Shaquille O'Neal Will Sell You A Microwave
You know who he is from your least favorite commercials.
The Los Angles Lakers beat the Memphis Grizzlies this week who were playing without their superstar point guard, Ja Morant. Morant was in some social media video playing with a gun on a camera, which says more about gun laws in South Carolina, where he is from, than what kind of human being he is in my humble opinion. In another news from this week, there’s apparently been an uptick in “ghost guns” every year since the guns became available. “Ghost guns” are weapons built from parts produced by a 3D printer, and are totally untraceable.
“Basketball and Feelings,” a new weekly Substack that explores what it’s like to be alive through the rim of NBA basketball, is back with a new post. We’re sliding directly into your inbox, just like an IG message, but less pervy.
—
Hope you enjoy this week’s ditty on Shaquille O’Neal, my favorite OK BOOMER on the planet.
Shaquille O’ Neal. Obviously he’s a great player and whatnot. I still remember how he slammed the backboard so hard that it cracked into a million tiny pieces. Back then I thought that was impossibly cool (and still do) but I must say I’ve been a bit disappointed in his career, after basketball. He’s actually a great person to bring up in regards to a business issue circulating NBA basketball players, endorsement deals.
Shaq has obviously been killing it since retiring. In addition to his show on TNT, he sells almost every kind of product that is imaginable. I actually don’t think there’s a product that Shaquille O Neal hasn’t sold, and before I send this off to you I am going to look up a list of them, and attach it to the bottom of this note. Long story short though, he sells everything and nothing.
Off the top of my head, he’s sold me various chicken sandwiches, glue guns, bathroom supplies, what have you, and it’s always done in this cheeky and somewhat childish way where it feels like he’s smugly looking down on me — for getting paid A LOT of money to act like a goofball on camera. (Acting for Shaq by the way seems really important.) I know this is Shaq we’re talking about, the same guy who starred in Kazaam (1996).
And I don’t even think it’s about the money for him. I feel like he would be doing this shit for free, which is weirdly commendable, and both a blessing and a curse. Definitely a curse for me. A blessing because that energy is part of what makes him such a successful performer/former NBA center. He doesn’t care what people think of his game, he just enjoys the shit out of it like the way a toddler would a magic show, obsessively watching the same card trick over and over and over again. On the other hand, there’s that smugness, that wavelength he’s operating on — in his commercials.
It’s elitist, and it rubs me the wrong way. I guess I would be fine with it if he was doing something good with his inclinations, but the dude only does one thing, and that’s sell-sell-sell “amazing” products, bad for your health, bad for the environment, addictive nasty shit that it feels like he has never spent more than a minute thinking about. Duh, you say, we live in a society that celebrates that kind of ego and ambition. But putting all of that aside for a second, I just think it goes back to this discomfort I have been having, about having to pretend that I am okay with athletes always trying to sell me something. Famous actors do it more now than they used to also, eventually it will be cool again not to sell your soul to advertisers. If it’s cool now for Ryan whatever-the-fuck-his-last-name is to do Verizon commercials, I guess it’s also cool for Shaq to shill for condoms or logs or whatever the fuck. I don’t want to be too, what’s the word, anal-beads about this shit, I’m all for shoe deals and soda commercials; but to a degree. At a certain point it starts to feel a little Trumpy and lazy, and that to me is the place where Shaq is, having crossed a line, oh, I don’t know, a decade ago? (To add insult to injury, he is proud of it.) Of course there’s all of that stuff going on with Fan Duel too. The NBA has basically sold its soul by getting in bed with the gambling business. No big deal, just that a large chuck of their audience is under fourteen. And not just the NBA, I’m pretty sure every podcast I listen to on the XYZ network, and every other podcast out there, even the smaller “independent” ones are in business with sports betting sites like Fan Duel or Draft Kings or whatever the phuck. I’m just saying it’s gross. But then the problem; when I ask myself this question: Bruh, would you turn away a writing contract from Fan Duel if they wanted you to make content for them? And when I realize that my answer is no, I wouldn’t, then I crawl back to Shaq, begging for his Ka-zaamian-mercy. It’s not fair for me to slam him, no pun intended, when I’m just as culpable and opportunistic. Which honestly brings me to a whole other thing I’ve been thinking about since I got to New Orleans. That is, the difference between ambition and addiction-to-ambition. Leaving Los Angeles has allowed me to cleanse myself of the latter, not that I was ever really in that camp. They wouldn’t let me in!
If I had the opportunity, I would not be doing the same thing as Shaq, I like to think I would know when to stop.
I want a world where someone who has more than enough money like Shaquille O’Neal can turn away from the commercial interests and the advertisers and the more-more-more money vibes to just say no, for once. Not only would he come off as un-god-like (for once!) but it might, just might send an example to the millions upon millions of KIDS who look up to him, and have looked up to him since he destroyed that backboard into millions of tiny little shards, way back when. And now, as that dude John Oliver likes to say, this:
An incomplete list of Shaq’s commercials found with very little research or time spent on the internet.
The General
Epson Printers
Carnival Cruises
Icy Hot
Buick
Pepsi
Papa Johns
Forto Coffee
Reebok
Frosted Flakes
American Express
ESPN
Gold Bond
Vitamin Water
Sleep Apnea Mask
IGO Headphones
Apollo Jets
24 Hour Fitness
Radio Shack
Zales
Nintendo
Muscle Milk
Comcast
Nestle Crunch
Taco Bell
Burger King
Wheaties
Troubled by any of this? Thoughts about Shaq’s post basketball career? Do athletes have a moral obligation to their audiences? Haves you a favorite Shaq moment from his NBA days?
Like, Comment, Share, and let me know.
Till Next Week - AL
ALSO THIS:
(Added this on New Year’s Eve 2023 @ 10:11pm on my couch. Earl Sweatshirt and his homey are talking about Shaq’s ubiquity. Thanks to Vulture for the hat tip.
https://x.com/complexmusic/status/1712904360676470786?s=46&t=tCkUkQF1_PpzSSSoEk4aLg