theblackdostoyevsky

If you could start a new business right now, what would it be?

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“I’m not a businessman; I’m a business, man.” -Jay-Z

Hate to quote this dude, but that’s what it means to “start a business” in the 21st century. 

I wouldn’t start a business; I’d start self-promoting. 

I’d buy a selfie stick and start recording myself going everywhere, doing everything, talking to the air, scripting the commentary on my own life to be both clever and slightly controversial, with a dash enough of staged humility and service and genuine fear to make you believe I actually care about people other than myself, all the while trying to attract real businesses who sell real products to pay me to hang their products on my body like a Christmas tree. I’d be looking for clothing and shoe brands, food products, handbags, smartwatches, you know, the vain stuff, so I can look rich and successful. Then everyone will lust to envy me, and I’ll be happy having more and being better than everyone else and using that persona to attract more eyes and more views and, thus, more sponsors.

I’d run myself ragged for about 5-7 years, staging a false real life, being most careful to edit out any suffering, idleness or periods of unremarkable, depressive activity, gilding my every interaction with aggressive product placement and a giddy pleasure so hyperbolic that viewers would think I was as happy about gas rewards as the birth of my first child, then sell the rights to my private suffering to Netflix to make a documentary about the real life behind my fake real life and rejuvenate my waning fame, attracting more mature brands like whiskey and oral hygiene products and financial services to support the next five of my fifteen seconds of fame. 

I’d do a ring walk with Jake Paul . . . or Conor McGregor . . . or Katt Williams. I’d buy courtside season tickets to the Lakers, even though I’m a Spurs fan, just to sit sideline and play on my phone until the TV cameras come round, when I’ll look up a flash the most relatable, “you’re invading my privacy but I’m gracious about it” smile you’ve ever seen, look up at the jumbotron to confirm the headshot is good enough for socials, then go back to playing 3D-match and wait for Kim Kardashian to call. 

We’d sign an NDA and leak to the press that we’re sleeping together even though we’re not because . . . gross, maybe get married for a couple of months, maybe not, depending on our schedules, but certainly around the time of the Met gala, where I’d show up completely naked with fig leaves covering my privates and say that I was inspired by the sin of Adam and Eve, which would make me a hit with the Illuminati, and shortly after that’d I’d be approached by a very attractive man in a well-tailored suit with a contract for me to sign but no pen. 

EZ.