Tim Pool

Timothy Daniel Pool (born March 9, 1986) is an American citizen journalist,[6][7][8] YouTuber, and political commentator.[1] He first became known for live streaming the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011.[9][10] Pool joined Vice Media and Fusion TV in 2013 and 2014, later moving to independent work on YouTube and other platforms.

Tim Pool
Pool in 2015
Personal information
BornTimothy Daniel Pool
(1986-03-09) March 9, 1986
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.[1]
OccupationYouTuber, Journalist
Websitetimcast.com
YouTube information
Channels
Years active2011–present
Genre
Subscribers
  • 1,020,000 (Tim Pool)
  • 1,050,000 (Timcast)
  • 866,000 (Timcast IRL)
  • 157,000 (SCNR)
Total views
  • 230,849,713 (Tim Pool)[2]
  • 611,332,541 (Timcast)[3]
  • 94,416,606 (Timcast IRL)[4]
  • 2,856,227 (SCNR)[5]
100,000 subscribers
1,000,000 subscribers 2020
Updated: August 25, 2020

Early life

According to Pool, he grew up in Chicago's South Side in a lower-middle-class family and left school at age 14.[11][12]

Career

Occupy

Pool used a live-chat stream to respond to questions from viewers while reporting Occupy Wall Street.[13] Pool has also let his viewers direct him on where to shoot footage.[14] He modified a toy remote-controlled Parrot AR.Drone for aerial surveillance and modified software for live streaming into a system called DroneStream.[15][16] Pool's use of live streaming video and aerial drones during Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011 led to an article in The Guardian querying whether such activities could take the form of counterproductive surveillance.[16] In January 2012, he was physically accosted by a masked assailant.[17][18]

Pool's video taken during the protests was instrumental evidence in the acquittal of photographer Alexander Arbuckle, who had been arrested by the NYPD. The video showed that the arresting officer lied under oath, though no charges were filed.[19] While covering the NoNATO protests at the 2012 Chicago summit, Pool and four others were pulled over by a dozen Chicago police officers in unmarked vehicles. The group was removed from the vehicle at gunpoint, questioned, and detained for ten minutes. The reason given by police was that the vehicle the team had been in matched a description.[20]

In the context of the Occupy movement, Pool's footage was aired on NBC and other mainstream networks.[15][21][22][23] Pool was nominated as a Time 100 personality in March 2012 for his importance to the Occupy movement alongside David Graeber.[24]

With journalistic outlets

In 2013, Pool joined Vice Media producing and hosting content and developing new methods of reporting.[25] In 2013, he reported on the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul with Google Glass.[26][25] In April 2013, he received a Shorty Award in the "Best Journalist in Social Media" category.[27] From 2013 to 2014, as Vice correspondent, Pool covered and live streamed mass protests in Ukraine that led to collapse of the Yanukovych government.[28]

In 2014, he joined Fusion TV as Director of Media innovation and Senior Correspondent.[29][30][31]

Independent work

In February 2017, Pool traveled to Sweden to investigate claims of "no-go zones" and problems with refugees in the country. He launched a crowdfunding effort to do so after US President Donald Trump alluded to crimes related to immigration in Sweden. Infowars writer Paul Joseph Watson offered to pay for travel costs and accommodation for any reporter "to stay in crime-ridden migrant suburbs of Malmö."[32][33] Watson donated $2,000 to Pool's crowdfund to travel to Sweden. While in Sweden, Pool largely disputed that migrant suburbs of Malmö and Stockholm were crime ridden, saying that Chicago is vastly more violent.[34][32][33]

However, Pool alleged that he had to be escorted by police out of Rinkeby, a Stockholm suburb, due to purported threats to his safety. Swedish police have disputed Pool's claims, stating, "Our understanding is that he didn't receive an escort. However, he followed the police who left the place."[35] The police stated that, "When Tim Pool took out a camera and started filming, a group of young people pulled their hoods up and covered their faces and shouted at him to stop filming. The officers then told Tim Pool that it was not wise to stay there in the middle of the square and keep filming."[35]

In 2014, Pool helped to launch Tagg.ly, a mobile app that watermarks photos. Pool said he was interested in this kind of application due to experiences where others used his photographs without attribution.[36][37] In 2019 he co-founded the news company Subverse (Now SCNR), which raised $1 million in 22 hours via regulation crowdfunding in 2019, surpassing the previous record on Wefunder.[38]

Podcaster Joe Rogan invited Pool onto his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, following an interview with Twitter founder Jack Dorsey. The two demonstrated a limited understanding of Twitter, censorship, and abuse during the discussion, says Atlantic writer Devin Gordon.[39] They criticized the banning of Milo Yiannopoulos from Twitter, arguing that the provocateur had not truly encouraged his fans to harass Ghostbusters actress Leslie Jones.[40] In early 2019, Rogan invited Pool and Dorsey, as well as Twitter chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde, back on his podcast. Pool described cases where he asserted conservatives were unfairly suspended on Twitter. In particular, Pool brought up the banning of Alex Jones and argued that Twitter rules against misgendering transgender users is ideological. Gadde said that Twitter is a free speech platform on which punishments are based on evaluation of consistently-applied harassment guidelines.[41][42]

