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Seph Lawless

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HOLY SHIT SEPH LAWLESS' REAL NAME IS JOSEPH MELENDEZ!!!!!1


Seph Lawless
Powerword: Joseph Melendez
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
Aliases: Joe Melendez, José Melendez, $eph Lawless, Snitch Lawless, Sephallis, Dominika Seitz, Chel McKee, Ronald Majka and over 9000 more sock names
Born: May 1, 1975
Died: TBD
Occupation: Professional Janitor; Amateur Photographer; YouTuber; Author; Urban Explorer; Media Whore; Pathological Liar; Banksy wannabe; LOLcow

Seph Lawless is the pseudonymous name created by 42-year old, self-proclaimed artivist and "King of All Urbex" "original urbex photographer" Joseph Melendez to scam idiots who get their news from Buzzfeed, and troll both social and old media. He uses both to pimp his crude photography books featuring the same abandoned buildings and places every other fucktard urban explorer stopped to take a piss long before him, and pass (usually fictional) clickbait backstories as facts that media faps furiously to because fact-checkers were all apparently sacked along with paid photojournalists years ago, when ratings and sweet ad-revenue became more important than the truth.

Delving deeper into this particularly-sad human shitshow, however, reveals more than just another testament to the garbage state of journalism, but also a bonus history of compulsive lying, blatant plagiarism, insane delusions of grandeur, mastery of self promotion, and a long, well-documented history of erratic, oft-abusive behavior online, that has effectively made him the lulziest thing to happen to urban exploring since Lord Rick.


Origins

Joe doesn't know where he was born
Joe doesn't know where he was born

Joe has never given a straight answer, but over the years has declared his birthplace as either Cleveland, Philadelphia, or Detroit. Incidentally, whenever he claims the latter, it's usually followed by a story about how his dad worked for the Ford Motor Company, and that he witnessed firsthand the decline of an American industry. Ironically, Joe also happens to be one of those smug assholes who constantly brags about driving a Toyota Prius.

His rise to relevancy begins in the custodial arts with "M Cleaning Services" (possibly now known as Joe's Green Clean), a business he ran in Cleveland circa-2010. After hiring some meth head hag's sister, said-hag's husband believed they were having an affair, and in 2010 devised a plan to lure Joe to his house, where he'd be attacked. The plan almost worked, and led as far as Joe's arrest and charge for attempted rape before a witness at the house fucked it all up. Joe sued for defamation and won $1.5 million (which he could never collect). It should be noted that prior to being falsely arrested for rape: he had done absolutely nothing of note in his life whatsoever, so it was a step up for him.

Joe's early interaction with fans

Realizing that sleeping with the barely legal women under his employ wasn't a long term career, Joe subsequently invested some of that sweet false rape money into bedazzled jean jackets and an entry level D-SLR to create the desperately sad persona, "Seph Lawless", in 2012. This co-incided with his paying someone to create a Wikipedia page, which he obsessively defends from edits that expose his lies and might impact his shitty e-book business model. The name Seph Lawless, derived from "Joseph" and perhaps his fetishistic obsession with the movie Lawless, is tragically the most creative he has ever been in his life. He adamantly denies that his name is Joseph Melendez, going so far as to set up a dozen Blogspot sites in a deliberate attempt to game search engine results, even though his website WHOIS registration information was created under that very name. Several months after this was pointed out to Seph, the WHOIS information was hidden. Seph now claims that this was a clever SEO trick in which he took on the name of an actor by the same name. Incidentally: Joseph Melendez (the actor) has denied ever working with Seph Lawless, even while Seph claims they are touring to promote his latest book in 2017.

He claims to have been arrested over 50 times, however, this is a pathetic lie. He plead no contest to a trespassing charge once, like a total bitch, and had his drivers license suspended. In 2016, a judge issued a warrant for his arrest because he failed to appear in traffic court on a speeding charge... Joe's so bad he should be in detention. Oh yeah, and petty theft. Lying comes easy for Joe in the service of his ego: in a media interview, he tried to pass off his girlfriend as a "local transient" despite there being no conceivable reason for doing so. Joe also claims that his earlier books were published by Doral Publishing. You may know Doral Publishing if you like books about dogs, as that's all they published before being bought out by the Cat Fancy Magazine publishers, BowTie Inc. in 2011. He once claimed to have sold $60,000 in books in a single month, which might be the most ridiculous thing he has ever said.

