US rapper 50 Cent has used Donald Trump's assassination attempt to promote his music. Picture: @50cent/X
People who’ve had near-death experiences are usually left with a sense of heightened purpose and regardless of the circumstances that led to that precarious moment, they are showered with empathy.
Whether you think Donald Trump’s assassination attempt at a campaign rally was staged or a genuine attempt by the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks to take his life, the former US president has gained more popularity from the whole incident.
Trump’s clenched fist in the air in a civil-rights-like stand image has gone more viral than leaked compromising footage of a celebrity on social media.
The whole incident has given Trump and his team a window at building his campaign around a siege mentality that will draw more empathy.
Opportune as the moment is for Trump, so too it is for entrepreneurs around the world.
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T-shirts with an image of Trump’s ear bleeding, with his right hand clenched in a fist above the Secret Service agents surrounding him after he was shot have been selling in China.
Over the weekend, Chinese retailers leapt into action on Taobao and JD.com, the country’s two biggest e-commerce platforms, to profit from the images after an assassination attempt on Trump at a rally on Saturday reported the Associated Press.
“Make America Great Again,” read one T-shirt, according to screenshots that circulated online. “Shooting Makes Me Stronger,” read another.
The T-shirts are available for as little as $4 (R73)
While people around the world may have recognized the power of the images, Chinese manufacturers are particularly well positioned to quickly jump on something trending and make it into a product.
It is the world’s factory floor and its highly competitive domestic e-commerce industry means its small retailers are poised to exploit all sorts of consumer product trends.
ALSO READ: Ramaphosa wishes Trump ‘speedy recovery’ after assassination attempt
Soon after news of Trump’s assassination attempt , 50 Cent’s song Many Men (Wish Death) began trending on social media.
Other social media users have posted videos of themselves playing the song pocking fun at Trump.
On the song which is on 50 Cent’s 2003 classic debut album, Get Rich Or Die Trying, he raps about his life being under threat from those around him and how he has survived death.
50 Cent is not one to dither at business and a controversial moment and hours after Trump’s ear was grazed by a bullet, the US rapper performed the song to an eager audience.
In the backdrop 50 Cent had a big-size cover of Get Rich Or Die Trying which depicts him without a shirt on. But instead of the original shot of the album cover, the rapper’s face was replaced by Trump’s.
He further touched on the Trump tweak to his album artwork on social media, posting the same Trump-infused image and writing, “Trump gets shot and now I’m trending.”
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