I’m still trying to figure out who the joke is supposed to be on.
The newly-revived Enron Corporation revealed its CEO Monday, along with a promise to unveil the “most revolutionary technology” the energy sector has ever seen, according to an announcement posted to its website.
Connor Gaydos, the 28-year-old who helped pen the satirical “Birds Aren’t Real,” a conspiracy theory, in June alongside co-author Peter Mcindoe, will lead the reformed Enron Corporation in its apparent revival. Now the self-proclaimed “world’s leading company,” Enron Corporation announced it will host a power summit in early January during which company leadership will debut an unspecified technology that will transform the energy sector.
“When tomorrow comes, today will vanish into a sea of yesterdays,” the company said in the announcement. “In one month, we will unveil the most revolutionary technology the energy sector has ever seen.”
According to its website, the content of Enron’s website is “protected parody” and intended as performance art. While this could be a simple blurb added to Enron’s privacy policy in a bid to stave off potential litigation, the dramatic, tongue-in-cheek, nature of the videos shared Monday carry a tone of levity that could indicate genuine parody.
The Enron Power Summit is scheduled for Jan. 6. While Enron Corporation has made lofty promises in the days following its return, little in the way of concrete details have been shared with the public. The company did not indicate whether it would be hosting its power summit in-person or virtually, and did not share any details regarding location, time or the nature of the technology it said it plans to debut.
The company also shared a video introducing Gaydos as the CEO of the company. Gaydos previously identified himself as the co-founder of the College Company, which holds the trademark rights to both Birds Aren’t Real and the “Enron E” logo seen on the recent billboard erected in Houston and the advertisements the company purchased in the New York Times and Houston Chronicle print editions.
“So often you find yourself on the front page of a future history book,” Gaydos said in the video. “It’s true. We’ve had poor leadership in the past, but thankfully, the past is prologue, and now we’re turning the page … what we’re doing behind the scenes and what we’re about to release is truly groundbreaking. It’s truly revolutionary.”
See here for the background. It’s clear that we’re firmly in parody territory, though that doesn’t preclude the appearance of another dumb crypto coin at some point (*). I’m sure no one believes, and we are clearly not meant to believe, that “most revolutionary technology the energy sector has ever seen” baloney. What puzzles me is that someone spent probably in excess of $100K running at least a week’s worth of full-page ads for this “new” “Enron” in the Chronicle and the NY Times, plus the billboard. So either this is just someone with enough money to do that getting their jollies or there is a real moneymaking scheme at the heart of all this; if it’s the latter, my congratulations on the success of your rollout, you have definitely earned the eyeballs. I don’t think a web shop selling T-shirts and coffee mugs is likely to succeed in this venture, but if it’s not that then what is it? Again, I come back to the crypto idea. I guess we’ll find out on January 6, which by the way is a terrible date for this. I’m sure we’ll all appreciate some distraction then, but seriously, y’all should have picked literally any other date.
(*) I mean, the Hawk Tuah girl has a memecoin. And the fact that I know about this is the best illustration of brain rot I’ve personally encountered.