By: Cameron Coats

What do reality shows, Youtube, and elections have in common?  They’re all full of people wanting the attention of a nation, some for positive reasons, but many for selfish reasons.  In this age of television and internet, news seems to spread faster than anything and practically everyone wants a slice of the pie.  A few people go to crazy and sometimes unintentionally hilarious lengths to get attention for whatever purpose they deem necessary.  With the decade coming to a close, it is time we pay tribute to the times when the ends don’t justify the means in the top ten publicity stunts of the ‘00s.

If you’ve followed pro football at all in last few years then one man seems to catch attention when it comes to comebacks.  Two years ago, Brett Favre created a stir when he announced he would be retiring as quarterback of the Green Bay Packers after a losing season at age 38.  So imagine everyone’s surprise when he announced his comeback the same year.  Yes, only months after retiring Favre returned and joined the New York Jets as their starting quarterback.  After the next year’s 9-5 season Favre decided that once again he would retire from the NFL.  Over the next off season, rumors began to fly early that Favre was thinking about returning to the league.  Favre addressed these rumors in a press conference that he had definitely retired and would not be returning after having surgery on his arm.  With this, while still some discussion going on, most people dropped thoughts of his return, but Surprise!  A few months later Brett decided he would return to the NFL and play for the Minnesota Vikings during the ’09-’10 season.  This stunt, unlike the others in the countdown, was not a fluke though, seeing as the Vikings are 7-5 and leading their division right now.

What do you think of when you hear Kanye West’s name?  Maybe you think about his phenomenal success as a rapper or one of his award winning albums, but odds are that due to recent events the first thing that comes into your mind are the words “Imma let you finish, but…”  Nobody in America expected West to brazenly interrupt rising singing superstar Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech after winning the Best Female Music Video of the Year award at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.  After Kanye jumped onto the stage, he snatched young Taylor’s microphone away and declared to the entire world his feelings that other singer Beyonce’s video was one of “the best music videos of all time.”  This caused an international stir that got homes, workplaces, schools and even President Barack Obama talking.  Immediately after this incident, Kanye West appeared on the brand new Jay Leno Show where he emotionally broke down over the event before he went and joined Jay-Z and Rihanna to perform a song off of Jay-Z’s brand new album.  The only problem?  Taylor never received a direct apology from West.  Thanks to this Kanye West was in the news for weeks, giving attention to him and his music, but unfortunately for him his name is in infamy.

7. 8,000 Gallons of Gas, 8,000,000 People (2006)

CasinoShare.com had a problem.  Because of restrictions put on advertising for gambling companies they were not able to get word out about their new website.  Their solution?  One New York City Memorial Day weekend when gas prices were well over three dollars per gallon, the website gave away $40 worth of gas as well as free food to everyone who showed up.  This led to a scramble in the streets as cars were backed up for blocks and hours into the street to get a share of this fortune.  Many people did not even get gas because it ran out so quickly.  This was such a success that the same publicity stunt was pulled a few weeks later in Los Angeles to the same reception.

The Super Bowl is the most watched sporting program in the country every year.  Some people watch for the game, some watch for the commercials, and some watch for the halftime show which always features a major recording artist.  Super Bowl XXXVIII (38) was no exception, with two big name celebrities performing: Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake.  The duo performed their major songs but one thing went wrong at the end.  While the singers were performing Timberlake’s song “Rock Your Body,” Timberlake reached across Jackson and tore off a vital piece of her wardrobe for about a half second.  This blew up in the face of everyone involved, including the network who broadcast the game, CBS.  The FCC became involved and fined the network over half a million dollars for what became known as the “wardrobe malfunction.”  Since then, there has been much controversy over live broadcasts and what should or shouldn’t be shown on the airwaves.  The event did garnish major attention for Jackson, but it was mainly negative and affected sales of her next album.  The wardrobe malfunction did not really affect Timberlake’s career at all though.

The most recent publicity stunt occurred only a few days ago when two Washington D.C. socialites attended President Obama’s first formal White House dinner.  While at the party Tareq and Michaele Salahi met many of the guests that attended the party and took pictures with notable figures like Joe Biden and Rahm Emanuel.  The only problem?  They weren’t on the guest list.  In what is shaping up to be a security nightmare, it seems that the Salahis got past two White House security checkpoints and into the tent on the White House lawn that the dinner, an event to honor the Indian Prime Minister, without anything confirming they were actually invited to the party.  The only tip off that anyone had was that the couple posted the pictures of themselves at the party onto their Facebook page.  The couple was trying to gain attention because they wanted parts in the upcoming reality show Real Housewives of Washington D.C.  A camera crew from Bravo, the show’s broadcast network, came along and filmed the Salahis before they went in to the White House grounds.  This story is still playing out, so the outcome isn’t really certain.  Now the Salahis are facing a federal investigation as to how they breached security, while the Salahis now claim that they were invited through the husband’s connections with a D.C. law firm. 

