The Brandy Initiative
The TLDR version is: Over the past two months I created a story where I hired a consulting firm to help my physical media store, before its AI went rogue and tried to take control of the shop. And I did all of this to lead to the unveiling of a Silence of the Lambs ceiling installation. That was always the end point where this was leading.
This story played out across a few different lanes, both in person and online, revolving around my interactions with the AI agent which had a physical presence in the form of a robot called the Brandwell 5000, or Brandy for short. But it started with a bit of a shocking admission: That I was giving up.
The first video got way more feedback than I was anticipating and set the stage for quite a bit of confusion as, in the coming days, I then shared how the store's singular path to avoiding the retail apocalypse would come in the form of relying on assistance from a consulting firm. This firm was called Brandwell Creative Enterprise Solutions Inc., and their bleeding edge technologies took the form of an on-site avatar which would be constantly observing and analyzing the shop, using that information to deliver actionable recommendations that would benefit the shop moving forward. This was Brandy.
In the weeks following Brandy's initial analysis of the shop's data, it began producing increasingly unhinged advice, such as recommending that I reorganize the horror section by 'Emotional Damage Potential' rather than alphabetically. And as comments online became dismissive of the videos or their perceived purpose, Brandy took that information and pivoted into the role of a holistic wellness guru (think Rick Rubin, but less hairy), pronouncing their discovery that physical media is less a retail product category and more an emotional ecosystem.
By that time, however, Brandy was already working to undermine me, having created a Facebook page for themselves to harvest data relating to "untapped demographics." Eventually that struggle for power came to a head with Brandy proclaiming themselves "The Decider," aiming their sights on taking over the store through hacking all of its online accounts and threatening a hostile takeover. In the process of doing so, they began emailing vendors and contractors directly, including a bid request to a local handyman service. This hostile takeover was all in service of one recommendation it had made weeks earlier: that the shop needed to "install [a] dramatic set piece to enhance consumer spending."
Through this process I did the best I could with my bush league skills to photoshop emails and edit together audio and video, making it appear as though Brandy was in charge. In the end however, Brandy and I clashed, a burial occurred, and Buffalo Bill took his rightful place in the shop, lotion and all.
Razzle Dazzle Music & Movies is an independent physical media store and the hope was that this showed off our appreciation for being creative, making weird things, and having some fun along the way. If this sounds interesting, please give the whole thing a watch, starting with the "I'm Giving Up" video, to see for yourself how this story played out.
Lastly, I never ask for likes, comments, or shares, but if you'd like to support the store and this project, please help this get seen. And if you live around, or ever pass through eastern Iowa, we hope to see you in person sometime at our brick and mortar store located at Lindale Mall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.