I’m glad I’m not the only one who was sad to see Tay Zonday’s Dr. Pepper commercial. Jason Calacanis and Jakob Lodwick (now ex- of Vimeo) seem to feel the same, and so does my friend Rex Sorgatz of Fimoculous and a few others I came across in my feed reader. If you’re not familiar with the phenomenon that is Tay Zonday, I can’t sum it all up here, but suffice it to say that he appeared out of nowhere — a young black kid with a bizarre singing style — and became a YouTube star.
And then he went and made this craptacular Dr. Pepper commercial. Filled with the same cheesy dancers and rappers and bling you can find in any other rap-inspired ad, combined with the oddly exaggerated, deep-voice singing of Tay — it doesn’t work as a parody, it doesn’t work as a tribute, it doesn’t work as a commercial period. All it seems to accomplish is to make Tay Zonday look like just another wanker looking for a quick payout. I mean, he gets to be on TV and shoot a video with a bunch of dancers, so good for him. But still, it’s kind of sad in a way.