Black Friday

A recent audit of his Twitter account determined that a whopping 91% of his followers are fake accounts.

Joe's first claim to fame was having finally trespassed in two shuttered shopping malls in Ohio that everyone had been to years prior. He then proclaimed himself an expert on the subject of retail economics and made a shitty e-book of his mediocre photographs that lack both simple composition and even focus, and are somehow both under-processed AND over-processed at the same time. Despite this, he successfully landed Fox News and CNN interviews after begging them for a feature, and from there his social media stats skyrocketed... almost too quickly. That's because Joe largely pays third-world clickfarm sites to artificially-inflate his number of followers; confirmed by simply viewing the engagement stats on his Facebook page, but moreso when an Instagram purge of such-fake accounts wiped out 44,900 of his followers in a day.

Fueled by his growing ego: it was around this time where Joe grew increasingly hostile toward his critics, and even those who merely photographed the same two malls as him. Following his one legit arrest: Joe admitted as part of his plea-bargain he would turn information on other photographers who had been in Randall Park Mall over to the North Randall Police Department, effectively making him a snitch. For a while, he frequently created sockpuppet accounts at the Urban Exploration Resource (UER) forums in an vain attempt to praise and defend himself wherever possible, and harass his critics. His efforts never lasted more than a day or two before he would be banned - the duration growing shorter each time due to his distinctively-shitty grammar and writing style.

Seph Commences

Amid his sockpuppetry on UER, a severe case of butthurt from continual roasting at  TheUrbexMemester, and a failed Craigslist ad posted in the Columbus area offering $20 to anyone reporting The Urbex Memester page for cyberbullying; Joe finally snapped and launched a new Facebook page titled "The Urbex Memester - a.k.a. "King of All Urbex" around Christmas 2014 with the following video:


A message to urban explorers


Under the guise of "outing the admins of The Urbex Memester": a colossal public meltdown ensued. He called out virtually every known urban explorer with an internet presence, publicly harassed and dropped dox on critics, fans, and even other photographers who just happen to go into shitty buildings. Notable targets included Sherman Cahal for attempting to delete his article at TOW - which away from the faux-Memester page included phone calls tracing to the business number for Joe's janitorial company, Matthew Christopher of Abandoned America - who he views as some kind of "competitor", Sean Galbraith for accurately giving his book shit reviews, and basically anyone who won't drink his Kool-Aid. Between his tantrums: Joe would have vaguely-coherent conversations with himself as both the faux-Memester and Seph Lawless while blurting-out the word "commencing" like some kind of tourettes-diagnosed sperglord, and would oft-promote Seph's interviews, bullshit TV deals, and that his Facebook page had been verified. Amid this, Joe also used the page to threaten defamation lawsuits - a regular thing for him which he absolutely never delivers on.

Shortly after Seph paid someone to write his Wikipedia page, he began boasting to his legion of fans (the ones that he didn't pay for) that he was the only explorer with a Wikipedia page. Attempting to show the public what Seph was really doing, attempts were made to modify Seph's Wiki page to update it with evidence of the harassment, lies and douchebaggery. Unfortunately the admins at TOW were not concerned with actual facts unless they were published in other media articles. Since the media chooses to publish Seph's every word without fact checking, the truth remains masked. When it was mentioned on Wikipedia that Seph's mocking of explorers via Youtube was done by a person who looked identical to Seph and had to be the same person, Seph used the faux-Memester page to ridicule these attempts to tell the true story of his abuse by asking people to "look at his teeth" and compare his likeness to photos from "Fox News". By examining the video and media photos of Seph, you can tell that they are clearly the same person.

Like his Seph Lawless page: Joe would rapidly populate his faux-Memester page with thousands of Pakistani clickfarm likes overnight; trying to give the impression he was humiliating his critics in front of a massive audience, when in reality the only ones actually reading his manchild temper-tantrum rants were his targets. Three or four Facebook pages were created over the month with similar names, similar populations, and similar posts - a new one starting immediately after the previous was deleted by Facebook - before finally fucking-off after the last one was reported and shut down. In that timeframe, a few parody pages of Seph's own parody page - including one which first made Joe's dox and pictures of his mother public - came and went. A couple of which still exist in an abandoned state but contain nothing really lulzy.

All of this took place while, according to court documents, Joe IRL faced foreclosure on his condominium in Cleveland. This has happened more than once.

