On 31 August 2014, hundreds of private female celebrity nude pictures were leaked onto the web by a group of hackers. Quickly dubbed ‘The Fappening’ by the internet,

the event triggered a global media frenzy, sparking concern about security, privacy and nudity.

We condemned this mass invasion of privacy and asked ourselves: how can we turn all this negative attention into something positive? So we decided to ‘news-jack’ ‘The Fappening’ by ‘covering up’ nudity with art.

We named our counter-movement ‘The UNfappening’. It involved superimposing the works of artists represented by art agency Artbox on the leaked pictures.

Why? To restore the dignity of the celebs involved and to provide a beautiful alternative that everyone could enjoy.

The UNfappening generated a massive, immediate audience for the work of Artbox artists. All artworks were displayed in a digital gallery on the UNfappening website.

The UNfappening changed the way the nudes were interpreted. In doing so, we created an art movement that has taken the power away from those behind the leaks and redirected it towards celebrating the victims involved as works of art.

To quote The Unofficial Banksy, “This may break the internet”.

Immediately after The Fappening occurred, we assigned various international visual artists, represented by art agency Artbox, a simple task: cover up the nude pictures in a tasteful, non-sexualised way, using their own style and signature.

As soon as we had enough cover-up artworks to fill a gallery, we launched theunfappening.com via online seeding. New artworks were added to our curated digital gallery every day and the site saw a bump in traffic. We also received multiple submissions from other artists, which we displayed once they had been curated.

The UNfappening quickly out-viralled The Fappening itself. The project attracted over 500,000 visitors, was mentioned by 214 media outlets (publicity value: €10,000,000), took social media by storm and was picked up by many social influencers, including ‘Unofficial: Banksy’.

We created an art movement that has taken the power away from those behind the leaks and redirected it towards celebrating the victims involved in the form of works of art. As a result, Artbox and their artists have been launched onto the global ‘creative industry’ map and they increased traffic to their company website by 60%.