Comments that are uncivil, racist, misogynistic, misandrist, or contain political name calling will be removed and the poster subject to ban at moderators discretion.
Help us make this a better community by becoming familiar with the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/about/rules/).
Report any suspicious users to the mods of this subreddit using Modmail [here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/facepalm) or Reddit site admins [here](https://www.reddit.com/report). **All reports to Modmail should include evidence such as screenshots or any other relevant information.**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/facepalm) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I popped onto your account to check his comments and they’re all gone but not only that Stu has turned off comments on the phone post, and is at this moment deleting comments on all new post about this, and continuing to advertiste the clearly nonexistent phone as existing…
I feel like it’s worth mentioning that his post about this appears to be [these 9 uploads](https://imgur.com/a/fnWemn1), each with the following caption:
>Guess what? I’m not a robot
>Troll patrol is exhausting
>I’m a real human with feelings
>What you say can hurt me
>I’ll be back when I’m strong enough
>Love (most of) you X
Like, could he be any more self-pitying lol?
ETA: I just went back to his account to check smth else and happened to have my volume on. Apparently, each of the posts has [“Where Is My Mind?” by the Pixies](https://youtu.be/OJ62RzJkYUo?si=EHY6qJk0yXi-481F) playing in the background. I genuinely didn’t think he could get more performative, but there ya go.
>actually that was the other way around, they bullied me for days and when I posted some comments back on their profile (I spent about 5 mins) they screenshot yes a very tiny slither of it - leaving out all their attacks and dm's and they posted it on Reddit to get attention.
What a piece of shit. I have no clue what might have happened in DMs, but getting butthurt about valid criticism and responding like a 5 year old is NOT a good look. The phone he designed was for mental health, and clearly his own mental health is, to use the proper psychiatric diagnosis, fucking crazy. I hope his AI phone helps him!
Also apologies if it was creepy to go onto your account the user wasn’t blocked out so I’d assume it be okay and was generally curious as to see if he’d been that careful to cover all his tracks.
How dare you, going on to his account page?!?! The page he publicly posted?!?! YOU FIEND!
I'm sure he appreciates more people going to his page honestly lol so you dont really have to worry about that
OP wouldn’t have included both user names if he didn’t want people to go look for themselves lol. Hopefully this Stuart guy’s whole scam blows up in his face
EDIT: for context he claimed that someone was trolling him on tumblr.
EDIT2: All of this has taken place over the last five days, from when I commented on his original post before comments were restricted to today. I posted a screen recording of our DMs on instagram in my story to help provide additional context.
Commenting some context here so it doesn't get lost, I have not used tumblr in months, because I simply do not understand it properly. The only other platforms besides reddit and instagram where my personal posting has taken place is on tiktok, where I shared the majority of the original comment thread, before it was deleted, as well as the contextually important messages he sent me.
Thank you for this context he was claiming in a comment that he’d since deleted/hidden? it was actually you trolling him for months leading to his unhinged response. I doubt he’d be telling the truth as he seems like a man child but with the internet you never know so your context is appreciated.
Some people in my writing group are considering AI for their covers. I don’t understand how they don’t realize that using AI generated covers can give the impression they used AI to write their book.
A ton of people won’t buy books with AI art on principle. If the book looks good they’ll just pirate it- sorry, ‘scrape it for use in their biological intelligence training set.’
I’m going to go out on a limb and say he’s not making or producing anything. Just reselling other products with his stickers on them.
Gotta learn to read the painting on the wall.
I read into it before I ever bought any. Some of his paint colors are a good deal and some aren't. It looks like more recently (bought back in 2020ish) he has done more outsourcing. Reading his sub reddit now, I wouldn't buy any because he's got insane shipping delays and issues in a failure to scale properly.
He's a visionary, a beautiful brilliant man who's only crime is trying to scam people and sounding like a 12 year old with no self esteem
Also the first two things i said are lies
This should actually be a big deal. That's definitely an AI image, but he's taking $300+ pre-orders for it and pretending it already exists. That's not even getting into how insane his response it.
From someone who knows about product development cycles and manufacturing/procurement, he's absolutely full of shit saying this will ship by the end of the year when he doesn't even have a working prototype to photograph lol
Nokia 105. Cost like $20. They do calls, texts, and snake.
2 week battery life, give or take and use the common bl5c battery.
No need for a vaporware product of something simple that already exists.
I'm sure you can still play snake, completely free, but also you have to pay for bonus lives and you can only play four rounds before you have to pay for more energy and you'll also be constantly asked if you want to buy pink polka-dot skins for your snake (but these aren't the ads-- don't worry, there are *also* ads)
I don't get why everyone is talking about this being AI when the bigger issue seems to be that this person is taking money for a product that is nowhere close to existing. On top of that he's planning on charging crazy money for it.
If that was a render form a real CAD file he'd made himself, would that be any better?
I'd say from a "technical" standpoint, a rendering of a fully designed product would be better. Mostly because then it's something that has actually been properly designed and might even have the plans for the parts and specs.
This is just him going into some ai "art" thing and saying, brick phone, transparent green, make logo say something dumb af.
But like others have said, the larger issues are the bullying and the outright lies he's telling.
Fair enough. I really shouldn't have said CAD file, as that does kind of imply he has a proper plan for manufacturing it.
I was thinking more in terms of a 3D model he had made himself. I'm not a good artist at all, but I think I could knock something like this together pretty quickly in something like Blender. It would be a nice picture, but it wouldn't be even close to something you could physically build.
Yeah, 300 for a dumb phone is stupid since you can get one for 50 and below.
If it was a render of something he made that would be fine but that price is pathetic.
And definitely bullying people is just assinine when you use AI to make your render.
That's what half the stuff on Amazon is nowadays. If you want to save a few bucks and can wait a couple weeks for delivery, you can almost always find the same product on AliExpress for cheaper.
Worse than no working prototype: he couldn't even get someone to design a theoretical (on-paper, like a blueprint) prototype and have a concept artist render that (which would still require him to give a heavy disclaimer that such an image is nothing more than a conceptual rendering).
