Dan Bilzerian has tastelessly promoted his autobiography by offering $5,000 to the Twitter user who can come up with the best title for it. Posted above a picture of him sitting at a desk next to a scantily clad young woman, his challenge has predictably invited a flood of mocking replies.
Of course, what “internet personality” Bilzerian is doing is not offering to pay someone for coming up with a good title. Rather, in keeping with a lifetime of shameless self-promotion, he’s actually trying to generate publicity.
And given that he trended on Twitter, it seemed to have worked. That said, it still remains highly unlikely that anyone will buy his autobiography, much less learn anything useful from it.
Gambler, “actor” and bitcoin investor Dan Bilzerian logged onto Twitter early this morning. So far, so predictable. However, today he challenged his 1.7 million followers to think of a suitable title for his upcoming autobiography.
While a very small percentage of replies were sincere, the vast majority quickly took delight in making fun of Bilzerian.
Seeing as how Dan Bilzerian has forged a career out of egotistically attracting attention, many replies riffed on how irritating he can be.
So far, there’s no actual sign that anyone has produced a title to Bilzerian’s liking. That said, he said “the best” in his tweet, and not “a title I actually like”. So we can only assume that he will eventually pay out $5,000 regardless.
More seriously, Dan “Trust Fund” Bilzerian’s latest stunt is yet another sad indictment of celebrity and culture in the 21st Century.
Whether Bilzerian actually pays out $5,000 is irrelevant. He doesn’t actually care about incentivizing someone to think of a good title for him. Instead, he’s simply doing what he has always done best: creating publicity for himself.
If you look back at his career, this is his primary business. He creates an image of himself as a playboy with a lavish and adventurous lifestyle. Or as a controversial renegade. And so on.
People buy into this image, conditioned to think they’d be happier if they had more money or more sex. And because they buy into this image, Bilzerian has been able to sell other things with an actual monetary value (e.g. weed).
For example, in 2016, Bilzerian bet $600,000 he could cycle from Hollywood Hills to Las Vegas in 48 hours . In 2014, he threw a porn actress off his roof for Hustler . In 2013, he sued the makers of Lone Survivor for cutting his role in the film , before dropping the lawsuit after the movie found success .
These cases all found their way into the media, raising Dan Bilzerian’s notoriety.
The same goes for his $5,000 “Twitter reward”. This is yet another example of him massaging his own image for financial gain.
As such, it’s tacky on two counts. On the one hand, using a barely dressed woman as an accessory is crass enough. On the other, it’s at least as bad to present a false image that others then hold up as some kind of aspirational goal.
Luckily, the mocking response to Gilzerian’s tweet suggests that not all of us aspire to live a lie.