Fighting the Machine with Lisa Rinna, King Princess, and Prophet Media
By Joshua Holtzman
Courtesy of Prophet Media
“BREAKING NEWS: SOFIA COPPOLA’s NEWEST FILM ANNOUNCED. STARS ATTACHED INCLUDE CHARLI, XCX, KATE BUSH, AND THE GIRL WHO SELLS JARS OF AIR ON TIKTOK.” - CUNT News
I followed Steph Rinzler on their campaign trail through Tompkins Square Park as they gave out pizza and spread the word for their Webby nomination. They approached thousands of people over three days with the same soft confidence.
“Do you want free pizza?” “No?” Would you vote for us anyway? We’re up for a Webby against companies like Apple and BBC, and we’re just us,” they said with a smile persuading New Yorkers to take a small swing against the machine.
Rinzler’s banner Prophet Media has worked with hundreds of your favorite artists like Tame Impala, Mazie, American Football, and Gus Dapperton, but their proudest work might be Webby-nominated “Girl Violence” for King Princess starring Lisa Rinna.
This dozen part series “CUNT News” follows King Princess and Cherry feud, a groupie turned enemy, over their new album resulting in the death and resurrection of KP. Producer Anahita von Andrian-Werburg emphasized the joy and stresses of independent production. She played King Princesses’ arch nemesis Cherry while she produced and designed many of the visual aspects of the set.
Courtesy of Prophet Media
Beyond Lisa Rinna’s incredible performance, the strong set design, and immersive graphics, the world of CUNT News is playfully painted with details like a never-ending breaking news banner: “KING PRINCESS REPORTEDLY STORMS OUT OF THE STUDIO AFTER BEING ASKED TO DO HER JOB,” or “New trend of cheating on spouses at concerts takes the internet by storm. Who will cheat at the King Princess concert next?”
Courtesy of Prophet Media
Two other great features were the DIY archival footage Steph’s team created through guerrilla on-the-street filmmaking, and the genuinely hilarious acting by Steph and King Princess, as well as the INSANE fake Instagram account for Cherry.
Revel in Cherry’s Instagram stories because your favorite legacy media company could never:
Courtesy of Prophet Media
Courtesy of Prophet Media
Steph worked full-time in this field while going to Tufts University’s Film and Media Studies Program. To the delight of their parents, they quit their stable job soon after graduating to pursue the mythical world of freelancing. This confident and driven attitude carried them through three insanely successful years.
When they jokingly compared themselves to Mandani’s grassroots campaign, I felt a poignant bow of knowledge hit my heart while the Tompkin’s millennials melted at Rinzler’s charm.
Today, the social space is as political as the White House. Studies on the ill effects of brainrot, fearful algorithms feeding grifter products we don’t need, and Oracle's hostile takeover of TikTok give the internet a sour feeling nowadays.
Gen-Z fostered the internet in the 2000s, and corporations have syphoned off every joy it created to hack our brains for marketing and attention-bait since.
The worlds that Steph creates in these short-form videos fight back against the boring, lifeless, sanitized, fearmongering, effortless clickbait slop that legacy media puts in front of us every day. The swarm of corporate media accounts doesn’t give Instagram its value; people like Steph do.
Voting ends this Thursday, April 16th, so cast your vote because they’re neck and neck with The BBC, who have won over 100 Webby awards and doesn't need another one.
