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They hired a PR firm to make it famous on Reddit. I actively avoid it because of how much effort has been put into monetizing this poor cat.
by wnevets 9y ago
They hired a PR firm to make it famous on Reddit. I actively avoid it because of how much effort has been put into monetizing this poor cat.
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y agoArguably little different from any other brand.
- 6nf 9y agoYea but this is a living creature. I don't mind the branding but traveling all over the world is very stressful for animals.
- wnevets 9y agoNot only traveling they were asking money to take pictures and pet it at ny comic con
- jopsen 9y agoConsidering what we do to farm animals by the millions I don't think this cat is an opportunity to argue animal welfare.
- uxp 9y agoWhile I essentially agree, the attitude that millions of living creatures are raised and killed in industry so what does it matter that one cat is stressed doesn't help anyone. Disregarding food waste, farm animals are raised for food and work to produce sustainment for society. At the minimum, their deaths help sustain our lives. This cat wasn't thought of as a monetary gain for the family until only after it became "famous", as the article states. That is when the family started showing it off for entertainment and as revenue. Take this another way, why should the one girl complain I groped her breast on the train when there are thousands of girls being traded for sex across the world and even country? What's one girl got to complain about when others have it worse? There are degrees of things. In this case, they are all wrong. Because A is worse than B doesn't make B better, it just makes A worse than B.
- paulie_a 9y agoI didn't know that aspect of the story. So this is the Kim Kardashian of cats?
- Nition 9y agoGrumpy Cat's company has a whole lot of merchandise[1] including Grumpy Cat books and even a Grumpy Cat film[2]. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Grumpy-Cat/e/B00E952UMS/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1 https://www.amazon.com/Grumpy-Cat/e/B00E952UMS/ref=dp_byline... [2] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3801438/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3801438/
- benatkin 9y agoThey also had some real life events. There was one at Macy's in SF at around Christmas 2015 and one in Berkeley which was named Grumpytown U. S. A. in summer 2016.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- benatkin 9y agoThe way I heard it, an agent came and found them. The same agent represents Lil Bub and another pet. I'm not sure if this is accurate. The owners of Kabosu, the original Doge, also let someone commercialize it, but they weren't nearly as savvy as Grumpy Cat's owner, and their mediocre Doge merchandise was on clearance racks at Hot Topic not long after it came out. Despite it not being successful, they managed to get under the skin of Doge/Dogecoin fans with trademark and copyright claims. https://www.dailydot.com/business/doge-trademark-ultra-pro/ https://www.dailydot.com/business/doge-trademark-ultra-pro/
- solotronics 9y agomeme wars, when the owner of the original Doge look goes after Dogecoin for their cryotocurrency gains
- shawn 9y agoSo this opportunity will ~never come again, but if any memers are looking to confuse or annoy older programmers, I made something special for you: https://github.com/strayptr/memes https://github.com/strayptr/memes (I wonder who that Lambda is?)
- benatkin 9y agoNice! I'll try it here.  Oh, right...
- ryandrake 9y agoI hear you guys, and agree. I find it pretty sad that these days when something novel or cute appears, people's first thought is to copyright/patent/trademark it, hire a PR firm and branding expert, and MONETIZE! I was in the grocery store with my 5 year old daughter and she was singing one of those ridiculous nonsense songs that 5 year olds sing and some lady said, "Dad you should put that on Youtube, that'll totally make a few bucks for ya!" How about FUCK OFF, I'm not monetizing my daughter. Have we lost all grip on reality?
- iamdave 9y agoOkay, _this_ is the point where I'll take the intellectually lazy road and scream "LATE STAGE CAPITALISM" at that one.
- watwut 9y agoIt is pretty much sure, the women was just trying to be friendly and compliment. Innocent joke/friendly remark of sort with zero serious meaning and should be treated as such.
- anc84 9y agoIt's not innocent to inject the thought of MONEYMONEYMONEY in a 5 year old's mind.