Business Idea - Profiting From Fads/Pop Culture/"Slactivists"

If I am going to profit from peoples' stupidity, I want something easy. This idea came to me when I heard about Cecil the lion, a lion that a hunter shot in Africa. The hunter was scorned all across social media and I saw a bunch of crap about it on facebook. That made me think.

What if I made t-shirts or something based on current fads and tried selling them online? Each time a fad hits I could order up, say, a few hundred t-shirts with something about the fad on it. So for this Cecil the lion story, it could be a t-shirt with "Justice For Cecil!" or something printed on the shirt. There was also the "ice bucket challenge," and memes and fads are always circulating on facebook, so if I could pick them up quickly I could perhaps make decent money periodically before it fades.

I suppose I could test the market by setting aside money every so often to order a few shirts to test the market. Perhaps try to sell 20 or 30 shirts, and if successful, order up more and then sell them online. The main thing I would have to do is frequently search for the latest BS in social media and then hurry to profit with t-shirts before it fades.

What do you guys think?

It could work. I wouldn't do it myself, but I see no reason why something like that couldn't be lucrative. If you're prepared to stay abreast of the latest nonsense and you can market your shirts effectively, why not.

Certainly worth trying.  No need to spend money on t-shirts, there are sites where you can design the t-shirts and sell them through the site and you get a cut.  But you will need to spend money on advertising.

fschmidt2 wrote:Certainly worth trying.  No need to spend money on t-shirts, there are sites where you can design the t-shirts and sell them through the site and you get a cut.  But you will need to spend money on advertising.

I found such a site and made a shirt, then made a twitter account to promote it. I hope this little experiment works. I made a t-shirt with a feminist slogan, so since there are tons of feminists idiots, hopefully this will get some sales. I have some other ideas too, such as making shirts for "black lives matter." But I will see if I can sell any of the feminist shirts first.

It would make a little money.

This is working under the assumption that society has passed the point of no return and any further promotion of such idiocy won't really change anything in the long run.

Break the chains wrote:It would make a little money.

This is working under the assumption that society has passed the point of no return and any further promotion of such idiocy won't really change anything in the long run.

Society is definitely past the point of no return. No matter what I do, it won't affect anything. If consumers are going to buy crap, what does it matter if they buy it from me or someone else? I might as well try to cash in.

So far I haven't gotten any money from my little experiment, but it has only been a week. I made t-shirts with a feminist slogan, and made a twitter account to spam people with links to buy it. I chose $25 t-shirts, so I'm guessing that's my problem. And perhaps I need to get more creative with what I put on the shirts. Perhaps I need more than slogans. After a month I will see my final result (that's how long the t-shirt selling campaign lasts when I set it up) and alter things from there based on the result. My guess right now is that I need to go cheaper and make more striking/creative t-shirts.