THE GOOD GUY: MARKETING STRATEGIES
I often wonder why I should be the target of organic followers "bought" by some Instagram users. Meet one of them: Charlie Rocket. Who is Charlie Rocket!? This was the first question I asked myself as soon as the aforementioned posts started positioning themselves in my feed. Not to be confused with actor Charles Rocket, Charlie Jabaley began his career in the discography, producing hits and becoming the manager of artists such as 2Chainz. In 2017, following depression, weight gain and a cancer diagnosis, he retired from the music business to reinvent himself as a motivational speaker. He founded a non-profit, the Dream Machine Foundation, with which he financed the tour of the United States in search of dreams to come true. It would all seem very nice and disinterested, were it not that Charlie's net pay for hosting a conference with a speech ranges between $ 10,000 and $ 20,000, not counting the partnership with Nike and all the earnings from his social media accounts. So I wonder: is it Charlie who makes the dreams of the Starbucks clerk come true by extending a few hundred dollars, giving a new bed to a single mother, paying a few months' rent to some disadvantaged family, or are the people who regularly donate in support of the non-profit having to receive all the compliments that Charlie collects in the comments section of his countless posts? Sure, these charitable acts are convenient for those who receive them, but can a few hundred or a thousand dollars solve a life of hardship? My criticism is only directed towards these palliative expenses, if we can define them that way, while all this money could be relocated, rather than in the individual, in the community; why not invest in social housing renovations, provide schools in the most deprived neighborhoods with up-to-date textbooks, ensure high-level education and health care for those who cannot access elite insurance plans, etc.? One of Charlie Rocket's latest exploits left me quite perplexed, both for the almost cinematic media story studied to perfection by Charlie and his team, and for the business maneuver from which Charlie himself managed to profit, once again, using one of his "stories": the "protagonist" (the first ever is always Charlie himself), is called Richard Hutchins. Made known for his artistic talent and his celebrity-boasted shoppers, Richard enters the elite by posing as the famous American football player Drew Hill. The false identity will be revealed following the arrest and incarceration of Richard who, through an ingenious ploy, manages to cultivate his passion using only water, Skittles and M & M's candies, and his beard hair as a brush. On his release, Richard finds himself without a studio, destroyed by a fire, and homeless. He wanders through the streets of Skid Row, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, where one day he meets Charlie to whom he tells his story. Here Charlie's plan comes to life: an exhibition attended by Hollywood celebrities, a website created and controlled by Charlie himself and the Dream Machine Foundation (the boy was always happy to show sales, from his mobile phone, that the paintings generated), a billboard dedicated to Richard, a video call with Oprah Winfrey, a new Escalade etc. Charlie's story is always aimed at highlighting the painter's economic and materialistic rise, without however giving voice to the promises made by the artist himself after having collected the first earnings from sales (sales aimed only at a certain segment of the population, considering the value also attributed to the individual envelopes that Richard painted in prison): he himself has sworn to invest some of the money in the rescue of Skid Row and the neighborhood community. The thing that makes me smile is that people can't see anything that is beyond their nose, and outside the spotlight. The thing that makes me sorry is to see people chasing and extolling the status symbol and individual materialism, completely forgetting the community and ignoring how concrete and targeted investments in the social could do much more than what Charlie Rocket sponsors with his stories. I, meanwhile, await the fulfillment of Richard's promise to the poor people of Skid Row, in the hope that money hasn't bought his soul and made him forget the shit he was pulled from and where there are still people who struggle for survival from birth. With this I greet you and thank you for reading. Martina.
Lol smh mfkin Charlie Rocket...
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