Restart
It’s me Tony, founder of GGR.
The last weekend, I was in LA. I haven’t been to a rave for 6 months. And it was Escape weekend.
I decided to go to Escape, just for myself to enjoy the music, and recollect some lost memories. No camera, no work this time. Not like every other time I was at NOS.
It almost felt strange that I wasn’t shooting any GGR models for the entirety of 4 hours I was there. I was totally soaked up by the sounds and lights as the night went on.
The beats sank deeper into my mind, and the lights blinded my eyes. The moment Eric Prydz’s light show started, I couldn’t control myself. Tears came down almost uncontrollably. “This is the future”, I told myself. “This is the reason you started all this in the first place. This is what you love.”
Before going to the event, over the past few months since the unfortunate incident, I’ve been reflecting on the mistakes I made. Some memories became blurry because of how drunk I was. But some are left as screenshots that constantly reminded me of those dark moments.
There were mistakes. There were damages. There were blames. There were attacks. There were stresses. There were desperations.
There were friends who no longer befriend you. There were brands who cut you off entirely.
It’s now clear that, back then, the way I initially responded was perceived as self defensive and not really looking to apologize.
“If only there’s a way to turn it all back, and do things the right way.”
But here, for those people who are affected, please accept my sincere apology:
I’m sorry.
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Music keeps flowing in the venue, and people keep grooving.
“You should carry on”, I told myself. “This is the future. No one else is doing what you do at your level. There are still so many people who are waiting to show their talents and looks. There are still so many people waiting to see what you have got to show. You shouldn’t be running away because of an unfortunate incident.”
A little bit of history. I started GGR as a personal photography / videography page 2 years ago. It grew quickly to 100K followers early this year, all while forming a community of raver girls who are called “GGR girls”. I started to manage this page with a more community driven approach.
I tried to make GGR a brand that’s not represented by any individual. It’s intended to be a “thing” of it’s own, that it doesn’t matter which individual or group of people are running it, it’s always gonna show the same uplifting and empowering image of raver girls.
And that’s exactly what I did when there was the incident 7 months ago. I was drunk in the events while shooting, which led to irrational behaviors. There were inappropriate private DMs that got published. People were rightfully disappointed in my actions so I walked away from GGR, and passed it to Ariella, who was the best person I could think of to carry on the mission. I didn’t want the work myself and many others had put into the community to disappear and was hoping that if I left the brand it could continue to flourish as a community.
But unfortunately that didn’t work out so well. Several people were threatening her to quit over the weeks after she took over including threats of violence, and she was too mentally and emotionally stressed to keep managing GGR. The page was left unattended for months, and has lost a couple thousand followers since.
I couldn’t watch a page I put so much effort in to die out, so I decided to take it back.
When I logged back into GGR for the first time after many months, it opened up a floodgate of memories. All those new picture tags, all those new messages, all those new members.
One particular message stood out: “The GGR girls will be here with full support whenever you decide to return!” This is just quoting one person’s message so I have no intention to generalize this to everyone, but I definitely felt something.
Going over the loads of messages and member applications, one thing was clear: There are still huge demands for GGR to keep operating and do what it does best - Showing the sexy, fun and passionate images of raver girls, in and out of events.
“Let’s start it over. Even just for the remaining supporters of GGR.”
But this time, without the fuck ups. “Be professional if you were gonna do it for a long time”, I told myself.
Be professional. Be professional. Be professional.
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I spent some time thinking about what’s next.
Based on the past experience, letting a guy manage a girls community isn’t the best thing to do, so I will intentionally weaken the “community” attribute of the page, and make it more of a media brand.
I will also be having more photographers shooting for GGR, to make GGR an entrance gateway for our members to enter into the more professional modeling / influencer world, and get connected with industry veterans. Photographers / videographers, no matter where you are based, if you would like to help our 1500+ registered GGR models throughout US and other parts of the world to showcase themselves better, please contact me.
(A little clarification: GGR has 2000+ members who signed up through girlsgonerave.com/join as in the bio, and among them, 1500+ has filled out a separate model form, who we call GGR models.)
Other changes may be carried out as well, but instead of making a detailed plan upfront, I’ll make those adjustments as I go.
Understandably, this decision will get many questions and doubts. From what I learned in life, whatever you do, there will always be haters, there will always be people who don’t understand you, there will always be people nitpicking everything you do.
GGR will not try to satisfy everyone. Instead, it’ll be only for people who love GGR for what it is.
Follow me if you can.
- Tony