Post-commencement

Kibbles or rabbit turds? You decide...

Sometime after the mall project, Joe began exploring post-Katrina Nawlins and discovered Googled the location of an abandoned pet cemetery someone else photographed a couple years prior. It would've been a textbook Seph Lawless book of overpriced/over-processed crap if not for the gravestone of an unknown critter by the name of "Kandi". Claiming to be dog food left presumably by Kandi's owner, it fooled nobody and was immediately recognized as mere rabbit shit.

In September, 2015, Joe once again sought to glom onto the tragedy of others in a desperate attempt to stay relevant by taking the public stance that rape kits collected from crimes should be tested. Because Joe is an asshole, to illustrate this point, he posted a 2014 photo of an old woman in front of her run down house, arms spread wide, implying to the unfortunate viewer the conclusion that she is a rape victim herself. She is, however, a victim of Joe's unrelenting ego.

In November 2015 Joe celebrated Friday the 13th by boasting he gave away 3,000 free e-books on his Facebook page - to which nearly every response from his followers was disappointment that they missed their chance, which were subsequently deleted - bringing into question whether or not the greedy little shit has actually ever given away any of his books, like he says. Not that you're missing anything; between his mediawhoring and the occasional torrent, there's absolutely no reason to give a cent to this fucking lunatic. Ever.

Joe applied for and was granted a blog on The Huffington Post in March of 2016 after their editors probably got tired of receiving his e-mails, begging for a story every time he photographed another lonely chair. One of his first posts was gloating about photographing the abandoned River Country water park at Walt Disney World - a feat many urban explorers had long-beat him to, and all of whom had the common sense to either obtain permission, or not brag about it to major media outlets. Apparently learning nothing from how the Mouse handled Adam the Woo several years prior: Joe was promptly banned from Disney property, and is now trying to spin the story into some kind of batshit conspiracy theory claiming he took the photographs (yes, even the ones inside buildings and of artfully-placed furniture) using drones.

Following a June 2016 incident where an alligator killed a small child at Walt Disney World, Joe reached a new low by phoning a radio show that was discussing the tragedy, and used the airtime to talk about himself. He was rightfully hung-up on.

Hypocrisy

The wonderful douchebag of Oz

In addition to being an all around douchebag and compulsive liar, Joe is also a known hypocrite. He is prone to calling other photographers out for using the Caters News Agency to promote their work to the press. Unfortunately for Lawless, it seems that Lawless has ALSO used Caters News Agency.

In February 2016 Joe was yet-again caught artificially inflating his number of Twitter followers using paid clickfarm sites in Russia, accumulating a whopping 5000 fake followers within a short period of time; while also devoting much of his attention toward stalking and publicly bashing abandoned_america on a dedicated Facebook page he created for the very same thing.

Sockpuppetry

Joe purchased a number of fake 5-star reviews when his book was released in May 2017; note each profile has reviewed the same items in the same order.

Before his Christmas meltdown, Joe was running Seph Lawless'-own Facebook fanpage: creatively-titled "SEPH LAWLESS FANS", which was written as if it was made by obsessive teenage fangirls (and as you guessed: heavily populated by clickfarms). In the days before his slam-piece blogs, he would use this page to publicly attack critics on Facebook, using the page as a trap - for when said critics would come to defend themselves, Joe would white knight himself as his actual Seph Lawless page by accusing the attacked of frequently harassing underage girls, a creepy tactic he still employs to this day. After the first "King of All Urbex" page was shut down by Facebook, Joe promptly converted this page to a copy of the original. It, too, was eventually shut down.

Being a pussy who lacks any sort of integrity to respond to criticism and callouts as himself, Joe also has a long history of sockpuppetry where he appropriates the names of girls that are usually half his age - again, usually posing as obsessed Seph Lawless fangirls. On social media, he will go through every single share of content from his profile and give it a "Like", but the real purpose of this is to check and make sure nobody is speaking out against him, or posing a threat to what is nothing more than a business to him. In such cases, profile names such as "Dominika (Domi/Dee) Seitz", "Tori Skees", "McKee Chel" and "Chelsea C. McKee" will usually come into play any time he needs to go on the offense without fucking up Seph's-own PR. It's worth noting that a real person by the name "Chelsea McKee" also happens to be a Cleveland-area urban explorer, and is probably one of many who told him to eat shit, as Joe threatened to dox her during his King of all Urbex meltdown. The double-hijack of her name may also be an effort by Seph to damage her own reputation.