In August 2020, Donald Trump liked a tweet of Pool's expressing sympathy and support for Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old boy from Antioch, Illinois, who had shot three protesters during civil unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, killing two. Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., retweeted a statement by Pool describing how the case of Rittenhouse had convinced Pool to vote for Trump. Trump Jr. also retweeted Pool noting that "the DOJ is dropping the hammer" in pursuing prosecution of 74 protesters in Portland.[43][44][45][46]

Prior to the results of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election, Pool claimed that Trump would win the election in a 50 state landslide.[47]

As of 2019 and 2020, Pool's audience was largely right-wing.[45][48][49]

Views

Vice, Pool's former employer, has described him as "lefty" and "progressive" for his anti-corporate politics, as well as "right-wing".[50][51] He has described himself as a social liberal who supported Bernie Sanders in 2016. According to Politico, Pool's "views on issues including social media bias and immigration often align with conservatives".[52] According to Al Jazeera, "Pool has amplified claims that conservative media endure persecution and bias at the hands of tech companies."[53] On August 24, 2020, Pool announced his support for Donald Trump in the 2020 U.S Presidential Election.[45]

Pool tends to reject a left/right political framework for both self-description and in other contexts, instead preferring to divide the public into those who are "discerning" and "skeptical regarding legacy media" and those who are "undiscerning" and "uninitiated".[54]:210 He often discusses his impression that "the news is dying" and that it, as a result, tends to skew towards liberal and left-leaning audiences.[54]:211

