OPINION: Don’t sleep on the marketing genius that is Ray J aka the hood Elon Musk
Columnist Dustin Seibert said it best, "I've been saying it for years: Ray J is a marketing genius."
I’ve been saying it for years: Ray J is a marketing genius.
I think it’s pretty accepted by now that the Kardashian empire – every good and bad thing that has been connected to the family; every television show, every celebrity relationship, every makeup line and every stitch of plastic surgery – would not exist had Ray J not had the foresight to “leak” his sex tape with Kim 11 years ago. (If Kris Kardashian wants to stay good with God, she should be hacking off monthly royalties out of her family’s nine-figure empire just for Ray J.)
As such, it’s no stretch to imagine Ray J as the newest and hottest player in the tech world. Young Willie Norwood, Jr. hopped on The Breakfast Club this week to talk about Raycon Global, his budding tech company that I didn’t know existed before the interview. Charlamagne Tha God did what he does and tried to take Ray J off his square by getting into his sex life and busting on his blue suit, claiming he resembled a con artist (he wasn’t wrong). Instead, dude came on the show to sell and he always moved the script back to his main reason he was on the show in the first place; to discuss his budding empire and latest venture.
Ray J promoted his company’s magnetic portable speakers as well as its “Eardrums,” earbuds that are available with a variety of price points that he claims are the company’s biggest seller and are difficult to keep in stock. What made him go viral today, however, is his promotion of a product his company doesn’t even sell: a paid of versatile, reading glasses called “Bunny Eyez.”
These glasses bend and shift in a multitude of directions that conventional glasses do not. Ray J, for better or worse, demonstrated how they worked out of the box. I imagine anybody who has worn glasses in the heat, in the cold, during the rain, or fallen asleep with them in bed knows the struggle is all too real. Ray J had Charlamagne and Angela Yee cracking up, along with the rest of us, as he displayed the many conveniences of the“Bunny Eyez.”
Ray-J can sell anything ?? pic.twitter.com/WOEqe4yji9
— Eric Diep (@E_Diep) December 18, 2018
He somehow managed to make “Bunny Eyez” look absurd and desirable at exactly the same time. If nothing else, you have to give the brother props for being a fantastic salesman: He walked around that studio looking for places to sit those magnetic speakers like he was pitching a European tourist in Times Square to buy some useless shit for 20 times what it’s worth.
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Listen, I don’t even wear glasses, and now I want some “Bunny Eyez.”
a glasses wearer listening to ray j on the breakfast club pic.twitter.com/SuJKIOCR1t
— lil sleepy ? (@lucidey3s) December 19, 2018
Ray J is like the hood Elon Musk, the Tesla founder who on Wednesday debuted his high-speed Loop tunnel through his Boring Company. Musk envisions that this tunnel, when fully realized, will shoot electric cars up to 150 miles an hour across large distances.
Ray J might be on to something ? pic.twitter.com/jcz7KFN9Na
— Wiley Walls (@wileysviews) December 19, 2018
Of course, Musk has had his share of weird, petulant billionaire problems, including resigning his position as chairman of Tesla company amid reports he misled investors. But that’s a white dude acting a fool in a space where it isn’t expected; we already know Ray J is a plum fool since we watched every second of both seasons of For the Love of Ray J with glee.
Those of us who have peeped Ray J’s movements throughout the years can see the growth: he’s less likely to focus on talking about bullshit during interviews and more about what it means to be a good husband, new father, and entrepreneur. He also said he’s not doing music anymore, which is good considering he’ll never, ever top “Wait a Minute,” the best R&B banger to come out of 2001 by far.
Ego aside, Ray J seems like a cool dude worthy of cracking a brew to have a few laughs, so why not buy electronics from him? Head on over to Raycon Global to help a young R&B star-turned-amateur-porn-dude-turned-reality-TV-star-turned-entrepreneur live out his dreams.
It’s not too late to get a gift in time for Christmas.
(Disclaimer: If his products suck, theGrio is not responsible.)
Dustin J. Seibert is a native Detroiter living in Chicago. Miraculously, people have paid him to be aggressively light-skinned via a computer keyboard for nearly two decades. He loves his own mama slightly more than he loves music and exercises every day only so his French fry intake doesn’t catch up to him. Find him at his own site, wafflecolored.com.
