Meet Joel Levinson. He enters into competitions and wins shit for free.

No seriously, that's what he does. A professional contest entrant, he's a man taking advantage of every ad agency's current fad - getting their clients to do Consumer Generated Competitions. And it seems to be working - by rallying a social network of friends to vote for him in competitions via Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube, he scores pretty highly. He's "visited 6 continents for free thanks to contests (if you count Dubai as Asia) in just 2 years" and just a couple of weeks ago, won $100,000 in a Klondike Competition.

I find a lot of comfort in the anarchy he's seeding. By following the rules, and pimping himself out to any and all brands at their request, he demonstrates exactly what they all hope isn't true - that brand loyalty means nothing when you're faced with shit for free offered by a competitor:

"Give me shit for free, and I’ll use your brand.” That’s basically it. For example, there’s good and bad shaving cream, but I will tend towards the free shaving cream over both. And guess what, no matter how good your brand is, I will probably give up on it as soon as someone else gives me better shaving cream.

Joel Levinson, the patron saint of Capitalism. If he didn't exist, The Onion would have to invent him.
Now, go vote for him over here.

Now, THIS is advertising! Even if you never play a video game ever, you'll enjoy it.

This guy could've switched to a tape, disc, commercial break, anything. But if it were me, and I'd had my wits about me, I would've yelled "Holy shit! There's a fire in the studio!"

The local audience would've talked about that for years.

(via Arbroath)

Winner gets a YBNBY tee. Good luck.

Donny Miller, a self described "half PT Barmum, half Jesus, 100% man, continues his self-promotional crusade to end world ignorance with a pit stop at the pump to post some anti-oil company messages, gorilla style.

A little truth in advertising never hurt anyone, right?
Not that he's telling us something we don't already know.

Walking through Central Park on Sunday, I came across the end of what appeared to be a giant book fair. It was when I noticed the sign above that I realized something was askew. What kind of book fair encourages people to read with bad grammar? That's like advertising a Flying School with a picture of the wreckage from TWA 800. "Welcome to New York is Book Country"??? It took some investigating (walking further down the promenade past the people still trying to shill Dianetics) to realize that the actual event was called "New York is Book Country" to assuage my fears. Still, you'd think they could design a better sign.

Is there anything Seth MacFarlane touches that doesn't end up being hilarious? His new "Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Comedy" features animated shorts sure to make you chuckle and/or lose control of your bladder.

(Via Laughing Squid)