If you're serious about a product, you'll have the time and money to work with artists who can breathe life into it. Using AI is the equivalent of getting down on one knee and proposing to your partner with a ring pop: If your intent is to be funny and nothing else, it's probably fine. But you have to be a special kind of asshole to think you'll be taken seriously.
He is just gonna repackage dumb phones already available. You could get this up and running in like a month.
Like, he is still grifting and a shit person but he could probably manage to deliver product here.
The only way he's going to be able to deliver anything is if he buys an already existing product and slaps his name on it.
That's not "delivering a product", that's a scam.
Wait wait he says all non smart phones are ridiculously expensive but is charging 300 for this? I got my grandparents a cheap phone for like £50 does what they need it to do and still works years later.
You can even get smart phones for not much more than that...
He's taking advantage of exactly the same vulnerable people the product claims to help.
If there was any doubt this dude was subhuman based on that alone, the psychotic harassment of OP sure took care of that lol
Yeah but his is *special* and *homemade* and specially tailored to improve your *mental health*. So it’s FAR better than your average dumb phone. Well worth the smartphone price tag.
Hey, he designed that phone because his mental health was suffering! /s
Edit: also dude has 100k followers but most his art only has like 30-50 likes, no comments. I smell paid followers. Pathetic.
Sample made a name for himself a few years back for creating and selling the “black 2.0” paint after the original artist/inventor of the “blackest black” paint patented and locked it down so other artists couldn’t use it. Semple sold the Black 2.0 paint, and I believe that’s what he’s famous for. I honestly have never seen any of his actual art.
Anish Kapoor is the artist who was invited to use the patented material vantablack as a medium for art, primarily because of the nature of his work.
vantablack was invented and patented by (I believe) an aerospace engineering firm and is made of incredibly dense carbon particles and requires special conditions and training to handle. Kapoor was/is the only person to use it as an art medium because it isn’t intended as a pigment.
Semple basically took the sensationalized headlines and used it as an opportunity to publicize his own line of pigments. It started as a silly little artist feud with Kapoor playing along a bit - but it was really just stoking internet outrage and looking back it feels gross how it obscured the interesting collaboration for what it was and was also as it dragged on, seemed more mean spirited than not.
Also he sort of framed himself as a struggling artist fighting artist against pompous elitism but Semple is far from struggling artist in terms of net-worth and artistic opportunity for success.
anyway- it’s not really surprising that he’s trying to use AI images to grift and also go on a petty bullying spree.
I wonder if dabbled in NFTs when that was a thing
Yeah, Semple misrepresnts this in such a massively bad faith way! The dude is a total grifting POS, and while there are legitimate reasons to criticise Kapoor, his being invited to use an incredibly toxic and difficult to handle aerospace material isn't really one of them.
I had my doubts about Semple's competence when he tried pushing his ‘free alternative’ to Pantone by defining a bunch of ~~RGB or CMYK~~ numbers. When Pantone also includes the finish surface, iridescent colors and possibly some other stuff.
Edit: his palette isn't RGB or CMYK, since it includes colors outside those spaces, like the pinkest pink.
I guess this thing might work as a free plugin for Photoshop serving to replace the one from Pantone (because that's all it is), but the user still needs to know about the finishes and stuff. And of course, the recipient probably needs to have this 'Freetone' plugin as well.
Black 2.0 looks nice but it doesn’t adhere well. Most of my projects using it are trash. I needed an ultra, flat black and was very disappointed. I switched to golden’s So-Flat black. Just as black, just as flat, but doesn’t scrape off. I’ll never buy Semple again.
Yea, was pretty disappointed since theres not a lot of use cases without using some form of coating which kind of works against the whole premise.
His water color set wasn't all that great either (quote from friend who waters and colors a lot).
Something tells that is exactly what this semple dickhead is gonna do. Buy a bunch of second had Nokia’s, change the casing to this 90s clear plastic bullshit and call it a new phone for $300.
Also the fact that you can just buy a phone with all those same features (and lack of them) or do the same thing to any Android phone if you know what you're doing.
He also said the ones like it already out are expensive. They're all sub £30 in the UK, pretty much designed for the elderly. Here's one from a major UK shopping chain [for just £8.](https://www.argos.co.uk/product/3100718?clickSR=slp:term:mobile%20phone:1:333:1)
So idk where you are but 5 hours in he has blocked comments on all of his posts once again and removed all comments or had them removed from this poor person's real art.
You can get decent dumb mobile phones first hand for about $20-30, or even cheaper if you're fine with ultra-budget offers that probably disintegrate within a year.
He claims that dumb phones on the market were either expensive or shit, but I highly doubt that he could ever design a $300 phone outperforming a $30 Nokia 105.
Nah he's actually now screenshotting people sending him mp's and posting as stories in hope of getting pitied lol. Without blurring or hiding any handles lol. I'm guessing he wants his followers to defend him
Thats an understatement. The guy is playing the poor victim artist act on his instagram. I have only known about him for 5 minutes but the guy is a douche.
Wait, how do people know who this is? Is he famous or something?
I had to google him and it doesn't seem like he is particular well known so how does everyone on this post seem to know who he is?
edit: oh it's the colour guy, i vaguely remember the black and pink colour issue.
It's garbage for so many applications. But I did see someone use it on D&D miniatures and other model crafts for dark shadows and under layers.
I bought black 3.0 and his whitest white to research a project and it just won't work. It's a matte black that its surface still picks up plenty of light and just looks like any matte black I have.
His blackest ink is also no darker than india ink. So it's all a scam.
Stuart Semple changed his name to Anish Kapoor, (the name of the vantablack guy who banned Semple from using his color).
Maybe he thought that would end his ban or something, but honestly it's just stupid.
Just to clarify something, Anish Kapoor neither owns Vantablack or controls who is able to use it. That is a company called Surrey Nanosystems. Kapoor was just the only artist allowed to use it for a while due to the themes of his art and since the original isn’t actually a paint.
If he just paid them a lot of money, it has nothing to do with "the themes of his art" (which are largely "make as much money as possible for Anish Kapoor").
