Local Website Owner Discovers Billionaire Outrage Is Considerably Cheaper Than Google Ads

I have spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out how to market a website.

SEO. Keywords. Internal links. Meta descriptions. Social media. Google Search Console. Sitemaps. All the usual witchcraft where you change twelve words on a page and then stare at a graph for three weeks hoping Google notices you exist.

Turns out I may have been doing this all wrong.

What I really need is for Elon Musk to get pissed at me.

This realization came shortly after publishing a satirical article about the Cybertruck, in which I used deliberately fictional numbers to calculate that Elon now possesses enough of his favorite truck to continue driving them several centuries after both he and the concept of driving have ceased to exist.

It was a joke.

More importantly, though, what if he saw it?

Suddenly, an entirely new business model revealed itself.

The Eminem Theory of Economics

I call it the Eminem Economic Theory of Internet Marketing.

The theory is simple.

If you are an unknown rapper and you insult Eminem, your worst possible outcome is that he ignores you.

Your best possible outcome is that Eminem gets annoyed enough to mention you.

At that point, millions of people immediately ask the most important question in entertainment:

“Who the hell is this idiot?”

And now they know your name.

The same economic principle should theoretically work with billionaires.

I could spend thousands of dollars advertising Should I Buy This Crap, carefully targeting demographics, measuring conversions and studying analytics like an adult running a legitimate business.

Or Elon Musk could angrily post:

“The moron running Should I Buy This Crap has no idea what he’s talking about.”

And suddenly my server is smoking.

That’s advertising money can’t buy.

Or apparently can buy, except I’m hoping Elon pays for it.

Welcome, New Readers

Imagine the traffic.

Millions of Elon Musk followers descend upon the website to inform me that I’m an idiot.

Thank you.

Please browse around while you’re here.

We’ve got vacuum reviews.

We’ve got televisions.

We’ve got guitars.

We’ve got travel guides.

Hell, maybe one of you needs a blender.

I don’t care why you came.

Google Analytics does not have a column marked “Visitor Arrived Furious.”

Traffic is traffic.

Some of you will hate the article.

Some will think it’s funny.

Some will spend 45 minutes writing a 900-word comment explaining Cybertruck production economics to a guy whose article includes imaginary archaeological discoveries.

Again, thank you for the engagement.

Elon, Have You Considered My Premium Marketing Package?

This is where the arrangement gets truly beautiful.

Traditional marketing agencies charge money.

My proposed arrangement charges Elon.

Should he ever decide that my stupid little satire site deserves his personal attention, he would presumably have to dedicate some portion of his incredibly valuable day to me.

That means I win the most important victory available to a middle-aged website owner:

I have successfully made a billionaire do unpaid work.

Every angry post is an advertisement.

Every quote-post is distribution.

Every outraged reply keeps my website’s name circulating.

If the internet starts arguing over whether I’m an idiot, that’s even better because now we’ve moved into brand awareness.

Coca-Cola spent generations accomplishing this.

I potentially accomplished it by making jokes about unsold pickup trucks.

This Is Not Financial Advice

To be clear, I am not recommending this strategy.

Deliberately provoking extremely wealthy people into legal disputes is probably somewhere between “invest everything in commemorative plates” and “buy a timeshare after three margaritas” on the list of sound financial decisions.

Lawyers cost money.

Lawsuits consume time.

Stress causes aging.

And I already have enough problems with my eyebrows trying to cover my eyes.

So the official Should I Buy This Crap position remains:

Please do not sue us.

However, there’s a small unofficial footnote:

But if you’re going to complain about us, please remember to spell the URL correctly.

The World’s Most Expensive Backlink

This is the part that kills me.

I’ve spent months learning about SEO.

Everybody tells you backlinks are valuable.

You want authoritative websites mentioning your website.

You want people discussing your content.

You want social signals.

You want people searching your brand name.

You want engagement.

You want recognition.

And sitting at the top of this ridiculous mountain is a man with an enormous internet audience who potentially possesses the power to accomplish all of those things by getting irritated before breakfast.

I’ve been submitting pages to Google like some Victorian child asking a factory owner for another spoonful of porridge.

Apparently I should have been irritating billionaires.

The Customer Acquisition Funnel

Ordinary businesses have something called a customer acquisition funnel.

Mine would look something like this:

Step One: I write stupid article.

Step Two: Elon discovers stupid article.

Step Three: Elon becomes annoyed by stupid article.

Step Four: Elon tells millions of people about stupid article.

Step Five: Millions of people visit website to determine precisely how stupid article is.

Step Six: Somebody notices we have a pretty good vacuum review.

Step Seven: Capitalism.

I honestly don’t know why Harvard hasn’t called.

A Partnership Built on Mutual Disappointment

Obviously, Elon and I would bring different resources to this hypothetical partnership.

He brings money, fame, rockets, electric cars and an audience larger than several countries.

I bring WordPress and poor judgment.

It is difficult to imagine two organizations complementing one another more perfectly.

Tesla builds complicated machinery.

I write articles with headlines like Elon Musk Relieved to Learn He Now Has Lifetime Supply of His Favorite Truck.

Tesla has engineers.

I have Grammarly.

Tesla launches rockets into space.

I occasionally get WordPress to stop throwing plugin errors.

We each have our strengths.

The Best Employee I Never Hired

So if Elon Musk ever happens across my tiny corner of the internet and discovers that I’ve been making jokes about him, I hope he understands something:

This isn’t personal.

It’s business.

Very, very poorly planned business.

Please don’t feel obligated to respond.

Forget you ever saw this website.

Close the browser.

Go build a rocket.

Do literally anything else.

But if you absolutely insist on telling millions of people that some jackass in Colorado runs a website making fun of Cybertrucks…

I suppose I can’t stop you.

Just remember to spell ShouldIBuyThisCrap.com correctly.

I’ve spent months learning SEO, writing articles, submitting sitemaps, chasing backlinks and waiting for Google to acknowledge that I exist.

And all this time, apparently I just needed to piss off a billionaire.

Thanks for the marketing, Elon.

Your paycheck is in the mail.

Unfortunately, it’s a Cybertruck.