In October 2015 it was discovered that Joe invested a considerable amount of time trying to salvage the universally-terrible ratings of his books on Goodreads using dozens of fake accounts that have only reviewed Seph's books. It was further confirmed several months later, when an Anon dug up the sources for many of his sock accounts' profile pictures. Goodreads eventually purged most of the fraudulent accounts and ratings over the summer of 2016. The next May he released a new hardcover book, and spent much of that June buying fake 5-star reviews on Amazon to rig their rating system; coincidentally, while Amazon has been actively cracking-down on such practices.

As of May 2017, Joe was once-again harassing other explorers in Facebook Messenger using a number of sock profiles; coinciding with the release of another horror story on the Ripoff Report website, where it was revealed Joe - behind sock accounts - has been relentlessly bullying and intimidating someone for merely inquiring about his Variety Theatre book that was published with 20 blank pages (see below).

Anonymous

In 2015 Joe desperately tried to align himself with Anonymous and make them his personal army to deal with ongoing trolling - even going as far as stealing the Anonymous logo to print in his books, and claiming it was them who removed troll accounts from social media (even though in all-likelihood it was Joe constantly reportfagging legit profiles of those he doesn't like via his sockpuppet profiles). The account that Joe claimed to be Anonymous turned out to just be some guy who had Anonymous in his account name, and very few followers at all.

In a 2015 feature by the BBC, Joe referred to homeless people as "derelicts" during his interview, which rustled a few jimmies on Twitter. When Sean Galbraith, a recurring target of his, responded to one of which: Joe went apeshit as Dominika Seitz - again, trying to affiliate Sean with The Urbex Memester and claim he was responsible for an edgy meme about a dead homeless guy found frozen in Detroit. When he only managed to make a further ass of himself, he cried for help from the first Anon-related Twitter account he searched - hilariously, it was one that has been largely-inactive since the Occupy Movement collapsed in 2012.

In late-2016 Seph began boasting that an anti-Seph Instagram profile that had been dormant for a couple of years was suddenly "hacked by Anonymous to send a warning to other bullies". It is believed, however, that it was a trap profile which Seph has been behind the entire time.

It should be noted that the creation of this very dossier was the direct result of Joe making Anonymous aware of him, and he is now frantically trying to identify its authors. Meanwhile, he even took credit for its creation on his troll Facebook pages, and tried to claim it was a trap he set up to lure and steal account information on its editors (which isn't even possible in any sense). He will more than likely blindly pin its creation on the next innocent person to piss him off as an excuse to continue his harassment of other urban explorers, for there is literally no end to Joe talking out of his ass for the sake of publicity.

Bankruptcy & His Real Name

Seph filed for Chapter 13 Bankruptcy in November 2015, and did not disclose any of the income he claims to have made through his photography. Not wanting to be arrested for committing bankruptcy fraud, he created a number of poorly written blogs as an SEO trick, stating that he was behind the rumors that his real name is Joseph Melendez, hoping that if any of his creditors google Joseph Melendez they do not immediately find out that he is Seph Lawless. Unfortunately, the bankruptcy trustee found out about the fraud and reopened the proceedings against Joe. Under oath, Joe had to admit that he is Seph Lawless (duh) and that he didn't report a LOT of items. He had to beg for forgiveness like a bitch, and up his repayment from 1% of debts owned to 100% of debts owed.

In the spring of 2016, Joe continued throwing up a series of bizarre blogs, YouTube videos, and other bandwidth-wasters in an attempt to game search engine results for terms such as "Seph Lawless", "Joseph Melendez", and "Seph Lawless Real Name" toward his attempts to hide his real name; as well as hijack search results for projects by foes: Sean Galbraith, and Matthew Christopher - even stealing Matt's "Abandoned America" trademark for use in clickbait articles promoting his own work. Most of these efforts were thwarted by Google around June 19.

YouTube

A reality television show Joe has oft-proclaimed to be in development over the years finally came to fruition as a mere YouTube series in early 2016, starting when Joe figured out how to edit a default iMovie template into an absolutely cringeworthy teaser trailer. The first real episode of "TRESPASS with Seph Lawless" was posted to YouTube on April 25, 2016, and it unsurprisingly proved to be as huge of a dumpster fire as his previous ventures: crudely edited, and full of lies, self-absorption, and spelling errors.