The reason they only licensed it to one artist is because vantablack isn’t a paint, it’s a sort of coating made with nanotubes and very dangerous to apply/be exposed to. It’s not something that would be safe to used outside of a controlled environment. It’s intended for industrial-type applications, but obviously it’s interesting for artistic purposes so they let one artist use it with proper safety precautions.
This is exceptionally unprofessional... He should seek help because he's obviously having some sort of mental health breakdown. I don't even see what was so offensive about what you wrote - that is very obviously AI art and his campaign is borderline scam territory.
Yep. He became highly defensive because he knows he’s up to no good. Someone on the right tracks, who knows what they’re doing is good, and who is confident, shouldn’t react so abrasively.
300$ for a dumb phone? I'm pretty sure that's gone past the border, lived in country for several decades, had naturalized kids, and started voting to keep illegals out.
I had left a negative review YEARS ago, with photos, that his Black paint wasn't as awesome as advertized...it actually performed so poorly in reference to how it was advertized that I couldn't use it at all for the purpose I bought it for, and two things happened:
1. I got hooked into his mailer and keep getting text offers and e-mails even though I've unsubscribed numerous times.
2. He chased me around the Internet (via username and e-mail where it showed up elsewhere) to leave shitty comments on my comments, my work, etc. Not just in reference to the paint, but...like on anything. Also sent me a scathing e-mail response telling me I was wrong and the paint was awesome.
Stuart Semple is a petty child.
I literally CANNOT wrap my head around the fact he is going on people's stuff and bullying them for THEIR ART. Yet he gets any shred of valid criticism and he goes apeshit.
This makes me so sad to have ever purchased from him. What a POS
Except that this is like me changing my name yo Jeff Bezos and trying to move into his house. He knows it’s a meaningless stunt but that’s the only thing that’s worked for his career.
Someone in the comments asked him if this means he can’t use the pinkest pink anymore, and he said
> Oh poo! I don;t think I thought this through properly...
Update : I went to check his id, he is crying about "trolls" and "haters". This is something incredible to see he has absolutely 0 idea of what he did wrong and why people dislike him. He's the very poster child of the popular bully trope in fiction. The comments are filled with yes men who don't know anything but still supporting him which probably is making him think he did nothing wrong. It's an echo chamber all for himself lol. It's incredible how lacking he is in self awareness. He's also trying (will probably be successful in) making himself look like the victim. Really painful to see what the bullies get away with.
Also ps. I think Instagram is deleting comments, which goes to show how much meta is pushing their protect blue ticks no matter what agenda. Only feeding into bully's egoes.
>Also ps. I think Instagram is deleting comments, which goes to show how much meta is pushing their protect blue ticks no matter what agenda. Only feeding into bully's egoes.
Semple is likely doing that himself. Bit hard selling a product when the comments are overwhelmingly critical right?
“Hey man, just wanted to reach out to let you know that you don’t deserve all this hate. I, for one, think your BURNR phone design is fantastic. How long did it take you to come up with the prompts for it?”
I don't think so, cause I actually commented and dmed him. He replied and said how taxing the hate was to him and he even recieved death threats. I am taking that at face value but it is true one of my two comments got deleted and ig said it was spam with no option to claim otherwise. Zucc daddy is biting down hard on comments against mid to big accounts.
My students struggle with this a lot. After we practice it a bit, I tell them the rule I’ve always used: if you can’t remember whether you need “effect” (noun) or “affect” (verb), just use “impact” (gerund, meaning it functions as either a noun or a verb depending on context).
It’s one of my best english teacher tricks. Affect or effect??! Fuck it, use impact.
Right? Dude rolled back cellphone technology by 25 years and thinks he's doing something revolutionary. He's the art-world equivalent of a homesteading influencer lol.
You can get second hand Nokia 3310's for like £20 in the UK...
Guaranteed to still be working like new until and beyond the heat death of the universe too!
I don’t know much about the guy personally, but I ordered some paint from his site and after a month and a half past when it was supposed to be delivered and no response from multiple customer service emails unanswered, I posted publicly to his insta. Two days after that I got a shipping email. So, it’s petty as hell, but that put a bad taste in my mouth. Looked at his stuff after, and he seems like he’s really full of himself. Conceited people are who I despise the most. So, I approve of this. I’m glad he turned off comments on that post because it shows he’s a coward too, and can’t deal with being called out on bullshit. Paint is decent, but not worth the money, or the knowledge that I was supporting him. I wish him no harm as a person, but I hope that he learns some modesty and humility.
Imagine being such an insecure wimp that when you get called out for something, you find every single post someone’s made (going back months) and insulting them. This guy is a clown and loser.
And last year he got £180,000+ on kickstarter to startup his new software suite called "Abode". It's a direct competitor to the big bad Adobe and will be an affordable, one time purchase for the people. Truly a miracle.
Tho he hasn't gave any real updates since it launched and all the comments on KS are people being like "wtf" lol. Here's more garbage about him if anyone wants to waste some time:
* [https://www.reddit.com/r/culturehustle/comments/189mqnl/stewart\_semple\_is\_such\_a\_hypocritical\_con\_artist/](https://www.reddit.com/r/culturehustle/comments/189mqnl/stewart_semple_is_such_a_hypocritical_con_artist/)
* [https://www.reddit.com/r/culturehustle/comments/1545l8q/dont\_waste\_your\_money\_stuart\_semple\_will\_not/](https://www.reddit.com/r/culturehustle/comments/1545l8q/dont_waste_your_money_stuart_semple_will_not/)
* [https://www.reddit.com/r/tumblr/comments/set5c8/kapoor\_vs\_semple\_2\_lies\_deceptions\_and\_nft/](https://www.reddit.com/r/tumblr/comments/set5c8/kapoor_vs_semple_2_lies_deceptions_and_nft/)
“I have not come on your Instagram and attacked you for your work”
*proceeds to come onto your Instagram and attack you for your work*
Well done Stuart.
How gross. I used to buy from him because of the Anish Kapoor thing. He seems like an insecure asshole and now is “taking a social media break” because he was called out.
