Judd Nissen shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Judd, it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: Have any recent moments made you laugh or feel proud?
I have been feeling a bit proud at the moment. The reason is that the nightly Old-Timey Slideshow I’ve been broadcasting recently hit a milestone that I don’t think has ever been achieved, certainly not for an analog slideshow. We recently topped 2000 nights in a row! Since April 4, 2020, I have gone live on my OPS: Other People’s Slides Facebook page and shown slides from my extensive collection. We may not have a lot of followers, but we do have loyal ones. I don’t think there has ever been a night when at least one person hasn’t stopped in to watch. And while, sure, I’d love to make money doing this, I still find it fulfilling 5 and a half years later.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Judd Nissen, and when I’m not working on my day job at an AV integration company, I am the curator and host of the longest-running analog slideshow on the internet, The Old-Timey Slideshow, which airs nightly on my Facebook page, OPS: Other People’s Slides. What started as a way to pass the time during the COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020 has continued every single night for over five and a half years. We have recently passed 2000 consecutive nights, never missing a single night. To keep that streak alive, I’ve had to do shows from airports, from theme parks, from hotel rooms, from casinos, while breaking away from two different weddings, after two different funerals, on birthdays and anniversaries, while in line for concerts, from vacation spots out of the country, from friend’s homes, from restaurants, and even once on an airplane that was taxiing in to park because I would have broken my streak of having one episode per 24 day. As long as I can get a show in before midnight of whatever timezone I’m in, it counts. And for 99% of all of the over 2000 episodes, there has been at least one fan, or “Slider” as I call them, who has watched live.
Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. Who taught you the most about work?
Both my parents supported me getting a job as early as 13 years old. They had to sign a state employment waiver so that I could work at one of the local hot-dog joints in our hometown. I moved quickly from a busboy to the French-fry guy, and a few years later, in high school, I started my own hot-dog cart during the summer. My most famous customer was Michael Jordan!
Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
I recently experienced a major setback that almost led me to abandon the Old-Timey Slideshow entirely. There was a policy change on Facebook that I was unaware of until it was too late. For five years, I would record my nightly show as a Facebook Live event and it would remain on my page, OPS: Other People’s Slides, as an archive of the episode. When I received the notice that they would no longer store new episodes of the show for longer than 30 days, I started downloading the episodes before they expired, thinking it only applied to newer shows. It did for the first few months of this new policy, but one night, when I was downloading recent episodes, I tried to go back to the archives to view a specific show, and they were all gone! Five years of nightly shows, over 1830 episodes, over 54,750 minutes of content, wiped out in an instant. It was a real gut-punch loss that I still struggle to cope with, but I continue to persevere. I am now on a mission to reach the threshold of 50 subscribers on YouTube (@OPS35mm – Other People’s Slides) so I can bring my nightly live streaming show there and leave the Meta-verse behind.
I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. Is the public version of you the real you?
I like to think that the “public version” of me is the real me, but I know I try and keep things PG-13 on the show, whereas in “real life” I definitely swear a lot more and vent about the current state of the world to close family and friends. But I like to keep the Old-Timey Slideshow a place where people can come to relax and enjoy some interesting photography that has never been seen publicly before. I think it’s essential to showcase the snapshot moments in time from a diverse group of amateur photographers who were primarily shooting for their families and themselves, likely never dreaming that anyone else would be interested in seeing what they captured.
Okay, we’ve made it essentially to the end. One last question before you go. What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
I hope that if people do tell stories about me when I’m gone, they will all say, “Judd was a really nice guy with a pretty good sense of humor and a very strange but kinda cool hobby.” In an ideal world, this hobby could someday become a money-making venture, but as long as I still enjoy doing it, I’ll continue to put on a show every single night.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ops35mm/#
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OPS35mm/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@OPS35mm
Image Credits
OPS: Other People’s Slides (various collections)
