A courtroom reporter is selling some self-deprecating material after rapper Tory Lanez referred to her as a “Googly Eyed [Expletive]” during a September bail hearing over the shooting of fellow rapper Megan Thee Stallion.
In sort of a dark-ish play on words, reporter Meghann Cuniff is not only selling merchandise with Lanez’s insult, she’s also using “Meghann Thee Reporter” to double down on the clapback to Lanes.
After the moment went viral on social media, Cuniff announced that she would set up a Shopify link.
Someone told me I should get a Googly Eyed Bitch logo and sell merchandise. OK!
Now taking pre-orders! (The GEB coffee mug is a hit so far.)
Claim a shirt today: https://t.co/nz80ldI8qo pic.twitter.com/WmXP34YVVx
— Meghann Cuniff (@meghanncuniff) January 3, 2024
The store is now live, and includes everything from coffee mugs, T-shirts, sweatshirts, and stickers, all using a cartoonized version of her bespectacled face.
The orders are coming in for the Googly Eyed B!tch swag.
The “insult” to me was one of the last things Tory Lanez said in court before he went to prison for shooting Megan Thee Stallion, but GEB is about much more than me.
Pre-order now: https://t.co/nz80ldIGfW pic.twitter.com/twSdchwViq
— Meghann Cuniff (@meghanncuniff) January 3, 2024
It just goes to show you that just about anything can be turned into a marketable moment. In this case, it required a bit of a sense of humor on Cuniff’s part, but clearly the audience has been receptive to her method of rising above the hurtful language. Cuniff posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) that the mugs especially are “selling like hot cakes.”
Now, does that mean that all of your promotional items should be adversarial and at someone else’s expense, or even include profanity? No. When you’re working with someone like a bank or a school, it’s probably best to keep the appearance more buttoned-up. But, you can still use your professional judgment and know when humor is appropriate.
The other lesson is that memes and viral moments have real viability as merchandise, but you have to strike while the iron is hot, otherwise it comes off as, to borrow a phrase from the kids, “cringe.”