Wow I never read this before…I always assumed Kapoor was a douche and Semple was making cheaper paints for common people as a result. I will still look for evidence/sources that Vanta choose to be exclusive (rather than Kapoor demanding it) but this does paint things in a new light (pun intended lol)
There's no exclusivity thing, it was a bit of a creative PR thing for the tech firm, but the reason it was so exclusive, is because VantaBlack is incredibly toxic and difficult to handle; think asbestos level of toxic and you'll be on the right track. It was developed for a specific technical engineering purpose and is not fit to be used in any way outside of a highly controlled lab environment. The firm wanted to promote it due to its "blackness" and decided to partner with a single artist, who they could set up in their lab to make pieces with their product.
Exclusive licenses for art materials are quite common, it’s just that there are usually so many producers of different materials that it doesn’t matter. Vantablack used to be super exclusive (because it was based on proprietary aerospace tech), but now it’s like everything else: there are many producers of similar products and no one cares for the “real” deal.
What kapoor did was never that out of the ordinary, and certainly not for someone working at his level. It just caused a stir because there was a “new color”.
Even those don't live up to hype around them
The black .0 paints are pretty black but are definitely not the blackest black. Same with the "pinkest pink".
It's genuinely pretty mediocre
Edit: typo
I wouldn't know Stuart Semple if he punched me in the face, which is a great analogy, because all you can find written about this guy was written by himself
I can literally pop around the corner and buy a dumb phone for $30-50 in suburban Australia. They're at most supermarkets...
I wonder if you have to place an order online, through a mobile designed website for one of these. Dumb definitely describes anyone who falls for this shit.
“You have no right at all to do that”
He apparently stated that you have no right to criticise another’s post.
Yet he then goes and does it himself. So is he a wrong asshole or a hypocritical asshole?
The guy's whole account is such a trainwreck lol. 100k followers, but he struggles to get a hundred likes on his posts.
Man is a scam artist for his living probably.
Who the fuck is Stewart Semple? And why does this sub keep putting up posts where they assume we all know some seemingly d list “celebrity” as if they are Tom hanks?
Comments that are uncivil, racist, misogynistic, misandrist, or contain political name calling will be removed and the poster subject to ban at moderators discretion. Help us make this a better community by becoming familiar with the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/about/rules/). Report any suspicious users to the mods of this subreddit using Modmail [here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/facepalm) or Reddit site admins [here](https://www.reddit.com/report). **All reports to Modmail should include evidence such as screenshots or any other relevant information.** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/facepalm) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I popped onto your account to check his comments and they’re all gone but not only that Stu has turned off comments on the phone post, and is at this moment deleting comments on all new post about this, and continuing to advertiste the clearly nonexistent phone as existing…
I feel like it’s worth mentioning that his post about this appears to be [these 9 uploads](https://imgur.com/a/fnWemn1), each with the following caption: >Guess what? I’m not a robot >Troll patrol is exhausting >I’m a real human with feelings >What you say can hurt me >I’ll be back when I’m strong enough >Love (most of) you X Like, could he be any more self-pitying lol? ETA: I just went back to his account to check smth else and happened to have my volume on. Apparently, each of the posts has [“Where Is My Mind?” by the Pixies](https://youtu.be/OJ62RzJkYUo?si=EHY6qJk0yXi-481F) playing in the background. I genuinely didn’t think he could get more performative, but there ya go.
Classic crybully douche. And limited comments to only people he knows will give him the poor-yous.
Lmao what a fucking tool
>actually that was the other way around, they bullied me for days and when I posted some comments back on their profile (I spent about 5 mins) they screenshot yes a very tiny slither of it - leaving out all their attacks and dm's and they posted it on Reddit to get attention. What a piece of shit. I have no clue what might have happened in DMs, but getting butthurt about valid criticism and responding like a 5 year old is NOT a good look. The phone he designed was for mental health, and clearly his own mental health is, to use the proper psychiatric diagnosis, fucking crazy. I hope his AI phone helps him!
Also apologies if it was creepy to go onto your account the user wasn’t blocked out so I’d assume it be okay and was generally curious as to see if he’d been that careful to cover all his tracks.
How dare you, going on to his account page?!?! The page he publicly posted?!?! YOU FIEND! I'm sure he appreciates more people going to his page honestly lol so you dont really have to worry about that
When the social media is social 🤯
What's next?? Will there also be media????
The medium place
Aww. I hope Mindy and her cocaine are doing well.
I wonder what happened to Derek after that last reset
OP wouldn’t have included both user names if he didn’t want people to go look for themselves lol. Hopefully this Stuart guy’s whole scam blows up in his face
It’s a shame because his battle with Anish Kapoor was classic.
Unfortunately it turns out they’re both complete dicks. I really wanted to like Stuart Semple, too.
Wasn't that disproved? Isn't Semple a proven complete douchewad as well?
If there’s ever a time for someone on Reddit to reveal themselves IRL, this is that kind of situation for sure. Op is definitely not the bad guy here.
EDIT: for context he claimed that someone was trolling him on tumblr. EDIT2: All of this has taken place over the last five days, from when I commented on his original post before comments were restricted to today. I posted a screen recording of our DMs on instagram in my story to help provide additional context. Commenting some context here so it doesn't get lost, I have not used tumblr in months, because I simply do not understand it properly. The only other platforms besides reddit and instagram where my personal posting has taken place is on tiktok, where I shared the majority of the original comment thread, before it was deleted, as well as the contextually important messages he sent me.
Thank you for this context he was claiming in a comment that he’d since deleted/hidden? it was actually you trolling him for months leading to his unhinged response. I doubt he’d be telling the truth as he seems like a man child but with the internet you never know so your context is appreciated.
Looks like reporting the post as a scam will be more effective than commenting on his posts about it
Ive just done that too
Same
Bro got his hand slapped by his legal team, and is doing damage control.
dude got stressed of art grifting and decided to enter into actual fraud
Embarrassing and shameful, but I stopped pitying these types a while back.
He's also hawking a book he recently "wrote" and I'm wondering if it was actually written by AI.
