MakeApp Founder: 'Media Tried to Trample Us But Only Helped Us Reach Out to 1M Users & Make Money'

Chris Menahan
InformationLiberation
Nov. 28, 2017

MakeApp founder Ashot Gabrelyanov said Tuesday that despite being called a "white supremacist," "misogynist" and "Putin's spy" by the US media his makeup removing app has been a smashing success.

From Gabrelyanov's Medium, "Media tried to trample us but only helped us reach out to 1,000,000 users and make money":
All our Russian team members voted in favor of launching this experiment. Only one team member, Pir, my close friend and a US citizen, was against it.

He argued that the US media would dismiss this feature and accuse us of sexism. Having lived my whole life in Russia, I could hardly understand what he was talking about. I could not realize what was wrong with this makeup removal function. I listened to all the arguments and decided to keep this feature and release the app.
Gabrelyanov said MakeApp received rave reviews in Japan, South Korea, and China and got positive coverage in their media.



"Asia loves us!"  Gabrelyanov's skeptical American friend told him.

Coverage from the lying media in the US was just the opposite.
Our happiness knew no bounds! Everyone was thrilled! Everything went great.
Well, it was — until the US media took notice.

“A male Russian propagandist is behind an unflattering AI app that shows how women look without makeup” was the Business Insider headline that marked the start of our story in the USA.

I was disappointed to find out how unprofessional journalists are in these and some other “quality” US media outlets.

My correspondence with Shona Ghosh showed that her primary interest was to hype the clickbait story rather than to investigate the app and technology. “Russian-Kremlin-spy-sexist-racist” — heck, this guy is a dream come true for the yellow press!

From our correspondence, I became aware that her agenda was to make me into a wicked monster and the app into a spawn of hell.
Gabrelyanov said the rest of the media just ran with Business Insider's BS story without doing any fact checking of Ghosh's ridiculous claims.



Fortunately, their propaganda blitz backfired.


"It was their sensationalist fluff that helped us acquire over 200,000 new installations and top the US App Store ratings over the course of five days of hype," Gabrelyanov said. "Besides giving us their appreciation, our grateful users also support the project financially. We began to earn thousands of dollars per day."

Gabrelyanov said his company is releasing a new version of MakeApp for iOS users which allows for makeup removal in real-time.


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