NEW: The shady PR firm working for Big Soda put out an “EMERGENCY HALT” notice to influencers last night after we called them out. They were hoping that would stop the bleeding. They were wrong. Several of us are working together on a thread right now. It’ll all be exposed.
If you’re curious how the influencer media pay-op works on the right, here’s a short explainer:
Coca Cola never actually writes a check to Ian Miles Cheong. First the Coke money is laundered to a libertarian or “pro capitalism” think tank as a “donation.”
Then a PR person for the think tank sent an email blast to all of these conservabro influencers with versions of the post to make.
No direct compensation is attached, but it maintains the implicit promise of future access and funds. So Ian can say he honestly never took a check from Coca Cola. Coca Cola can say they never paid a bunch of social media influencers to advocate for taxpayer-funded obesity.
And yet, thanks to the magic of middlemen, that’s exactly what happened.
https://x.com/nicksortor/status/1903516543129940238
https://x.com/SpiritofPines/status/1903433913189740656
If you’re curious how the influencer media pay-op works on the right, here’s a short explainer:
Coca Cola never actually writes a check to Ian Miles Cheong. First the Coke money is laundered to a libertarian or “pro capitalism” think tank as a “donation.”
Then a PR person for the think tank sent an email blast to all of these conservabro influencers with versions of the post to make.
No direct compensation is attached, but it maintains the implicit promise of future access and funds. So Ian can say he honestly never took a check from Coca Cola. Coca Cola can say they never paid a bunch of social media influencers to advocate for taxpayer-funded obesity.
And yet, thanks to the magic of middlemen, that’s exactly what happened.
Some screenshots of tweets, some now deleted: https://x.com/HarmlessYardDog/status/1903418072439939073
Our legal system needs to classify this kind of shit as fraud.