Some people in my writing group are considering AI for their covers. I don’t understand how they don’t realize that using AI generated covers can give the impression they used AI to write their book.
A ton of people won’t buy books with AI art on principle. If the book looks good they’ll just pirate it- sorry, ‘scrape it for use in their biological intelligence training set.’
Chapter 3 Weird Hands Appearing in My Work Should Be Considered High Art Now, and You Should All Shut Up About It.
It's Actually A Metaphor For Consumerism And You're An Idiot For Not Getting It
You already know the answer to that.
The media attention from his Vantablack stunt faded and like a crack addict feening for another hit, he got creative.
He makes decent paints and a few supplies, but the more recent stunts like this and changing his name are dumb.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say he’s not making or producing anything. Just reselling other products with his stickers on them. Gotta learn to read the painting on the wall.
I read into it before I ever bought any. Some of his paint colors are a good deal and some aren't. It looks like more recently (bought back in 2020ish) he has done more outsourcing. Reading his sub reddit now, I wouldn't buy any because he's got insane shipping delays and issues in a failure to scale properly.
I don't know who this presumably grown adult man is, but he is conducting himself like a dorito infested 13 year old goblin boy.
He’s in his 40s and has a child
He's a visionary, a beautiful brilliant man who's only crime is trying to scam people and sounding like a 12 year old with no self esteem Also the first two things i said are lies
Ok, but did his brain develop after age of 13?
“Dorito infested 13 year old goblin boy.” Holy hell I’ll stealing that
This should actually be a big deal. That's definitely an AI image, but he's taking $300+ pre-orders for it and pretending it already exists. That's not even getting into how insane his response it.
From someone who knows about product development cycles and manufacturing/procurement, he's absolutely full of shit saying this will ship by the end of the year when he doesn't even have a working prototype to photograph lol
He could buy an off the shelf dumb phone for a couple bucks from china tomorrow and have them slap his shitty logo on it. Shipping won't be his issue.
Nokia 105. Cost like $20. They do calls, texts, and snake. 2 week battery life, give or take and use the common bl5c battery. No need for a vaporware product of something simple that already exists.
Oh, Snake! How many hours I wasted on that game once upon a time. 🐍
I'm sure you can still play snake, completely free, but also you have to pay for bonus lives and you can only play four rounds before you have to pay for more energy and you'll also be constantly asked if you want to buy pink polka-dot skins for your snake (but these aren't the ads-- don't worry, there are *also* ads)
Boo!
Screw that, you can play my app, SnakePro, just 4.99 per month.
I've seen mobile games in the last year asking for 4.99 a fucking week. It's craycray out there in app land.
I don't get why everyone is talking about this being AI when the bigger issue seems to be that this person is taking money for a product that is nowhere close to existing. On top of that he's planning on charging crazy money for it. If that was a render form a real CAD file he'd made himself, would that be any better?
I'd say from a "technical" standpoint, a rendering of a fully designed product would be better. Mostly because then it's something that has actually been properly designed and might even have the plans for the parts and specs. This is just him going into some ai "art" thing and saying, brick phone, transparent green, make logo say something dumb af. But like others have said, the larger issues are the bullying and the outright lies he's telling.
Fair enough. I really shouldn't have said CAD file, as that does kind of imply he has a proper plan for manufacturing it. I was thinking more in terms of a 3D model he had made himself. I'm not a good artist at all, but I think I could knock something like this together pretty quickly in something like Blender. It would be a nice picture, but it wouldn't be even close to something you could physically build.
Yeah, 300 for a dumb phone is stupid since you can get one for 50 and below. If it was a render of something he made that would be fine but that price is pathetic. And definitely bullying people is just assinine when you use AI to make your render.
I see you have learned the dark art of marketing.
“burnr” on the front please - what’s your MOQ China?
I keep seeing videos on YouTube about people bragging about how they selling flipped stuff from Ali Baba, don't even need to be adding their own logo.
That's what half the stuff on Amazon is nowadays. If you want to save a few bucks and can wait a couple weeks for delivery, you can almost always find the same product on AliExpress for cheaper.
yeah it is called a Nokia 3210
Worse than no working prototype: he couldn't even get someone to design a theoretical (on-paper, like a blueprint) prototype and have a concept artist render that (which would still require him to give a heavy disclaimer that such an image is nothing more than a conceptual rendering). If you're serious about a product, you'll have the time and money to work with artists who can breathe life into it. Using AI is the equivalent of getting down on one knee and proposing to your partner with a ring pop: If your intent is to be funny and nothing else, it's probably fine. But you have to be a special kind of asshole to think you'll be taken seriously.
He is just gonna repackage dumb phones already available. You could get this up and running in like a month. Like, he is still grifting and a shit person but he could probably manage to deliver product here.
The only way he's going to be able to deliver anything is if he buys an already existing product and slaps his name on it. That's not "delivering a product", that's a scam.
As someone who knows about the marketing and sales cycles, this is pretty much par for the course
Wait wait he says all non smart phones are ridiculously expensive but is charging 300 for this? I got my grandparents a cheap phone for like £50 does what they need it to do and still works years later. You can even get smart phones for not much more than that...
He's taking advantage of exactly the same vulnerable people the product claims to help. If there was any doubt this dude was subhuman based on that alone, the psychotic harassment of OP sure took care of that lol
Yeah but his is *special* and *homemade* and specially tailored to improve your *mental health*. So it’s FAR better than your average dumb phone. Well worth the smartphone price tag.
Hey, he designed that phone because his mental health was suffering! /s Edit: also dude has 100k followers but most his art only has like 30-50 likes, no comments. I smell paid followers. Pathetic.
He also 100% wrote his own Wikipedia page with how pretentious it sounds LMAO
Sample made a name for himself a few years back for creating and selling the “black 2.0” paint after the original artist/inventor of the “blackest black” paint patented and locked it down so other artists couldn’t use it. Semple sold the Black 2.0 paint, and I believe that’s what he’s famous for. I honestly have never seen any of his actual art.