About two weeks later, in a continued attempt to score an actual reality television deal: he uploaded another video purporting to have captured a paranormal audio phenomenon in a haunted house. The supposed phenomenon was immediately debunked as nothing more than a slowed-down Kings of Leon remix with random noises dubbed over heavily edited footage taken with his iPhone.

Again-proving Joe lacks the integrity to handle any sort of criticism: all of his video's comments were outright disabled the moment someone ridiculed his shaky, selfie stick-derived footage.


If you like iMovie sound effects, you'll love this...


Teaser traiker


Joe sees his shadow, calls it a ghost and declares six more weeks of bullshit


Joe's been listening to too much Kings of Leon...

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Matteson, Illinois

In November 2016, a change.org petition was started by the south Chicago Oi/Streetrock band Bleach Battalion calling for Joe's arrest in Matteson, Illinois - after he had blown-up yet-another shuttered mall to national media. Joe was pissed and went after the band members on Instagram. When the original post with Joe's comments got deleted, the band reposted them. In his comment, Joe trotted out his much used "you'll hear from my lawyers" empty threat and once again claimed (falsely) to be a "respected Huffington Post journalist". He then created his own "Don't Arrest Seph Lawless" petition which either he or Change.org deleted almost immediately.

Furthermore: the unwanted attention Joe brought to the village of Matteson, on top of the influx in vandalism at the abandoned mall since his visit, has apparently enraged locals enough that someone spray painted "Seph Lawless is Joseph Melendez" in one of the stores, near what other trespassers had been commonly using as the point of entry, at said abandoned mall.

Debunkings

Not even a public library is safe from his crap

Since Joe won't let his image be tarnished by criticism and blocks comments and profiles for practically any reason: the only way to successfully fuck with Joe and trigger an epic meltdown is to simply uncover the truth about his ghost stories and other lies...

The Haunted Librarian

The first major debunking was by the blog The Haunted Librarian on the lies within 13: An American Horror Story, one of Joe's earlier publications. The TL;DR version follows:

  • The Nova House in Youngstown, Ohio was NOT the scene of a murder-suicide in 1958 - the perp and son were Seph's own characters
  • No information exists on a Sheriff shooting himself at the Cater House Estates in Buffalo, New York in 1968
  • The same for a family living at the Oliver Family Mansion in Chester, Pennsylvania in 1898 that vanished and was never seen again

It took until May 2015 for Joe to react: by harassing its author via emails and her website's comments threatening her with lawsuits, along with sending a fraudulent DMCA to Wordpress that resulted in her website being suspended very briefly.

An all-out shitshow further-developed around Halloween that year, when The Haunted Librarian debunked The Nova House story being spread a second-time amid Seph's then-latest batch of fakery. When an Ohio library shared it on their Facebook page, Joe immediately went apeshit: claiming its author was a former employee of the library (yet she lives in Alabama, according to her own website), and gave his now-routine sob stories about cyberbullying and that he was (not) filing more lolsuits. Naturally, it accomplished nothing other than proving nobody - not even public libraries - are safe from Joe's self-obsession, so he took another step into utter-insanity by purchasing a fucking domain similar to The Haunted Librarian's-own, purchasing a premium Wordpress account, completely copying her theme to an exact match, and creating a clearly-fake public apology and retraction that also resumed slamming his old enemy, Matthew Christopher - which he then shared on Seph's Facebook page in an attempt to gloat to his unaware fans. It didn't last more than a day before Wordpress suspended it.

After starting his "Blog Bully Busters" Wordpress site to harass Matthew Christopher (see below): on November 17 Joe resumed harassing The Haunted Librarian's author, and purchased a third domain and premium Wordpress account to pen another fake apology, posing as her... or at least tried to, as he was too stupid to change the author's name to something not-"BlogBullyBusters". As of mid-2016 Joe is still butthurt for being outed, and continues to slam The Haunted Librarian via his Seph Lawless blog.

The Trolley Tragedy of 1957

In 2015, Seph was called out again for a separate set of lies - this time by Matthew Christopher of the website Abandoned America, a longtime critic and victim of Joe's harassment - about the alleged "Trolley Tragedy of 1957"; his claims of it both being haunted, and working with The Walking Dead film crews which gained him national attention [1]. The photos of several rusted-out streetcars and train cars - bought and accumulated from various locations (evidenced by the 1976 Philly Bicentennial cars) - were actually those at a salvage yard in an undisclosed location. The land owner was interviewed, and claimed to know nothing about being visited by either Seph, AMC, or anyone representing The Walking Dead.

