Publicity stunts are usually viewed as a harmless ploy for individuals and companies to garner attention around a new product or service. Musical artists and movie stars do it all the time. Interviews and public appearances serve as the standard way of garnering public attention, but increasingly, PR stunts have come to play a large part in helping to promote new albums or movies.
One of the more bizarre and equally brilliant media stunts in recent memory was that of Donald Glover (aka Childish Gambino) in the buildup to his Grammy Award-nominated, second studio album “Because the Internet”. The album came with a screenplay (which had its own accompanying short film on YouTube) which he said would provide the ultimate listening experience. He scattered riddles and Easter Eggs across the internet, mainly on his website, but also on social media platforms, like Twitter, where he had started an account called @thegoldmolar, representing “The Boy” – the protagonist of his screenplay. The music videos were just as confusing, and at times almost had zero correlation to the screenplay – unless fans knew where to look. To top it off, he adopted The Boy’s persona in interviews, and for over a year, it became increasingly difficult to separate him, from his character. This elaborate stunt helped to separate fans’ perception of him as the writer from 30 Rock, a stand-up comedian, as well as the popular and jovial Troy from Community, and listen to the album as it was. Nothing was ever clear though (see: Roscoe’s Wetsuit), and that was the appeal.
However, not all publicity stunts are as successful as this one, and in fact, a lot tends to go wrong. Some are even career-ending, or ruin company reputations. In the case of Bill Cosby, a man who was attempting to repair his public image in 2014 around the time the first sexual abuse allegations gained mainstream media attention, the backlash served to prove that the public was against him. He posted a picture of himself with the #HappyMonday message and captioned it “Go ahead. Meme me!” on his Twitter page, expecting lighthearted and funny responses from fans. However, the response from fans was far from positive. They followed the instructions to a tee, but the captions were all humorous allusions to the sexual misconduct charges against him, and served as a foreshadowing to the current jail time he faces. The tweet has since been deleted.
The most recent case of a publicity stunt gone wrong concerns Empire’s Justin “Jussie” Smollet. On January 29 2019, Smollet posted on his Instagram account that he had been attacked by two men who attempted to lynch him, while shouting racial and homophobic slurs at him. Smollet is an openly gay man. They also were reported to have shouted something along the lines of “Make America Great Again”. The response was immediate, and questions were brought up of how racist and homophobic the United States is, even at a time when the systemized white supremacy of the country is being exposed in all its extraordinary and banal moments. However, a few weeks later it emerged that Smollet had staged the assault, using his own stunt doubles from Empire, in an attempt to have his salary increased on the show. He was facing a total up to 48 years in prison on 16 charges including disorderly conduct. To date, all charges against him have been dropped.
A case such as this will raise the question of the morality of publicity stunts, and exactly how far is too far. PR stunts in general cannot be questioned for their morality: we live in a consumerist society where things are constantly being advertised to us – a publicity stunt is merely a natural extension of that. However, one that actively deceives two marginalized communities, the black and LGBTI+ community, clearly crosses a line. But what is that line? And how do we know when it has been crossed?
In January 2019, Drive Dry and Volkswagen staged a campaign in which local rapper Nomuzi Mabena, stage name Moozlie, crashed her car while on Instagram Live. Initially, fans were worried, asking on social media if she’s okay and trying to find out which hospital she was in and her current condition. However, our Black Twitter investigators got on the case, questioning why her Instagram Live feed would go off right as the accident happened. It was eventually revealed to be a campaign pointing out South Africans’ dangerous driving habits, especially during the festive season. The jury is out over whether a line was crossed by Drive Dry. On the one hand, this publicity stunt made the problem of death on our roads very real by broadcasting a celebrity in “real” danger – making it very real for fans of Moozlie and artists in general. However, it was also seen as very distasteful scare tactic that might not make a real difference in the long run.
This #Nomuzi stunt is distasteful and triggering if you know anybody that’s been, or died from, a real car accident.
— ?????? ?? (@MO_Pitso) January 11, 2019
Unlike the Smollet case, this one was not as cut and dry, and very much remains steeped in grey. Again, the question of boundaries come up. Do we go ahead and view all of publicity stunts with chagrin, or do we accept them for what they are? I don’t have the answers, but either way, they are something we have to live with, especially as they grow bigger and bolder.