Anish Kapoor is the artist who was invited to use the patented material vantablack as a medium for art, primarily because of the nature of his work. vantablack was invented and patented by (I believe) an aerospace engineering firm and is made of incredibly dense carbon particles and requires special conditions and training to handle. Kapoor was/is the only person to use it as an art medium because it isn’t intended as a pigment. Semple basically took the sensationalized headlines and used it as an opportunity to publicize his own line of pigments. It started as a silly little artist feud with Kapoor playing along a bit - but it was really just stoking internet outrage and looking back it feels gross how it obscured the interesting collaboration for what it was and was also as it dragged on, seemed more mean spirited than not. Also he sort of framed himself as a struggling artist fighting artist against pompous elitism but Semple is far from struggling artist in terms of net-worth and artistic opportunity for success. anyway- it’s not really surprising that he’s trying to use AI images to grift and also go on a petty bullying spree. I wonder if dabbled in NFTs when that was a thing
Yeah, Semple misrepresnts this in such a massively bad faith way! The dude is a total grifting POS, and while there are legitimate reasons to criticise Kapoor, his being invited to use an incredibly toxic and difficult to handle aerospace material isn't really one of them.
I had my doubts about Semple's competence when he tried pushing his ‘free alternative’ to Pantone by defining a bunch of ~~RGB or CMYK~~ numbers. When Pantone also includes the finish surface, iridescent colors and possibly some other stuff. Edit: his palette isn't RGB or CMYK, since it includes colors outside those spaces, like the pinkest pink. I guess this thing might work as a free plugin for Photoshop serving to replace the one from Pantone (because that's all it is), but the user still needs to know about the finishes and stuff. And of course, the recipient probably needs to have this 'Freetone' plugin as well.
Black 2.0 looks nice but it doesn’t adhere well. Most of my projects using it are trash. I needed an ultra, flat black and was very disappointed. I switched to golden’s So-Flat black. Just as black, just as flat, but doesn’t scrape off. I’ll never buy Semple again.
Yea, was pretty disappointed since theres not a lot of use cases without using some form of coating which kind of works against the whole premise. His water color set wasn't all that great either (quote from friend who waters and colors a lot).
Pinkest Pink was the kick-off.
300 for a dumb phone? Cant you just get a 2nd hand nokia for 50?
You can get a brand new Nokia for 50
Not according to this semple dweeb
Something tells that is exactly what this semple dickhead is gonna do. Buy a bunch of second had Nokia’s, change the casing to this 90s clear plastic bullshit and call it a new phone for $300.
Eh I don't think someone that buys a 300 dollar burner phone can understand the problem
Also the fact that you can just buy a phone with all those same features (and lack of them) or do the same thing to any Android phone if you know what you're doing.
He also said the ones like it already out are expensive. They're all sub £30 in the UK, pretty much designed for the elderly. Here's one from a major UK shopping chain [for just £8.](https://www.argos.co.uk/product/3100718?clickSR=slp:term:mobile%20phone:1:333:1)
He did the same with an Adobe alternative that has never materialized. Dude's a grifter.
So idk where you are but 5 hours in he has blocked comments on all of his posts once again and removed all comments or had them removed from this poor person's real art.
Why on earth would a dumb phone cost $300?
It's for the dumb people.
Wait preorders for thing that doesn't exist?
300 for a "dumb" phone? What does it do for that money that existing ones don't? Pretty sure you can find phones with buttons for 50 a pop lmao
You can get decent dumb mobile phones first hand for about $20-30, or even cheaper if you're fine with ultra-budget offers that probably disintegrate within a year. He claims that dumb phones on the market were either expensive or shit, but I highly doubt that he could ever design a $300 phone outperforming a $30 Nokia 105.
That in most of the world is called a scam 🤷♂️
"You're a bully" *proceeds to bully you*
That is the #1 tactic for bullies.
“Stop making me bully you!” Sounds about right.
LOL he turned off comments
6 hours later: He's turned limited comments on, pinned 9 images and fucked off 😂
Nah he's actually now screenshotting people sending him mp's and posting as stories in hope of getting pitied lol. Without blurring or hiding any handles lol. I'm guessing he wants his followers to defend him
He has a grid that says ITS CRITICAL TO STAY CRITICAL yet turns off comments lol
As insufferable as ever I see
Thats an understatement. The guy is playing the poor victim artist act on his instagram. I have only known about him for 5 minutes but the guy is a douche.
[удалено]
Oh man, can't wait for this.
I need this tea
What did he say???
Don't phones have screen recorders now, mine does
He’s currently responding to me on IG if you want me to post as well 😂
Wait, how do people know who this is? Is he famous or something? I had to google him and it doesn't seem like he is particular well known so how does everyone on this post seem to know who he is? edit: oh it's the colour guy, i vaguely remember the black and pink colour issue.
Yeah he's the pink guy from that one Tom Scott video. His entire claim to fame and he's still riding off of it...
That and hating on the venta black guy by making multiple versions on the "blackest black"
All of which are like shitty to use black paint. It’s only black as advertised if you take a photo and doctor it.
It's garbage for so many applications. But I did see someone use it on D&D miniatures and other model crafts for dark shadows and under layers. I bought black 3.0 and his whitest white to research a project and it just won't work. It's a matte black that its surface still picks up plenty of light and just looks like any matte black I have. His blackest ink is also no darker than india ink. So it's all a scam.
“The artist formerly known as Stuart Semple”. That’s so fucking cringe lol
Stuart Semple changed his name to Anish Kapoor, (the name of the vantablack guy who banned Semple from using his color). Maybe he thought that would end his ban or something, but honestly it's just stupid.
Just to clarify something, Anish Kapoor neither owns Vantablack or controls who is able to use it. That is a company called Surrey Nanosystems. Kapoor was just the only artist allowed to use it for a while due to the themes of his art and since the original isn’t actually a paint.
I'm fairly certain it was just a licensing agreement?
Yup
If he just paid them a lot of money, it has nothing to do with "the themes of his art" (which are largely "make as much money as possible for Anish Kapoor").
