WE’VE BEEN HOODWINKED, DUPED, BAMBOOZLED!

Remember a few weeks ago when all of TikTok was abuzz about comedian Kyle Scheele and the cardboard cutout he placed in a convenience store, promoting the “Kyle Scheele Meale”. Turns out it was a marketing stunt all along.

@kylescheele

Some friends try to get you into an MLM, I try to get you into an RHC (reverse heist crew) ##heist ##cardboardcutout

♬ original sound – kylescheele

@kylescheele

##ad An update on the Kyle Scheele Meale, with an overdue apology. ##sponsored @kumandgo @redbullusa

♬ original sound – kylescheele

Per Adweek.com

“We’re a gas station from Des Moines,” Kum & Go’s director of brand marketing Matt Riezman told Adweek, “so we didn’t have BTS, Nelly or J Balvin money.”

Instead, the brand saw an opportunity to partner with a TikTok creator. Riezman says the team gravitated towards Scheele not for his nearly 3 million followers, but for his compatible sense of humor: “His brand of humor is just super engaging. He’s not bound by constraints and we sort of feel the same way at Kum & Go.”

He continues: “We really thought if we were going to make this thing take off, it wouldn’t just [entail] finding someone that had a lot of followers. It was about finding someone that would build a story with us that people would just be really interested in.”

I’m never trusting anything on the Internet ever again