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”.

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The UNfappening quickly out-viralled The Fappening itself. In a short period of time the project attracted over 500,000 visitors, was mentioned by more than 214 media outlets, generated a publicity value of a staggering €10,000,000,

sent social media into a spin and was picked up by many social influencers like ‘UNofficial: Banksy’ and Cindy Gallop.

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 have established themselves as an agency that dares to use art to do good.

The internet has opened up a world of nudity and porn that is accessible to anyone. This nudity overload, mostly aimed at men, is considered normal nowadays.

The Fappening raised global concerns about security, privacy and nudity

on account of the female celebrities victimised by the hack.

Hundreds of pictures were leaked by sites like 4Chan and Reddit and were viewed by millions of people. It created a global media event.

Although many people condemned the mass breach of privacy, they seemed to be drowned out by those who glorified the hack.

And because the nude pictures will linger forever on the fringes of the web, we needed to use the force of the web and turn it against itself, turning something negative into something positive.

With the UNfappening, we drew attention away from the nudity and took the porn out of the leaked celeb nude pictures – simply by covering them up with artwork.

“Sometimes it's just simpler to cover up the nipples with an octopus.”

Dabitch – Adlandtv - 14 October

The first celebrity nude pictures began leaking on the web on 31 August 2014.

We responded quickly with a counter-movement named The UNfappening, an initiative with the mission of bringing decency to the victims of the Fappening, simply by superimposing the works of various artists on their pictures.

We relied heavily on the power of art and the skills of the artists. Why? Because art gives people a different take on reality. When used effectively, art can change the content of any picture, video of comment.

Immediately after the leaks, we assigned various international female and male visual artists, represented by Artbox, a simple task: cover up the nude pictures with tasteful, artwork by using their own style and signature.

As soon as we had enough cover-up artworks to fill a gallery, we launched theunfappening.com. By adding new artworks to the website daily, we made sure there was something new to see every day. This made the amount of visitors increase continuously. Later on we also received artworks from various other artists. These were displayed once they had been curated.

The UNfappening was easily soon picked up online by numerous influencers.

With the UNfappening, art agency Artbox responded to an scandalous breach of privacy in a way no one has ever done before, by depicting the women involved as works of art instead of sexually objectifying them.