Posted on ANDPOP:
February may be known as the month of love, but there’s another special day for Steve Buscemi enthusiasts.
While the Boardwalk Empire actor is already the butt of several jokes — most notably the hilarious Steve Buscemeyes meme — those who enjoy Buscemi’s work can show their appreciation for him in a very unique and personal way on February 21.
The landmark event’s called “Send A Naked Picture of Yourself to Steve Buscemi Day” and yes, what you do during that date is exactly what the holiday’s name suggests.
With about 2,600 people expected to “attend” so far, ANDPOP decided to dig deeper into the origins of this important event. By doing that, we reached out to Derek Prowse, a 38-year-old software analyst from Panama City Beach, Fl., to see why he started the Facebook event in an attempt to raise awareness for “Send A Naked Picture of Yourself to Steve Buscemi Day.”
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What made you decide to bring people’s attention to “Send A Naked Picture of Yourself to Steve Buscemi Day?”
I don’t really know how I ended up coming upon [this]. I know that it was based off an entry on Urban Dictionary, and that entry date was in 2008. I stumbled upon that in 2011 and said, “Hey, this sounds fun. What can I do with that?”
I’m a big fan of absurdity, so [I thought], “Okay, let’s get this to a lot of people.” I realized at the time in 2011, Facebook had just added the ability to create events, but leave it so that anybody could get in and say that they were attending. At the time, people were doing it for all kinds of socially aware bullshit that I didn’t get excited about. So I thought, “Okay, let’s do this.”
I created an open event inside of Facebook and said, “Let’s all send a naked picture to Steve Buscemi.” I googled who his agent was and [found] that mailing address. I know [Buscemi] has a residence in New York. Obviously it’s not public, so I went with his agent. I posted to a couple of social media sites – smaller ones like Spaceghetto and got a lot of traction in 2011. I think about 15,000 people got invited and “6000 people” said they attended. I have roughly no idea who sent [pictures] and who didn’t. I decided “screw it, I’ll do it again in 2015.” That will be a fun way to start off the year.
Did you send a picture yourself?
[Laughs] No. I didn’t.
Did you get any flack for this?
When I first created the event in 2011, I actually had my Facebook account disabled because someone said “this is completely inappropriate, yada yada yada.” But luckily before that, I added a thing to the event to keep the photos tasteful and arty because I did not support appealing to Steve Buscemi’s prurient interests – so, no smut. So if anyone did send anything, I really hope that it was tasteful and artistic.
How big of a Steve Buscemi fan are you?
I’d say slightly more than average. I mean, I know who the guy is. I don’t know anything about his personal life except his agent’s address and the fact that he has a mailing address in New York that is not public. I don’t know all of his facts and I’m not a no. 1 Steve Buscemi fan. I just picked the poor schlub at random, I think.
Did you expect the event to blow up as much as it did?
No, I didn’t. I posted a couple of things. I basically just did it for, like, laughs. It hit about 2000 and I was like, “Oh shit, what have I done?” And then at the end of it, it was at 15,000 and a couple of social media news aggregators had grabbed onto it right at like [February] 17th or 18th and it went from 8,000 to 15,000 in four days. And I was like,”Oh my god!” That was kind of cool. My fraction of a minute of internet stardom was that I made something that was very stupid that got big real fast.
Have you heard anything from Steve Buscemi?
No, no. I’m scared to actually. Because I kind of feel sorry for the guy. I hope he knows about it, number one. Come February 21, if people are actually sending him stuff and he doesn’t know why, that’s probably a pretty disorienting thing. So, “Sorry, buddy.”
What do you hope to ultimately achieve with this?
I think that if I wanted to make sure that any message was carried across, it’s this: absurdity is important.
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You can send your photos to:
Steve Buscemi, C/o Polaris Public Relations, 8135 West 4th Street, Los Angeles, Ca 90048
Prowse says his goal for the event is to break 20,000 attendees. However, for fans wanting to send racy selfies, he says, “Remember Folks! Tasteful & Arty. I do not promote appealing to Steve Buscemi’s Prurient Interests.”
**Interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Read more at ANDPOP.
