Desecrated corpse of failed electronics retailer Radioshack brought back from the dead as a shambling crypto-meme zombie
A Twitter account for the long-dead store has been posting the hottest memes of 2018.
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RadioShack, which you may remember as a retailer of consumer electronics endemic to strip malls of the ’90s and early aughts, has relaunched with a correspondingcryptocurrencyand positively nauseating Twitter account.
It is the latest example of crypto’s strange, continuing overlap with edgelord internet behavior. The ‘Shack used to sell batteries, RC cars, DIY electronics tools, and all matter of wires and transistors for the solderer in your life. It was a ubiquitous sight in the parking lots of America until it wasn’t, with the ecommerce boom driving the company to bankruptcy in 2015.
Sportswriter Jon Bois, a former RadioShack employee, wrote agreat obituary of sortsfor the company that rings true to anyone who’s worked a dead-end service or retail job. Bois writes of the former giant, “RadioShack is a rotten place to work, generally not a very good place to shop, and an untenable business to run. Everyone involved loses.”
RadioShack was purchased by crypto entrepreneur Alex Mehr and influencer Tai Lopez in 2020, and in late 2021 the companyannounced the launch of its cryptocurrency, RADIO. RadioShack began getting uh, “epic” on Twitter at about the same time, interacting with crypto-focused accounts, posting “the Shack is Back” memes, and,sigh,“dunking” on critics.
The retailer’s social media account began seriously ramping up the volume and…questionable contentof its posts earlier this month, including a deleted tweetexpressing a love of vaginal discharge, as well as using a well-circulated still from a racist porn shoot toimply some sort of triumphagainst the overleveraged Twitter account of the fast food chain, Wendy’s. I want to slam my head in a drawer.
As tech writer Jack Applebypoints out, this is an obvious ploy to drum up attention for the brand’s crypto token, one that, thank god, doesn’t seem to be working. Even if the Twitter account is getting a lot more traffic, RADIO has only declined in value in the month since the brand’s social media started getting nutty with it, with the token currently pegged atless than a cent in value.
Indeed, regurgitating the best that Reddit circa 2018 had to offer does not seem to be enough to stand against the current crypto freefall. Even legit (or as legit as these things get) cryptocurrencies likeBitcoinand Ethereum have declined in value 55% and 70% respectively from this time last year . If the token thing doesn’t pan out, Radioshack does actuallystill sell electronicsthrough its website—I wouldn’t trust these people with my credit card number though.
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I hope there continues to be no correlation between attention and token value for this company, otherwise even negative coverage will ultimately just contribute to the noise that makes the people behind this thing rich.
Perhaps we’ll seeshitcoinswearing the mask of defunct retailers continue to proliferate. Mehr and Lopez already own Pier 1 imports, while other standbys like Fry’s Electronics, Circuit City, and Blockbuster are all practically begging to be reanimated as entirely worthless unregulated securities. None of the sterile, air-conditioned interiors of my youth are safe from Web3 reanimation.
Ted has been thinking about PC games and bothering anyone who would listen with his thoughts on them ever since he booted up his sister’s copy of Neverwinter Nights on the family computer. He is obsessed with all things CRPG and CRPG-adjacent, but has also covered esports, modding, and rare game collecting. When he’s not playing or writing about games, you can find Ted lifting weights on his back porch.
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