Matt Stopera is a senior editor at

BuzzFeed BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John S. Johnson III to focus on tracking viral content. Ken ...

. He is best known for an article he wrote in 2015 about a Chinese man who had received Stopera's stolen cell phone and posted dozens of photos of an

orange tree Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower *Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum * ...

which appeared on his iPhone's

photo stream iCloud is a cloud service from Apple Inc. launched on October 12, 2011 as a successor to MobileMe. , the service had an estimated 850 million users, up from 782 million users in 2016. iCloud enables users to sync their data to the cloud, inclu ...

."BuzzFeed Writer's Stolen Phone Sparks Chinese Viral Sensation"
'NPR''. Retrieved 25 November 2015. When he was 14, he appeared on an episode of

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

's ''Fanography'' to talk about his obsession with

Britney Spears Britney Jean Spears (born December 2, 1981) is an American singer. Often referred to as the " Princess of Pop", she is credited with influencing the revival of teen pop during the late 1990s and early 2000s. After appearing in stage productio ...

. Stopera attended college at

NYU New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

and majored in Communications. "I originally wanted to go to school for journalism because I thought it was cool or something. I took the intro class and HATED it, so I decided to do Comm because there were a bunch of classes about pop culture, which is what I really like. I quickly learned you didn’t have to go to school for journalism to write," he explained. Stopera began his online media career as an intern at BuzzFeed in August 2008. The website was still in its infancy, with only two other editorial employees on staff. Stopera has since written thousands of

listicle In journalism and blogging, a listicle is an article that is structured as a list, which is often fleshed out with additional text relating to each item. A typical listicle will prominently feature a cardinal number in its title, with subsequent su ...

s for the site, many of them 1990s nostalgia themed, which inspired former

Gawker ''Gawker'' is an American blog founded by Nick Denton and Elizabeth Spiers and based in New York City focusing on celebrities and the media industry. According to SimilarWeb, the site had over 23 million visits per month as of 2015. Founded in ...

editor Max Read to call Stopera BuzzFeed's "chief 90s-rememberer." Many of his stories like “25 Extremely Upsetting Reactions to Chris Brown at the Grammys," “40 Things That Will Make You Feel Old," and “the 45 Most Powerful Images of 2011" garnered millions of page views, which led ''

BusinessWeek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

'' to suggest he had "broken a code." However, a report by

found that many of his posts were later taken down. Ben Smith said that the deleted posts were “corrected” after Gawker pointed out, in 2012, that they insufficiently credited other websites. Stopera lives in

Alphabet City Alphabet City is a neighborhood located within the East Village in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Its name comes from Avenues A, B, C, and D, the only avenues in Manhattan to have single-letter names. It is bounded by Houston St ...

with actress

Ilana Glazer Ilana Glazer (born April 12, 1987) is an American comedian, director, producer, writer, and actress. She co-created and co-starred, with Abbi Jacobson, in the Comedy Central series ''Broad City'', which is based on the web series of the same nam ...

, whom he met in his first week of college and has lived with ever since.

Brother Orange

In February 2014, Stopera lost his iPhone in a New York City bar. After buying a new one, he noticed bizarre images of a Chinese man posing next to a grove of orange trees, which were taken on his stolen phone. After writing a story about his experience on BuzzFeed, users on the Chinese social media site

Weibo Weibo may refer to: * Microblogging in China, or China-based microblogging services (), including: ** NetEase Weibo (), launched by NetEase ** People's Weibo (), launched by ''People's Daily'' ** Phoenix Weibo (), launched by Phoenix Television ** W ...

helped track down the man who took the photos. Stopera met the man in China, who was dubbed "Brother Orange" by Chinese social media.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stopera, Matt Living people American online journalists American political journalists BuzzFeed people Year of birth missing (living people)