Photographer Jeremy Cohen: From viral pandemic fame to … an NFT?
The photographer and popular TikTokker joins 'Brooklyn Magazine: The Podcast' to discuss his work, virality—and hint at what's next
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Chances are if you’re a New Yorker on social media, you follow Jeremy Cohen. And if you follow Jeremy Cohen on social media—where he has 419,000 followers on Instagram and 1.2 million on TikTok—chances are you have the pandemic to thank for it.
When the city was sent into covid quarantine, Cohen was already a steadily working photographer, specializing in social media fare for brands, portraits and big music festivals. But in 2020 the lockdown forced him to stay home … and sit still. Which in turn may have been the best thing to ever happen to his career: A series of photos he took of stir-crazy New Yorkers on their rooftops went viral, then he blew up on TikTok for asking his neighbor out on a quirky socially-distanced date, which scored him influencer gig after branded content gig as a result.
“I’m a New Yorker. I’m out and about all the time—going to this, going to that—whether it’s work-related or social-related,” he says soon this week’s episode of “Brooklyn Magazine: The Podcast.” “So when the pandemic happened and I was stuck in my apartment without a roommate, I’ve never been all alone like that for so long. Among other things I found inspiration from that.”
Quarantining had the surprising effect of forcing him to get creative on a personal level. First he gained notoriety for those rooftop photos, where he took snapshots of his Bushwick neighbors fleeing their cramped apartments to their roofs to work out, dance, practice music or just get some fresh air.
“I noticed people started to go to their rooftops like I’ve never seen before,” he says. “It was the one safe place people could go.”
It struck such a chord that it resonated well-beyond his robust social media following. New York Magazine did a feature on the series, using his photo of a lone rooftop cellist as their cover image.
“This rooftop series? I think it’s the most important body of work that I’ve ever made and I think really documents this historical moment in a unique way,” says Cohen, who breaks a little news on the podcast this week: For the past couple months he’s been figuring out how to release the series of 65 snapshots as an NFT some time next month in a way that is both effective and ethical.
“I want to put it out in the world and have people, whether it’s art collectors or fans of my work in general, be able to own a piece of my art,” he says. “We are breaking some news here, so if you’re listening, stay tuned. I haven’t talk about that on the internet at all.”
If you missed the rooftop series, maybe you caught wind of Cohen after he blew up on TikTok for his “Quarantine Cutie” series, where he introduced himself to a neighbor across the street via drone … and then went on a series of dates with her—once inside a giant inflatable sphere that evoked John Travolta in “The Boy in the Plastic Bubble,” only goofy on purpose.
On the podcast we find out more about who Jeremy Cohen is, where he’s from and how it felt to become a mid-pandemic sensation. And we talk about working on TikTok, which he was initially hesitant about joining. “You gotta listen to the kids and the kids are on TikTok,” he says.
Check out this episode of “Brooklyn Magazine: The Podcast” for more. Subscribe and listen wherever you get your podcasts.