The reason they only licensed it to one artist is because vantablack isn’t a paint, it’s a sort of coating made with nanotubes and very dangerous to apply/be exposed to. It’s not something that would be safe to used outside of a controlled environment. It’s intended for industrial-type applications, but obviously it’s interesting for artistic purposes so they let one artist use it with proper safety precautions.
He’s just trolling for attention off a decade-old feud that only he cares about. Wildly cringey
For all those criticisms he posted about your art you shoulda replied to every one of them with. “Yeah but it ain’t AI.”
This is exceptionally unprofessional... He should seek help because he's obviously having some sort of mental health breakdown. I don't even see what was so offensive about what you wrote - that is very obviously AI art and his campaign is borderline scam territory.
Most certainly it's because he feels his scam is being called out early, maybe before any preorder had come in at all
Yep. He became highly defensive because he knows he’s up to no good. Someone on the right tracks, who knows what they’re doing is good, and who is confident, shouldn’t react so abrasively.
Borderline only because it hasn’t *officially* crossed the border…yet.
300$ for a dumb phone? I'm pretty sure that's gone past the border, lived in country for several decades, had naturalized kids, and started voting to keep illegals out.
>You have no right at all to do that >I am free to express myself in whatever way I choose The irony.
I had left a negative review YEARS ago, with photos, that his Black paint wasn't as awesome as advertized...it actually performed so poorly in reference to how it was advertized that I couldn't use it at all for the purpose I bought it for, and two things happened: 1. I got hooked into his mailer and keep getting text offers and e-mails even though I've unsubscribed numerous times. 2. He chased me around the Internet (via username and e-mail where it showed up elsewhere) to leave shitty comments on my comments, my work, etc. Not just in reference to the paint, but...like on anything. Also sent me a scathing e-mail response telling me I was wrong and the paint was awesome. Stuart Semple is a petty child.
I literally CANNOT wrap my head around the fact he is going on people's stuff and bullying them for THEIR ART. Yet he gets any shred of valid criticism and he goes apeshit. This makes me so sad to have ever purchased from him. What a POS
Once is already bad enough but this is actually concerning
Goofy goober
Didnt he legally change his name to Anish kapoor like a week ago ?? Is he still going by Stuart semple now ?
Is he that obsessed with Amish Kapoor that he would take his name? Wow he really needs to just let go
He wants to see if they’ll let him have some vantablack, since Anish Kapoor can use it, and he’s now Anish Kapoor.
Except that this is like me changing my name yo Jeff Bezos and trying to move into his house. He knows it’s a meaningless stunt but that’s the only thing that’s worked for his career.
Man, he is really clinging to that pseudo feud.
What? Source? Why would he do that? He hates Anish Kapoor.
It's always been a marketing tactic for his products, nothing more.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDOVFsIVmgg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDOVFsIVmgg) Posted it himself, he can now have vanta black
Someone in the comments asked him if this means he can’t use the pinkest pink anymore, and he said > Oh poo! I don;t think I thought this through properly...
"Oh poo!"?? Who the hell even says that anymore? 
Does that mean he cannot buy his own products? Since Anish Kapoor is banned from purchasing them?
Yeah I saw that post and reported it as fraud, since that’s what it is.
Update : I went to check his id, he is crying about "trolls" and "haters". This is something incredible to see he has absolutely 0 idea of what he did wrong and why people dislike him. He's the very poster child of the popular bully trope in fiction. The comments are filled with yes men who don't know anything but still supporting him which probably is making him think he did nothing wrong. It's an echo chamber all for himself lol. It's incredible how lacking he is in self awareness. He's also trying (will probably be successful in) making himself look like the victim. Really painful to see what the bullies get away with. Also ps. I think Instagram is deleting comments, which goes to show how much meta is pushing their protect blue ticks no matter what agenda. Only feeding into bully's egoes.
>Also ps. I think Instagram is deleting comments, which goes to show how much meta is pushing their protect blue ticks no matter what agenda. Only feeding into bully's egoes. Semple is likely doing that himself. Bit hard selling a product when the comments are overwhelmingly critical right?
Absolutely he is, dude is chronically online right now. Go ahead and dm him right now I bet you get a response lol
Big time big time been there done that. Sent me a 5 minute essay.
Lol Probably written by AI.
It was 4 voice messages averaging at 1 minute each.
“Hey man, just wanted to reach out to let you know that you don’t deserve all this hate. I, for one, think your BURNR phone design is fantastic. How long did it take you to come up with the prompts for it?”
Uhm, I think you mean CRAFT the prompts, sir.
I don't think so, cause I actually commented and dmed him. He replied and said how taxing the hate was to him and he even recieved death threats. I am taking that at face value but it is true one of my two comments got deleted and ig said it was spam with no option to claim otherwise. Zucc daddy is biting down hard on comments against mid to big accounts.
Stu doesn’t know the difference between effect and affect heh
The one thing I can't judge him on lol It doesn't matter how many times I look it up :/
My students struggle with this a lot. After we practice it a bit, I tell them the rule I’ve always used: if you can’t remember whether you need “effect” (noun) or “affect” (verb), just use “impact” (gerund, meaning it functions as either a noun or a verb depending on context). It’s one of my best english teacher tricks. Affect or effect??! Fuck it, use impact.
Affect is active, Effect is passive. The meteor affected the countryside in the impact. A crater was the effect of the meteor hitting the countryside.
Effect can be active, but it means something different. You can effect a change to your lifestyle, for example.
Also I think affect can be passive too? “They were disturbed by her strange affect.”
Lol. English: shitting in people's mouths since the 5th century.
Well his dm’s are now getting blown up. He seems like such a dirtbag narcissist
Wow, what a piece of shit. Thanks for making this douche out himself as the pos he is so I can avoid financially rewarding him.
Same, I’m glad I saw this, was going to reorder some paint from his site this week and now I’m looking for an alternative.
My mum had a phone like this but black when she was in her 70's. Why is this special? Because it's transparent green?
Right? Dude rolled back cellphone technology by 25 years and thinks he's doing something revolutionary. He's the art-world equivalent of a homesteading influencer lol.
You can get second hand Nokia 3310's for like £20 in the UK... Guaranteed to still be working like new until and beyond the heat death of the universe too!
