Larry Namer: The Pop Culture Media Extravaganza Behind Hollywood, and E! Entertainment Television Launches BTYKWN

Global phenomena Larry Namer is lending his expertise and experience to the new BTYKWN (pronounced Beautykween) metaverse, which could very well have the power to change the planet. Recognized as the co-creator and co-founder of the E! Channel, Larry Namer’s talents, visions and skills eclipse everything in media and cannot be challenged by man, angel or beast. His longevity in the media and Pop Culture field stems from his ability to evolve, and the innovation to reinvent himself and to reinvent the future for the youth generation.

Larry Namer is considered “One of the world’s leading experts on new technology and how it is fundamentally altering the business of international media and entertainment.” BTYKWN creator/founder Mister D, the Hollywood brand guru and celebrity collaborator, recently announced Namer’s position as a Co-Founder and Chief of Pop at BTYKWN. BTYKWN is the first ever gender free digital metaverse for makeup superfans…and is more than a mere adventure but the substance of dreams.

What inspired you to become involved with the BTYKWN project?

Well, I met Mister D a while back, and we were always doing fun projects together. He presented his BTYKWN metaverse idea and BTYKWN TV its free streaming content offering. I was hesitant but I started doing a lot of research, reading online and stuff like that. I realized that there is a significant number of kids out there in the community that had no real place to go to discuss glamour and makeup, pop culture, and youth issues. However, I always believe that things need to be sustainable and not good for the sake of doing good because it doesn’t last and it’s not worth the time and effort. I realized how much money goes into these products and I realized that it could be sustainable if you build it right. So, I assured Mister D I would come in and help as much as I can.

After all of your experience in the world of entertainment, what excites you most about BTYKWN?

In going back, I hate to say it but I go back into most of the early days of this kind of stuff looking at music which used to be the chatter of pop culture. Then Alan Mruvka and I realized that times are changing, and the celebrity was becoming the chatter of pop culture and we started E! because we believed that bigger than music, bigger than any one individual was the whole concept of celebrity popular culture, obviously things like Kardashians. I was looking more at social media now and I realized that more and more beauty whether it be inner beauty or outer beauty has become the chatter of pop culture. That’s what I love. I love figuring out how to blend myself into pop culture globally, on any distribution platform and in any country. I’ve done a lot of stuff out of the US. I’ve had TV shows in Russia and China, in languages that I don’t necessarily speak. I really pay attention to what is it that people like and what do people talk about when they go to work or school tomorrow.

The Asian and the Russian culture is so different than ours. You probably had to do a lot of research.

A lot of research, it really is immersive. When I started doing stuff in Russia, I lived there as much as I could. In China I purposely didn’t go to the areas where most Americans go like Shanghai. Everyone speaks English there and it’s very conducive to Western culture. In Beijing I purposely put myself in an all Chinese areas. I had to learn a little bit of Mandarin to even go to the dry cleaners or to go to a restaurant. I didn’t live with other Americans. I put myself in a building where I think I was the only non-Chinese there. You just have to force yourself to do it, and then what really was helpful to me, I put myself in Chinese social media. That really gave me an opportunity to talk with people all around China, not just people in Beijing but people living in villages. To be able to have a conversation with kids 15 or 16 years old just about issues. One of the biggest ones for me was when Bieber and Selena broke up. Social media in China was buzzing and I used it as an opportunity to really dig in and understand from kids, what they think about fidelity and issues like that. So, I blended that into my TV shows there and it resonated with the audience. People were amazed how I knew how Chinese people live and what they know.

I feel like BTYKWN is a project similar to that, understanding the identities and how these kids identify, because it’s definitely a different language.

You have to listen to them and you have to keep a very opened mind. May not be the way you live or what you believe. I have to go back to the geography thing that people who live like us can’t be happy? It’s so untrue. The China example is we are horrified that they live in communism. I lived halftime in China and talked to people every day. They claim they are doing what they want. They say “we have rules but you have rules too. Our economy is growing tremendously and we’re OK, we are happy.” “They don’t think that way about living under communist rule. There are a lot of issues especially with the people in the LGBTQ+ community, we can’t tell them “I couldn’t be like that”. A lot of times people are very happy in that world, and we should let them be happy. They should be whatever they want to be.

I agree. What do you see happening with BTYKWN in the future, content and programming wise?

We grow, we scale up. Right now we are so happy at BTYKWN we’re focusing on the LGBTQ+ community but we’re going to focus on all people from every community who use makeup and beauty as the point of the conversation about anything. It’s basically about bringing people together. I think we will see much more original programming. You’ll see us reach out from being just Internet content to being part of the media world in general, TV shows, films etc. It’s really representing the community plus all forms of media.

Who do you hope celebrity wise will want to get involved?

There are a lot of people I’ve been involved with in the past to really have the ability to influence peoples thinking and mindset. Obviously, people like Kardashians and Howard Stern, folks like that. But then you look at iconic fashion designer Rich Rich’s world, he is the headliner of BTYKWN, and the people that he’s been close with, Pam Anderson, Paris Hilton, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga. Those are people who could accelerate the agenda and getting the message out there and making people aware that BTYKWN even exists.

The E! Channel turned out to be one of the coolest projects on the planet, do you see the same for this project?

It’s just a different thing. People are always amazed when they ask me what I would have done differently. If I were to do E! today I wouldn’t do it as a linear TV Network. I would do it as an Internet thing. I think the world of technology changed so much that a lot of things that were incredibly successful, kind of become outdated. I think BTYKWN, in today’s world, has the ability to become as big and as important as E! has become.

Will you have a lot of say in the programming, help shape it etc.?

I can’t help myself. They work really well together. While I think it needs to be raw and fresh, there are certain technical standards that have to be met. People are so used to seeing stuff in a certain way that you need to maintain that. I helped bring in some people to make sure that technically we are always good. Content wise it could be as edgy as Mister D wants it to be, but the quality of the technical side of it has to meet up with what the audience is expecting.

When you create a project how do you know it’s going to work?

I never know when they are going to work, but I do have a sense when they won’t work. Sometimes I think it will be OK, but the ones that really breakthrough, when we started “Talk Soup” everybody thought we were out of our minds doing a TV show that makes fun of TV shows. Who knew that it would go on for 26 years? You can’t predict those kinds of things, but the ones that I’m not going to do, you kind of know.

The official website for BTYKWN TV may be found at https://www.btykwn.com

Photo Credit: Courtney Gail – Just Another Shot Photography

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Tags: BTYKWN, BTYKWNTV, E! Entertainment Television, larry namer, Mister D, Richie rich, The Hype Magazine