My name is Mike Cannon. I am an extremely highbrow stand up comedian based in New York City. Oh, you’ve never heard of me? Well that sadly makes perfect sense.
Last week, in an effort to broaden my exposure beyond my parents, I recorded and uploaded a 3-minute bit I do about the most popular male sex toy on the market — the Fleshlight (Note: previous and all other links herein pertaining to fleshlight are EXTREMELY NSFW). I posted the video on my twitter, @mentioning the Fleshlight brand in the process, and hoping for any kind of reaction from them. Thanks to my floundering self-esteem, I expected the same response that I get whenever I tweet bottomless pictures of myself to Selena Gomez: silence. What I got was, well, something very special.
Fleshlight posted my video on their official Twitter, embedded the video on their official Facebook Page and also put my name, picture and video on the front page of their official blog! Pretty official right? I thought I had died and gone to memory foam heaven.
Initially, I was shocked that their company could see the humor in my jokes. Throughout the bit (which you can see here!), I don’t exactly celebrate the product or its fans. In fact, I indirectly call fleshlight users sociopaths. But leave it to a company who produces a sex toy to exhibit self-awareness and maintain a sense of humor about what they do.
They correctly saw my video as a “nothing to lose” scenario. I provided free content discussing their product that they could then promote. It doesn’t matter that I’m poking fun at their expense, because if it strikes a chord with their thousands of followers then it could potentially go viral. They also courageously left the door wide open for people to agree with my joke. To them, it makes no difference whether viewers love my video and trash their product, or vehemently stick up for their favorite toy. People who may not have been previously exposed to it are now discussing Fleshlight. That’s what matters.
Fleshlight’s Twitter engineer also reached out to me, and offered to send me a free toy in hopes that I would post a follow up video/review. I quickly discarded any reservations pertaining to my mother’s inevitable heartbreak and eagerly gave them my address. Hopefully this continues to be a mutually beneficial relationship for us, but if nothing further comes from it, then it only set them back 1 unit of their product and cost me the already waning respect of my friends and family. No big loss all around.