Joe initially responded with a whole-fucking-page on the Seph Lawless website calling him a stalker: releasing edited versions of emails sent by Christopher to one of Seph's charities inquiring whether Joe was being honest about his donations, and denying his real identity as Joseph Melendez despite using it on the copyright registration for his book Black Friday.

Several months later, Joe began a lengthy revenge campaign against Matt as part of his aforementioned Halloween rampage, the tl;dr version being:

In the months all this went down, he also ceased photographing abandoned locations to devote all time and effort toward harassing his critics and competition; particularly Matthew Christopher, who has only retorted with a follow-up to his original blog, accusing Joe of defrauding a charity meant to fund the restoration an abandoned theatre Seph had previously photographed.

To recap: instead of donating profits from all ten or so book sales to the owners of an abandoned theatre as-promised, Joe used the funds to purchase multiple domain names and premium Wordpress accounts (one baleeted, two currently active) for the sole purpose of harassing two of his critics, while further self-glorifying his own work.

The Haught Mansion

Also among his 2015-edition of haunted house lies, Joe fabricated one in particular about several bodies being found in the basement of a now long-abandoned Detroit mansion in the Brush Park neighborhood. Not only was this debunked by an urban explorer who researched the everliving-fuck out of the property, but the Brush Park Preservation Society, itself. Seph has not responded to either.

The Land of Oz

In the summer of 2015 Seph photographed the defunct Land of Oz theme park. Following the media attention, Seph would brag how it was his photos and viral attention that left the property owners considering re-opening the park - when, in fact - the property owners themselves hated it; as parts of the property are still semi-active, and ever since he blew the spot up they've had to constantly kick unauthorized visitors off the property. The owners have, apparently, since-bitchslapped him with a cease-and-desist order.

Packard - The Last Shift

Seph has often gloated about appearing in a documentary about the abandoned Detroit Packard plant. However, an email to the documentary's producer reveals his role was actually very minor, and that Joe also lied about the film's future-appearance on Netflix.

Huffington Post

In February 2016, The Huffington Post finally fact-checked, and acknowledged Joe was full of shit when they updated a 2014 article about haunted houses with the following statement:

"UPDATE: After some readers raised questions about the stories Lawless included with his photos below, HuffPost contacted Lawless for additional information. He told HuffPost that several of the houses are (or were) not located where the caption says they are located, and that he did this to “protect” the locations and himself for legal reasons.
When asked about his research for his captions, Lawless said that he did no archival research, claiming that in some cases no records exist, but rather based the stories on accounts from neighbors or “urban legends.”
The Huffington Post determined that in at least one case — that of the “Oliver Mansion” below, in fact the Hitzrot House — local history (in McKeesPort, rather than Chester, Pennsylvania) contradicts the “urban legend” described below.
The photographs and Lawless’ captions have been left below for their artistic, rather than their historical, value."

Autel Robotics

In early 2016, Seph claimed that he partnered with Autel Robotics in a multi-million dollar deal. He claims they wanted him to travel around the world to photograph various locations using one of their drones. He went on to claim that he could now send the drone in to abandoned locations, and it wouldn't be considered trespassing. Proving once again that Seph is extremely smart, he even made a YouTube video showing off the drone. However, in typical Seph fashion, he fucked up and left a plastic guard on, and went on to harass the people who pointed that out to him. Of course, Autel has no idea who he is, and he just ordered the drone off Amazon like everyone else.

