Americans, in our commitment to capitalism, insist on free markets in ways that we don’t insist on free speech. As Kanye has showed us with his recent line of swastika merch, it’s easy to cancel people, but it’s much harder to cancel their products.
This has created a fascinating moment for art-as-commerce, where tricksters like Jacob Urowksy are using sardonic edge marketing that toys with the limits of the acceptable to both comment upon the absurdity of censorship, and to sell their actual real products, in his case KEYED energy drink.
Urowsky, who is a construction supervisor for his day job, outdid himself with his latest campaign which involved creating a budding female right wing TikTok influencer out of thin air. It led to 60 million views, hundreds of angry voice messages, a cancellation attempt from Keith Olbermann, and 12,000 cans sold. Hear the story on this episode.
FIRST 45 MINUTES FREE. PLEASE BECOME A PAID SUBSCRIBER TO THE CAROUSEL FOR FULL ACCESS TO VIDEO AND AUDIO I…
Listen to this episode with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Carousel to listen to this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