When it comes to elections, candidates are always trying to improve their image and pander to the masses.  In 2007, the race for the ticket for the Democratic nomination for president was extremely close and nobody knew whether Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama would get the presidential nod.  During this close race both candidates strove to show that they were the candidate of the people, despite both coming from wealthy backgrounds.  Hillary Clinton took to the streets and bars of America, sharing drinks and stories with all inside.  She talked widely about her experiences where she would go out hunting when she was younger, competing with John McCain’s vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin who talked about going hunting and being a “hockey mom”.  While this was going on Barack Obama took his A-Game to the cities he visited but left it outside when he went to the bowling alley in Pennsylvania.  Obama went to the bowling alley to show his human side and how he is like everyone else.  The only problem?  He bowled a 37 in ten frames.  Even though he had bowling flaws, Obama still overcame this obstacle and was elected President.

3.  Oprah’s Fake Book Club Memoir (2005)

In 2005 James Frey’s memoir A Thousand Little Pieces caught the eye of one of America’s most influential public figures, Oprah Winfrey.  The memoir told of Frey’s struggles with drug and alcohol abuse and other problems and his triumphant story of painful recovery and finding his true identity in the ashes of his life.  After Oprah finished this book she hurried to share this book with the world by adding it to her book club.  The only problem?  Most parts of the story were made up. In 2006, after some fact checkers looked into Frey’s background, they found Frey lied about being a wanted fugitive in three states, being in a train crash and other details that make his story more gripping.  By embellishing the details the author wanted to make his story more compelling.  At first he tried to market his book as a work of fiction, but after a poor reception, his publisher decided they should publish the story as “completely true.”  After Oprah found out not only did she remove the book from her book club, but she had Frey on her show just to grill him about the truth and why he lied.  Despite his lies, through the publicity of Oprah’s Book Club and the removal from said book club Frey sold over 1,770,000 copies of his “memoirs” in 2005 alone which gives him the honor of having the number three spot on the countdown.

2.  O.J. – If He Did It… (2006)

In 1995, football star and actor O.J. Simpson was acquitted by a California court for the 1994 murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her boyfriend Ron Goldman which became one of the most controversial court cases in American history.  By 2006, Simpson’s name was already ruined, so he shocked the world by announcing his intentions to release a book entitled If I Did It in which he would give a hypothetical account of what he would have done if he had murdered his ex-wife and Goldman.  This outraged the families of the two victims who said this was a shameful attempt to profit off of his murder of their loved ones.  When this was released to the press there was such a public uproar that the publisher cancelled the book’s public debut and all but a few copies were destroyed.  After a few years, the book was brought to the forefront again when the Goldman family won the rights to the book in a legal matter and the family published the book themselves after being edited ironically entitled If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer to get back at Simpson for what he had forced their families through.

On October 15, 2009, my friends and I were captivated by a riveting drama that was unfolding live before us on our computer screens, and we were not alone.  Millions of people were glued to their T.V. screens because a young Colorado boy had apparently climbed into his family’s homemade balloon craft and had accidently gone airborne.  After his parents desperately called for help what followed was an hours long white knuckle journey across 3 counties while an entire nation held its breath.  Even all northbound flights out of Denver International Airport were grounded so as to not endanger the boy further.  Many breathed a sigh of relief when the balloon finally came out of the sky and crash landed in a field only to find out the boy was missing and so the search continued.  Many wondered if the boy had fallen out but after more tense hours they finally found young Falcon Heene.  The only problem?  Falcon had been hiding in a cardboard box in the attic while his parents stirred up attention to try and get a spot on a reality show.  The father, Richard Heene, fancies himself as a scientist and is a storm chaser who sometimes takes his children with him when following tornados.  The family has appeared twice on ABC’s Wife Swap and was aiming for another T.V. appearance.  The family’s duplicity was found out when the Heenes were being interviewed on Larry King Live and Falcon was asked why he didn’t come out of hiding earlier and responded saying to his parents, "You guys said that, um, we did this for the show."  After this red flag went up, a formal investigation was conducted during which the boy’s parents confessed the entire incident was a hoax.  Now it looks like the parents will face jail time and will have to pay almost $62,000 for the cost of the search and rescue operation.  Oh, and any ideas of the Heenes appearing on any reality show that might have been have been scrapped.