “Cambria.”
Also check out…
Office Fridges
Office Fridges aims to become the largest repository of office fridge photos available. Submit yours!
My Kids Really Eat This
This mother of three provides useful tips and tricks on preparing healthy, delicious foods. Now eat your scrumptious vegetables!
Jen Bekman Projects
Jen Bekman Projects is running a competition for photographers, Hey, Hot Shot! which ends today at 8:00 pm EDT. Grand Prize, $10,000!
See you next Tuesday!
Mad Men has reentered our Sunday routine which means the Internet has that sparkle back in its all-seeing eye. Not only did Jezebel point us to the delightful photo blog, Pete Campbell’s Bitchface, but this month saw the debut of Natasha Vargas-Cooper’s first book, Mad Men Unbuttoned. Inspired by the TV series and born from a blog, it features original art and essays by many of your favorite fellow Tumblr writers. As she told the Paris Review in an interview published last week, “I started a blog for kicks, figuring I’d be putting my degree in history to work. I got a call from Harper Collins about a month later.”
Very cool.
The White House has issued what is by our estimation the first official statement regarding a blog on Tumblr. A rep told the Washington Post that an account on one of our favorite Tumblr blogs, Pitchfork Reviews Reviews, was, “basically accurate … but the way he characterizes and attributes the comments and details is mostly inaccurate.” The post in question is one of our favorites: it describes in unflinching, run-on detail, the day David spent driving in President Obama’s motorcade, “cranking the van speakers,” and asking The President if he had ever heard of Pitchfork.
Name Ra Ra Riot
Location Formed in Syracuse, NY / Currently touring
First Post July 2009
Ra Ra Riot is an indie rock band from Syracuse, NY that fuses swooning strings and intricate, emotional vocals to create a unique sound. Formed way back in 2006, they got their start doing shows around the Syracuse University campus and eventually moved up to music festivals. Consisting of a vocalist, guitarist, bassist, cellist, violinist, and drummer, they quickly started to grab attention thanks to their energetic live performances and the well-orchestrated layers of their music. RRR use their blog to show fans glimpses into their daily lives and into life on the road as they tour the world. Their second full-length album, The Orchard, drops today.
Also check out…
Crimes against Hugh’s Manatees
A daily comic strip which features a variety of animals who experience the same mundane experiences that we humans have to put up with. Also, dinosaurs!
Oh Yeah Facts
Edmund Burke said that “facts are to the mind what food is to the body.” I’m positive this is true because I just read it on Oh Yeah Facts.
My Mom Reviews My Photos
Tanner takes a photo every day, emails it to mom, and then posts her commentary which may or may not have anything to do with the actual photo. Mom’s dog Toby also weighs in.
Be sure to recommend your favorite blog today!
Introducing: Tumblr Android App
Built by the same brilliant team behind the Tumblr iPhone App, v1 of the official Tumblr Android App is ready to download!
Click here from your Android phone to install
(or click here to download directly)
Jerry Brito and Peter Snyder just launched this beautiful Tumblr app for the iPad. Browse the Dashboard; like, reblog, and create posts; even manage multiple blogs. Awesome.
Name Pasquale D’Silva
Location Born in Sydney, Australia / Currently on tour
First Post September 2009
Brilliant animator and illustrator Pasquale D’Silva wanted to travel the world, so he put forth the following proposal: You pay for airfare and survival expenses, and he’ll come to you and barter his creative skills in return. If you think that’s insane, it gets even more zany: It worked! So far he’s been to New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, and Vancouver, to name a few. Some recent projects he’s helped out include Forrst and Carbonmade, but personally we’re most impressed with upgrades he made to TumblrBot’s human emotion chip.
Also check out…
Wear Today
This guy keeps track of what he wears every day on Tumblr. Oddly beautiful.
Volcanoes
A volcano is an opening in a planet’s surface, which allows hot magma, ash, and gases to escape from below the surface. That’s so hardcore!
SimpleBits
Designer, author and speaker Dan Cederholm founded a tiny creative studio called SimpleBits. This is their blog.
Who do you recommend for Tumblr Tuesday?
Name Allison Weiss
Location Atlanta/Brooklyn
First Post December 2007
At fifteen, Allison Weiss picked up a guitar and decided to be a punk rock star in an effort to win over her high school crush. The relationship didn’t last long, but her passion for music has. She spent five years in Athens, Georgia playing every show she could get: open mics, festivals, street corners. She recorded and released albums, booked tours, and built a dedicated fanbase, all while getting her degree in graphic design. And today, literally today, she’s driving a 16-foot truck filled with all her belongings up to Brooklyn to embark on a new phase in her life and career.
Also check out…
Better Book Titles
For those of you without the time to read book reviews or blurbs or first sentences: This blog cuts through the cryptic “reading” part and gives you the meat of a story in one condensed image.
Look At This Fucking Person
Regular people, like you and me. Just look at them.
Clear Science
Science lessons presented in clear, pain English that anyone can understand. I mean, maybe not anyone, really, but most of us.
See you next Tuesday!
Time Out New York: Best jobs in New York City
We’re so lucky to work here. And we’re incredibly honored that Time Out featured us in their lineup of the best places to work in New York City!
If you’re an awesome developer, we’d love to work with you.
Photo by the superb Allison Michael Orenstein
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