Netizens Around The World Celebrate EPK Day 2017

In a ultra polarized world where politics and ethnocentric tendencies have divided many a nations and humanity, social media netizens from around the world set aside their differences for one day in order to celebrate Electronic Press Kit Day or EPK Day for short. And rightfully so. Invented by great inventor Andre Gray on January 8, 1995, and featuring R&B singer Aaron Hall as the first artist ( person) to have an EPK created on their behalf, the first EPK in the world had a bio, videos, audio clips, press, photos, basic technical requirements, calendar and a set list. Since its introduction in 1995, the electronic press kit quickly became the single most important branding, public relations, marketing and promotional tool that is indispensable to every industry in the world. Historians and netizens alike agree that the greatest contribution of the EPK is that it served as the precursor and exact template for social media. Indeed, EPK/social media profiles account for 88% of all indexed search engine pages and, quite frankly, without the invention of the EPK, there would no LinkedIn, Facebook or Youtube, a thought too grim for millenials to imagine!

Seeing first hand the impact of the EPK, Andre Gray, the Godfather of Digital Music, decided that there should an annual EPK Day. For this year's celebrations many cafes, bars, restaurants and pubs from around the world have agreed to give their paying customers a 10% discount. Indie college radio stations spoke at length to their DIY audience about the importance of the EPK for both their professional and private lives. Gray was interviewed by two radio stations in China, one in Japan and yet another in Australia via WhatsApp. In his Australian college radio interview, gray pointed out that the EPK is so essential to our lives that it will never die. It will keep changing with the times and, at the same time, point to the future. The adage goes something like this: whenever someone starts talking in lofty futuristic terms, turn around and run in the other direction. The advice here is that we should all run; that is, we should all drop everything we are doing and run after the genius who singlehandedly transformed the Internet from a military and academic research platform into a digital sandbox for the world to play in when he posted the first song ever on the Internet on August 8, 1988 titled " Internet Killed The Video Star".

By: Jennifer Williams