Today we’d like to introduce you to Thomas Gaupp.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I was born a Buckeye in the heart of Ohio and graduated from the Ohio State University with a fine arts degree focused on multimedia. Having worked summers as an Ocean Life Guard, I had grown interested in making surf films. I moved to Hawaii to make my first surf epic. I spent 12 years making surf movies, videos, and packaging live surfing contests for sports networks like ESPN and FoxSports. In late 2005, I started the first surf video podcast on iTunes podcasts, “Hawaii Surf Session Report”. I built up a huge audience in 121 countries. When my first child was born, I wanted him to be just as excited about the Ohio State Buckeyes as myself.
That is when I created the world’s first animated mascot show called The 4Buckeyes in 2009. Since then, I have published more than 50 cartoons, and over 100 comic strips and produced a few original songs for Buckeye fans such as “Plant Me A Buckeye Tree”. I signed a book deal, which is a work in progress. I still think the best is yet to come, as I plan to take The 4Buckeyes to greater heights with a variety of new and exciting mediums.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Although there are smooth stretches on the road to success, I often run into the same rough patches related to money, time, and distance. I have big ideas with a small budget and limited availability. I’m still trying to find a way to monetize the 4Buckeyes, which would help to expand my audience, and increase marketing to include advertising and merchandise for retail sales. When it comes to keeping up with creative software’s ever-changing minimal requirements, it’s often a choice between buying essential items for the family, or a new computer for a project, that lacks a revenue stream. For me, family budget comes first and the same goes for the time I spend on the 4Buckeyes. Over the years, I’ve been active in my kid’s school PTA, coaching youth sports, and being a fully engaged father. I currently work part-time as a chauffeur, which has provided me with great opportunities to visit with VIPs, celebrities, diplomats, and royalty.
However the irony is this, I left Ohio to surf but now I wear a suit and tie. Despite self-imposed urgency to produce a new comic strip or animation for each upcoming Ohio State football game, I know what’s important and truly believe: “all good things in all good time”. My greatest struggle is distance. Living 3000 miles away from Ohio, my target market, makes it hard to enact word-of-mouth campaigns or to put boots on the ground at the games, promoting the 4Buckeyes by passing out flyers and promotional items. I’m hoping for an investor/business manager. Until then I am funding and finding my way, knowing that good grassroots advertising requires putting your feet on the ground in Ohio, whereas my feet are more often in the sands of Hawaii.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a multimedia artist, photographer, editor, graphic designer, motion graphics artist, and animator. I do my own copywriting, and songwriting, and a volunteer lifeguard. I’m a jack of many trades. While living on the north shore of Oahu, people knew me as the “editor guy from Ohio”. I was more than just an editor. I was a one-man production team, and I still am. I had one of the first independently owned digital editing systems and it was a monster in size and power. Nowadays shooting and editing on a phone makes it more accessible for anyone who wants to produce videos, but back in 1999, an editing system was over $25K and hard drives were $1000 per gigabyte. Additionally, broadcast quality cameras were twice the cost of the computer system. Having the equipment and the ability opened a lot of doors, and helped to develop my reputation on the islands. When video podcasts were introduced by Steve Jobs, I wasted no time creating my own podcast, Hawaii Surf Session Report and it rose to the top of iTune’s top 40 and stayed there until 2011. My pseudonym was and still is Tom-e-Stokes, boasting 81,000 subscribers which was quite large for its time. I did it on my own and accomplished what I set out to do, to make surf entertainment. During its run, I produced over 300 surf podcasts. My motto was “Good Surf, Great Music, and Bad Jokes”. I closed out every show saluting the troops and first responders and encouraging everyone to “Stay Tuned & Stay Stoked”. At the time Surf videos were rife with gratuitous edgy and vile b-roll with mostly heavy fast paced soundtracks. I grew up on Bruce Brown’s Endless Summer laid-back vibe and my mission was to take the punk out of surf videos and put the cool back in. Doing so allowed me to carve out a niche in the industry. What has always set me apart from others is that I’m an original thinker. I challenge myself to avoid copying somebody else’s style or creation.
I like to think of new and original ideas to develop. That’s what led me to create the original animated mascot show the 4Buckeyes, made for Buckeyes by a Buckeye. Only recently, are we seeing animated college mascots in pregame shows, while I’ve been doing it since 2009. Additionally, my style is intended to be family-friendly and avoid crude or hateful messaging. After all, I look at our opponents and rivals as “Big Ten Friends” with clean mascot humor. My goal is not to replace Brutus the Buckeye, but rather complement our favorite mascot, Brutus, with four cute little buckeyes named O-H-I & O. Together with my kids we hope to someday see the 4Buckeyes in the Horseshoe, on game day, alongside Brutus. Watching them do what mascots do best – energizing the crowd and making them laugh. While it would be wonderful to be known throughout the state for creating the 4Buckeyes, I’m not doing it for popularity. I do it to contribute to the excitement and the buckeye spirit in a fun way. I believe that happiness is a moral imperative, and if I can make people laugh and smile, I think I’m doing the right thing. Most importantly, I want to pass a legacy business down to my kids.
What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
Before I left Ohio to move to Hawaii my parents, cautioned me. They told me, “when you move away, it’s not always as easy to move back home”… Boy were they right. Being so far from home I’ve lost touch with some family and friends and missed important moments in their lives. There have been many occasions when life got tough and I would think about moving back home, but it’s not so easy. My kids have great friends and my wife’s quite happy in her career. Thus when it comes to moving, I need to consider the needs of the whole family.
It took a while to realize that Hawaii is now my home but Columbus Ohio will always be my hometown. Lesson learned: Life is like surfing, leaving the comfort of the land, you paddle out in search of adventure, and when you find your wave, you best commit or you’re going to go over the falls. The bigger the wave the greater the ride and the greater the risk of wiping out. Keep your head and heart in the moment, enjoy the ride but don’t forget where you come from.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://4buckeyes.com/
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/4buckeyesOHIO
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/4buckeyes
- Youtube: https://YouTube.com/4buckeyesohio
- Other: https://Tomgaupp.com