Fauxtography

  • A location Seph claims was demolished in 2001 despite taking the picture in 2012 with a lens that first hit the market in 2003
    A location Seph claims was demolished in 2001 despite taking the picture in 2012 with a lens that first hit the market in 2003
  • Seph claims the photographs for Bizarro were taken during sunsets and thunderstorms, despite Yahoo News following him on-location during the shoot, in clearly sunny skies
    Seph claims the photographs for Bizarro were taken during sunsets and thunderstorms, despite Yahoo News following him on-location during the shoot, in clearly sunny skies
  • Seph tries to burn holes in the ground at the pet cemetery - forgetting about the stick in the foreground
    Seph tries to burn holes in the ground at the pet cemetery - forgetting about the stick in the foreground
  • Overdone perspective correction and fake night sky
    Overdone perspective correction and fake night sky
  • Some blurry shit fine art found in the $99 hardcover copy of Black Friday. What a deal.
    Some blurry shit fine art found in the $99 hardcover copy of Black Friday. What a deal.
  • The day Seph lost 44,900 fake bought Instagram followers in one day.
    The day Seph lost 44,900 fake bought Instagram followers in one day.
  • Seph lies about the location of a double murder and photographs some random house instead.
    Seph lies about the location of a double murder and photographs some random house instead.
  • Variety Theater book with 20 inexplicable blank pages.
    Variety Theater book with 20 inexplicable blank pages.
  • Seph calls himself "the Original Urbex Photographer" on Facebook; within 24 hours: denounces the term on Instagram and calls those who take similar pictures hipster copycats
    Seph calls himself "the Original Urbex Photographer" on Facebook; within 24 hours: denounces the term on Instagram and calls those who take similar pictures hipster copycats
  • Joe gets himself banned from Walt Disney World property - changes his story to say he shot everything with drones. Everything...
    Joe gets himself banned from Walt Disney World property - changes his story to say he shot everything with drones.

    Everything...

Plagiarism and Copyright Infringement

Left: Joe's book. Right: Original

Because it isn't enough for Joe to shit-up the world of art with his own terrible photography, he has also brought misery to a number of other, respected photographers and artists over the years by either blatantly copying their ideas, or stealing their work entirely and having a public meltdown when caught.

David Martinez

In his first piss-poor, Blurb template derived e-book: Autopsy of America (the title of which he cribbed from American Autopsy), he used an Associated Press photograph without permission, and appropriated the story of a dead woman to make himself seem important. Exploiting other peoples' tragedies has long been a staple of Joe's work; in 2015, calling New Orleans home to the poorest people in America while shitting all over the 10th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, claiming "the Boston Bombers were fans of my work", and using the Pulse Nightclub Massacre to promote a shitty iMovie slideshow.

Brian Ulrich

In September, 2015, Joe once again showed a flagrant disregard for the copyrights of others when he posted another photographer's work without permission, next to his own (much shittier) photo on Facebook and Instagram. When the photographer, and others, pointed out that stealing the work of others is a dick move: he deleted their comments, blocked them from commenting further, and tried to pass the stolen image off as a 1975 press photo from the mall's opening day (even though it was clearly taken after the mall had long been closed). Eventually he deleted it after realizing any idiot could view the edit history for his OP and comments; but it remains on Instagram, where he then lied and claimed that the original photographer wants to "keep working with" him - which of course is completely fabricated because no one in their right mind wants to work with Joe.

Murad Osmann

Throughout 2015 Joe and his girlfriend ( purplesneakers_) apparently ran out of lonely chairs to photograph, and instead opted to plagiarize the work of popular Russian Instagrammer muradosmann...

Josh Separzadeh

Joe and his girlfriend once-again plagiarized someone else's work for Valentines Day 2016. After another Twitter user brought it to the original artist's attention, he called Seph out on it, to which Seph (as  BLOGBULLYBUSTER) accused him of stealing the idea from a graffiti artist and appears to have reportfagged the Twitter account of the whistleblower into suspension.

Kottke.org, The New Yorker

In May 2017 one of Joe's ebooks was rehashed and given a formal publishing by the firm, Carpet Bombing Culture. Some believed a more reputable publisher would push Seph to work with higher standards than his earlier, self-published releases. However (to nobody's surprise), thus far the book has largely been panned by anyone that isn't a sockpuppet of Joe, with complaints ranging from the typical craptastic processing of the photography to the book lacking chapters or any information about the locations -- only Seph quoting himself, yet again. Oh, and then there's an Amazon customer who noticed he managed to sneak a word-for-word plagiarized paragraph - comprising of material about mall architect, Victor Gruen, that was originally published on Kottke.org and in The New Yorker - past the proofreaders and into the finished edition...

Trolling Seph Lawless


For Joe's 40th birthday in 2015, he was wished a happy birthday.


Seph loves his hair.

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  • Let us recite the Seph Code...
    Let us recite the Seph Code...
  • Lord Rick and Seph Lawless
    Lord Rick and Seph Lawless
  • Joseph Melendez is Google official
    Joseph Melendez is Google official
  • Facebook, too
    Facebook, too
  • Cooking with Joe
    Cooking with Joe

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