Deadpool’s T.J. Miller Reveals His Very Real Plan to Fight Advertising with Advertising
Last week we wrote about Deadpool co-star T.J. Miller’s crusade against Ricky Gervais as revealed in his one hour interview with SiriusXM host Ron Bennington, but Gervais isn’t the only ill that Miller wants to cure. In the interview, which was part of Bennington’s Unmasked series, he also unveiled a plan to start a non profit company to combat the negative effects of advertising. It will be called the Epi-Curators and its mission will be to post billboards around the country to let everyone know a very simple message: It’s okay.
What? If that sounds confusing you’re not alone, but he explained. Miller- who is a Nihilist, and absurdist, and a humorist- wants people stop worrying and just be happy. But, he said, it’s hard to be happy when you’re constantly focused on yourself. He blames a large part of unhappiness on advertising, which fills our heads with concerns like, “why you don’t have that tv, why you don’t have the better car, or why you don’t have the better breath, why you don’t save more time” and even whether you made the right choice in toothbrushes. Social media, he said, adds concerns about how many likes you get, and was your snap chat good enough.
“With advertising, we tell ourselves every day that we’re not good enough. We point at ourselves as the thing that needs to change, to become better. With social media even, we’re like look at me,look at what I’m doing. So we’re just telling ourselves to be that way and it takes a little more effort to focus on being a bit more selfless.”
“We don’t need to eliminate advertising,” Miller said. “I’m still a capitalist at heart. This “meritocracy” we live in is the reason I’m here talking to you guys right now.” But T.J. thinks that some counter-ads could really improve people’s happiness quotient. “Just to have a little bit of advertising that is like, you’re actually doing great. You made the right choice on your toothbrush, don’t worry about getting a new one.”
T.J. says he and his wife Kate have already mocked up some ads including one that just says “YOU’RE FINE” which he’s ready to combine with Kate’s favorite, “YOU HAVE EVERYTHING YOU NEED.” His plan includes crowd sourcing some cash, and using it to put up ads about how bad advertising is in select cities like New York, Denver and Los Angeles, and then if you see a billboard and like it you can donate a dollar through an app. “So that is the end goal, is that if I can get a platform to talk about all this stuff and then get people behind the idea- and I don’ think this is far off. Look at how Bernie Sanders is making money.”
Miller’s been somewhat inspired he says, by Deadpool ‘s advertising, which has broken some old school marketing rules, successfully. “They’ve sort of been like, hey, wouldn’t it be ridiculous if we fucked around with the marketing. And then they have, and people have responded really well to them. So again a project that I’m involved in that has the right tone and that people are responding to. That’s good news for me. I’m thankful.”
Listen to the Unmasked episode in its entirety, below, to hear Miller talk more about his Epicurious project, Ricky Gervais, his next projects, a new HBO stand up special, and of course, Deadpool, in theaters now.
