Paul Ryan may be openly disgusted with Donald Trump, but he does seem willing to do his bidding: This morning, the Republican House leader sent a letter to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper asking for Hillary Clinton to be banned from receiving classified information during her presidential campaign.
“I Sea” billed itself as an app that would “empower the billions of us with smart devices” to do something about the thousands of migrants that have already drowned in the Mediterranean. For the last few days, Mashable, Reuters, Wired and others chirpily blogged about it, and why not? It sounded so impressive!…
In a gross play for publicity, Duane Chapman, better known as Dog the Bounty Hunter, announced he would hunt down a mixed martial arts fighter accused of beating his girlfriend this weekend. In other news, a Dog the Bounty Hunter show is apparently still on TV.
Chinese billionaire Chen Guangbiao garnered tons of publicity for his bizarre stunt luncheon at which he failed to give a promised $300 each to hundreds of homeless New Yorkers. But the real villain was not Chen—it was a charity that serves the homeless.
The week of April Fool's Day was a bit existentially dispiriting around here. The warning went out for April 1: Remember, a lot of what the internet will be getting excited about today is fake bullshit being spread in bad faith purely for the sake of getting people excited.
A few years ago, some dude actually found his "dream girl"—meaning some pretty girl he happened to spot on the New York subway—by drawing a picture of her, making a website, and watching it go viral. That had, at least, the whiff of being a clever idea with a happy ending. Then there's this.
In its ongoing battle to save that most endangered of animals—the troll—vegetarian PR factory PETA has announced that it will be launching a porn website. They're doing absolutely nothing new, in other words.
Just months ago, dying trinket warehouse Wal-Mart escaped the largest sex discrimination suit in history. I don't even know why I brought that up, because it has nothing to do with the massive Wal-Mart woman-payoff PR campaign announced today. Nothing!
Wall Street was full of naked people this morning. Not in a metaphorical sense! A tipster sent us this video of a man doing some vigorous dick-swinging exercises outside of 75 Wall Street this morning. And that's not all:
Ecko, a clothing brand that was cool roughly a decade ago, has announced the greatest deal in fashion: get a tattoo ("must be permanent, not temporary") of the Ecko logo, and get 20% off your Ecko purchases for life.
Craig Rowin is a Brooklyn comedian who writes for The Onion. Last November, he posted this Youtube video that simply asked for some rich person to give him a million dollars. Now he says: someone is. Really, Craig Rowin? Really?
Have you ever heard of a micropayment site called Kachingle? Now you have, because the New York Times is suing them for copyright infringement over Kachingle's harmless little NYT-themed publicity stunt. Successful publicity stunt, we should say. [Techdirt]
"Hard core hip hop" band "Imperial Stars" today struck upon the best guerrilla promotion ever when they blocked the jam-packed 101 Freeway in Hollywood in order to perform their hit song Traffic Jam 101 atop their logo-emblazoned panel truck.
Yesterday Donald Trump offered to buy the site of the proposed "Ground Zero Mosque," thereby ending the "highly divisive situation." To end the highly annoying antics of Donald Trump and his PR minions, we hereby offer to buy his silence.
The Democratic Governors Association demands a "formal disclaimer" on Fox News for financially backing Republicans.
In order to get Leo Burnett, his ad agency, to send him to Cannes, David Perez agreed to wear webcam glasses and do whatever Twitterers tell him the whole time. Dude, you are not poor. Just buy a ticket. [DavidonDemand.com]
It's been a rough week for Gray Powell, the Apple engineer who left his iPhone prototype in an ersatz German beer garden only to see it turn up on Gizmodo. So Lufthansa's offering to fly Powell to real Germany, gratis.
Kudos to PETA's PR team, which has managed to combine its usual "naked celebrity" news peg with an additional "too hot for Apple!" news peg, thereby capitalizing on the internet's top two obsessions, porn and iPhones. Well done.
Kevin Daum writes books about business and marketing. He is not a New York Times bestselling author. That did not stop him from getting "New York Times Best Seller" tattooed on his chest (backwards).
God-hater Christopher Hitchens and professor Richard Dawkins last week said they plan to have Pope Benedict arrested when he visits Britain in September for crimes against humanity. Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi says it's just a "publicity stunt." [Mirror]