I don’t know much about the guy personally, but I ordered some paint from his site and after a month and a half past when it was supposed to be delivered and no response from multiple customer service emails unanswered, I posted publicly to his insta. Two days after that I got a shipping email. So, it’s petty as hell, but that put a bad taste in my mouth. Looked at his stuff after, and he seems like he’s really full of himself. Conceited people are who I despise the most. So, I approve of this. I’m glad he turned off comments on that post because it shows he’s a coward too, and can’t deal with being called out on bullshit. Paint is decent, but not worth the money, or the knowledge that I was supporting him. I wish him no harm as a person, but I hope that he learns some modesty and humility.
His shipping is awful. His paints are overpriced and not nearly as great as he says either.
Imagine being this much of a manchild
Imagine being such an insecure wimp that when you get called out for something, you find every single post someone’s made (going back months) and insulting them. This guy is a clown and loser.
Looking at his links that guy seems insufferable. He literally made a book that is just a bunch of color swatches.
And last year he got £180,000+ on kickstarter to startup his new software suite called "Abode". It's a direct competitor to the big bad Adobe and will be an affordable, one time purchase for the people. Truly a miracle. Tho he hasn't gave any real updates since it launched and all the comments on KS are people being like "wtf" lol. Here's more garbage about him if anyone wants to waste some time: * [https://www.reddit.com/r/culturehustle/comments/189mqnl/stewart\_semple\_is\_such\_a\_hypocritical\_con\_artist/](https://www.reddit.com/r/culturehustle/comments/189mqnl/stewart_semple_is_such_a_hypocritical_con_artist/) * [https://www.reddit.com/r/culturehustle/comments/1545l8q/dont\_waste\_your\_money\_stuart\_semple\_will\_not/](https://www.reddit.com/r/culturehustle/comments/1545l8q/dont_waste_your_money_stuart_semple_will_not/) * [https://www.reddit.com/r/tumblr/comments/set5c8/kapoor\_vs\_semple\_2\_lies\_deceptions\_and\_nft/](https://www.reddit.com/r/tumblr/comments/set5c8/kapoor_vs_semple_2_lies_deceptions_and_nft/)
WTF? this dude is sick in his head and yet manages to scam out some money from people who can't read. Pathological scammer.
Yeah, he sees himself as the new Pantone! 🙃
In fairness, it's not a surprise that Stuart Semple overreacted and started some shit. It's kind of his brand
“I have not come on your Instagram and attacked you for your work” *proceeds to come onto your Instagram and attack you for your work* Well done Stuart.
How gross. I used to buy from him because of the Anish Kapoor thing. He seems like an insecure asshole and now is “taking a social media break” because he was called out.
Oooof I was on board woth Stuart Semple with the vantablack dral, and the white white etc but now.....ehhhh that's questionable......
[even the kapor thing was a scam](https://www.reddit.com/r/BeAmazed/s/zNZp1Mf1x8)
Wow I never read this before…I always assumed Kapoor was a douche and Semple was making cheaper paints for common people as a result. I will still look for evidence/sources that Vanta choose to be exclusive (rather than Kapoor demanding it) but this does paint things in a new light (pun intended lol)
There's no exclusivity thing, it was a bit of a creative PR thing for the tech firm, but the reason it was so exclusive, is because VantaBlack is incredibly toxic and difficult to handle; think asbestos level of toxic and you'll be on the right track. It was developed for a specific technical engineering purpose and is not fit to be used in any way outside of a highly controlled lab environment. The firm wanted to promote it due to its "blackness" and decided to partner with a single artist, who they could set up in their lab to make pieces with their product.
Exclusive licenses for art materials are quite common, it’s just that there are usually so many producers of different materials that it doesn’t matter. Vantablack used to be super exclusive (because it was based on proprietary aerospace tech), but now it’s like everything else: there are many producers of similar products and no one cares for the “real” deal. What kapoor did was never that out of the ordinary, and certainly not for someone working at his level. It just caused a stir because there was a “new color”.
Dude made a name for himself trolling Anish Kapoor and hasn't done anything worth note since.
He should stick to making acrylic paints
Even those don't live up to hype around them The black .0 paints are pretty black but are definitely not the blackest black. Same with the "pinkest pink". It's genuinely pretty mediocre Edit: typo
I wanted to reply to the post, but comments are disabled. Says it all i guess.
Fun fact, since he apparently legally changed his name to Anish Kapoor, he can no longer buy his own paint.
Oh damn, that's this guy? I actually thought that paint thing was kinda funny... but I guess that was just a sign that he's a massive two year old.
Literally bought a burner phone for £10 the other week. What makes this £140 better than that?
Wow...I think you struck a nerve
"why does my work affect you" - it's literally not your work dude.
I like the bottom right, empty chip socket 🤭
I wouldn't know Stuart Semple if he punched me in the face, which is a great analogy, because all you can find written about this guy was written by himself
I can literally pop around the corner and buy a dumb phone for $30-50 in suburban Australia. They're at most supermarkets... I wonder if you have to place an order online, through a mobile designed website for one of these. Dumb definitely describes anyone who falls for this shit.
Morals and ethics? Seriously? Guy is pretty touchy. Also claims not to attack you for your work and then does exactly that. So gross.
Weirdo has disabled all comments on his posts and is clearly living in lala land acting like you are the bully. What a pathetic loser
What a butthurt child. Looks like he's turned off comments on the image as well now.
“You have no right at all to do that” He apparently stated that you have no right to criticise another’s post. Yet he then goes and does it himself. So is he a wrong asshole or a hypocritical asshole?
The guy's whole account is such a trainwreck lol. 100k followers, but he struggles to get a hundred likes on his posts. Man is a scam artist for his living probably.
Who the fuck is Stewart Semple? And why does this sub keep putting up posts where they assume we all know some seemingly d list “celebrity” as if they are Tom hanks?
This person seems… unhinged. Also, seems to have a victim complex from his instagram story.
Smells like a drop shipping scheme where the customers will get some cheap phones from China (if they’re lucky)