References
  1. Townsend, Allie (November 15, 2011). "Watch: Occupy Wall Street, Broadcasting Live". Time. Retrieved January 7, 2012.
  2. "Tim Pool Channel Analytics". Social Blade. Retrieved April 12, 2020.
  3. "Timcast Channel Analytics". Social Blade. Retrieved April 12, 2020.
  4. "Timcast IRL Channel Analytics". Social Blade. Retrieved August 6, 2020.
  5. "SCNR Channel Analytics". Social Blade. Retrieved April 12, 2020.
  6. Rebecca Savransky (August 15, 2016). "Journalist pulls out of Milwaukee over escalating racial tensions". The Hill. Retrieved March 12, 2019.
  7. Michelle Mark (August 15, 2016). "Prominent digital journalist pulls out of Milwaukee: 'For those who are perceivably white, it is just not safe to be here'". Business Insider. Retrieved March 12, 2019.
  8. Andrew Marantz (December 11, 2017). "The Live-Streamers Who Are Challenging Traditional Journalism". The Hill. Retrieved March 12, 2019.
  9. Fields, Jim (February 3, 2012). "The Media Messenger of Zuccotti Park". Time. Retrieved July 31, 2019.
  10. DeGrasse, Martha (November 17, 2011). "Mobile phone streams Occupy Wall Street to the world". TCRWireless. Retrieved January 7, 2012.
  11. @Timcast (April 16, 2017). "@tariqnasheed Im a mixed race high school dropout from the southside of Chicago and we probably agree on many issues but you wont even give it a chance" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  12. S.A., COPESA, Consorcio Periodistico de Chile. "Indignado en Wall St - La Tercera El Semanal - La Tercera Edición Impresa" (in Spanish). Archived from the original on February 27, 2015.
  13. "Occupy PressThink: Tim Pool". Pressthink. November 20, 2011. Retrieved January 7, 2012.
  14. Joanna (November 15, 2011). "Watch: Occupy Wall Street, Broadcasting Live". Ustream.tv. Retrieved January 7, 2012.
  15. Captain, Sean (January 6, 2012). "Threat Level: Livestreaming Journalists Want to Occupy the Skies With Cheap Drones". Wired. Retrieved January 7, 2012.
  16. Sharkey, Noel; Knuckey, Sarah (December 21, 2011). "Occupy Wall Street's 'occucopter' – who's watching whom?". The Guardian. London. Retrieved January 7, 2012.
  17. Devereaux, Ryan (February 3, 2012). "Occupy Wall Street: 'There's a militant animosity bred by direct action'". The Guardian. London.
  18. Robbins, Christopher (May 8, 2012). "Anarchists Think Photographers And Reporters Are The "Fu*king Enemy"". Gothamist. Archived from the original on May 12, 2012.
  19. Levinson, Paul (2012). New New Media, 2nd edition. Pearson. p. 182.
  20. Parker, Lisa (May 20, 2020). "Independent Journalists Detained at Gunpoint". NBC Chicago.
  21. Martin, Adam (January 5, 2012). "The Very Public Breakup of Occupy Wall Street's Ustream Team". The Atlantic Wire. Archived from the original on June 21, 2013. Retrieved January 7, 2012.
  22. Coscarelli, Joe (January 5, 2012). "Daily Intel: Occupy Wall Street's Video Stars Are Feuding". New York. Retrieved January 7, 2012.
  23. Captain, Sean (November 21, 2011). "Tim Pool And Henry Ferry: The Men Behind Occupy Wall Street's Live Stream". Fast Company. Retrieved January 7, 2012.
  24. "The 2012 Time 100 Poll". Time. March 29, 2012. Archived from the original on November 12, 2020.CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  25. Dredge, Stuart (July 30, 2013). "How Vice's Tim Pool used Google Glass to cover Istanbul protests". The Guardian.
  26. Martin, Adam (December 7, 2011). "Occupy Wall Street Has a Drone: The Occucopter". The Atlantic Wire. Retrieved January 7, 2012.
  27. Ngak, Chenda (April 9, 2013). "Shorty Awards 2013 honors Michelle Obama, Jimmy Kimmel". CBS News. Archived from the original on April 11, 2013.CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  28. Pool, Tim (May 6, 2014). "Live Streaming the Ukrainian Revolt". Vice News. Retrieved July 31, 2020.
  29. Steel, Emily (September 7, 2014). "Fusion Set to Name Director of Media Innovation". The New York Times.
  30. "Tim Pool". Fusion.
  31. "Fusion Brings On Tim Pool". Cision. September 9, 2014.
  32. Bowden, George (February 21, 2017). "Paul Joseph Watson Comes Good On Twitter Offer To 'Investigate Malmo, Sweden, Crimes'". HuffPost. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
  33. "The man sent to 'crime-ridden' Sweden by a right-wing journalist has reported his findings". indy100. February 28, 2017.
  34. "Tim Pool har lämnat Sverige". SVT Nyheter (in Swedish). March 15, 2017. Retrieved May 12, 2019.
  35. "Police dispute US journalist's claim he was escorted out of Rinkeby". The Local. March 1, 2017. Retrieved March 5, 2017.
  36. Burgett, Gannon (May 6, 2014). "Tagg.ly Makes For Simple Watermarking of Photos on iOS". PetaPixel. Retrieved April 2, 2019.
  37. Reid, Alastair (April 29, 2014). "Taggly app launches to watermark images and video". journalism.co.uk. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
  38. Alois, J. D. (October 9, 2019). "Crowdfunding on Wefunder, SubverseNews Tops $1 Million in 22 Hours". Crowdfund Insider. Retrieved October 20, 2019.
  39. Gordon, Story by Devin (August 19, 2019). "Why Is Joe Rogan So Popular?". The Atlantic. Retrieved December 25, 2020.
  40. Peters, Justin (March 21, 2019). "How Joe Rogan's Hugely Popular Podcast Became an Essential Platform for "Freethinkers" Who Hate the Left". Slate Magazine.
  41. Gilmour, David (March 5, 2019). "Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey appears on Joe Rogan's podcast—again". The Daily Dot. Retrieved December 25, 2020.
  42. Scola, Nancy (October 28, 2020). "Is Twitter Going Full Resistance? Here's the Woman Driving the Change". Politico. Retrieved December 25, 2020.
  43. Cheney-Rice, Zak (August 31, 2020). "Trump Is an Arsonist Masquerading As a Firefighter". Intelligencer. Retrieved December 29, 2020.
  44. Crump, James (August 28, 2020). "Trump Jr shares post saying 'DOJ is dropping the hammer' as 74 face federal charges over Portland protests". The Independent. Retrieved December 29, 2020.
  45. Graziosi, Graig (August 28, 2020). "Trump Jr shares post defending alleged Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse". The Independent. Retrieved December 29, 2020.
  46. Papenfuss, Mary (August 30, 2020). "Trump Ducks Question About Accused Teen Shooter In Kenosha". HuffPost.
  47. Goforth, Claire (January 27, 2021). "MAGA star who predicted 50-state Trump victory says he's single because of feminism". The Daily Dot. Retrieved February 8, 2021.
  48. Goforth, Claire (November 13, 2020). "MAGA star who predicted 50-state Trump victory says he's single because of feminism". The Daily Dot.
  49. Kantrowitz, Alex (July 15, 2019). "How Silicon Valley's Angry Right Wing Sends Its Message To Washington, DC". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
  50. Uberti, David (July 26, 2019). "Tulsi Gabbard's $50M Google Lawsuit Takes a Page from the Far-Right Playbook". Vice News. Retrieved October 20, 2019.
  51. "Trump Invites Fringe Social Media Company Popular With Nazis to the White House". Vice News. July 10, 2019. Retrieved October 20, 2019.
  52. Overly, Steven (July 11, 2019). "Social media gadflies gather for airing of grievances with Trump". Politico. Retrieved October 20, 2019.
  53. "Critics slam Trump 'social media summit' over far-right invitees". Al Jazeera. July 11, 2020. Retrieved October 20, 2019.
  54. Lewis, Rebecca (October 17, 2019). ""This Is What the News Won't Show You": YouTube Creators and the Reactionary Politics of Micro-celebrity". Television & New Media. 21 (2): 201–217. doi:10.1177/1527476419879919. S2CID 210372373.
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