Wow. First off, all of us executives are flattered to see so many, many thousands of people here supporting our product. The flowers, the chanting, the giant banners with our faces on them—it’s all really something.
But things have gotten a little intense here. Let’s maybe slow it down a bit, huh? Put away the torches? Let Elon Musk out of that cage? Just talk a few things through?
Thank you. Well, this is super embarrassing, but “revolutionizing the industry” was just one of the many nonsense things we said to sell you electric rollerblades. We never intended for RadBoots, the value-driven way to blade, to create mobs of crazed sporting goods enthusiasts hell-bent on fundamentally shifting the way people get around.
Yes, I know: “Fundamentally shifting the way people get around” was a thing we said a lot in the ad campaign. But we were going for more of a “the new iPhone has a different camera” type of shift. Not a “these electric rollerblades will alter society” type of shift.
I mean, the biggest thing we expected out of RadBoots, your ride to a better world, was a short-lived Instagram trend. Maybe a couple of weirdos using them on America’s Got Talent. You know, something that’d generate just enough money for us to quickly liquidate the company and fire everyone.
I guess we should have dialed back the marketing. You guys really ran with all the “transforming American cities, one wheel at a time” stuff. Had a pretty literal interpretation of that “leading a revolt of urban commuters” line.
But come on, did you actually believe the RadBoots recharging station represented “a sea-change in the way we power our lives”? Did you really think the wireless RadAccelerator™ could help you “unlock the speed of a stronger tomorrow”? Neither of those things makes sense.
Even if our campaign did form any logical message, you can’t just go around revolutionizing industries. There are business interests here. You guys have seized control of several oil pipelines our board has stakes in. You’ve overrun the country’s roadways and put a severe kink in our supply chain. You’ve terrorized venture capitalists and forced them to clean up their lending practices for chrissakes. Where are people like us supposed to get money now? Why don’t you just violently upend everything we know about commuting while you’re at it?!
YES. I KNOW. “Violently upending everything we know about commuting” was a thing we said a lot in the ad campaign. Sorry. We got very carried away with some of this copy.
Still, we’ve got to put things back the way they were. This is America, goddamn it. You say that revolution shit during sponsored podcast breaks and call it a fucking day.
You want the truth? We lied. This product sucks. There are zero real benefits to buying electric rollerblades, so we made up some shit about changing the world.
Now, please, we’d like our business model back. We’d like Elon returned to his family. We’d like RadBoots, because radical change starts with something rad, to stop inspiring revolutions and start inspiring people to spend their money on more cleverly marketed bullshit.
Okay, why are we surging toward me? Let’s not surge toward anyone, please. And where’d you all get cattle prodders? Amazon? They were listed as “eco-friendly cattle prodders for the purpose-minded millennial”? Damn. A lot of that going around.