ABC is set to premiere a hide-and-seek competition series called "Can You Hide... Shaq?" in which eight contestants in Dallas must hide the 7-foot-1 NBA legend in plain sight, according to Variety. It opens December 3.
Let's look at the mechanism. In this show, the star is not a contestant. He is the object. Eight people are being paid to hide a face the PR machine has already printed on cereal boxes and in a sneaker ad you cannot unsee. The show is not about hiding. It is a focus group for how hard the machine pushes his face at you, and the moment someone spots him is the product.
The statement in the Variety exclusive is the entire economy in two sentences. "I'm not exactly easy to miss," says Shaq, then asks whether people can "actually make me disappear." That is not a contestant question. That is a marketing audit. He is asking if his brand works, and the show's premise is the answer: yes, it works, and it works so well that a network is now paying eight people to prove it.
The team that gets spotted the least wins the prize money. Which means the contestants are running interference for a 300-pound billboard. That is not a competition format. That is a job description. The least glamorous brand-ambassador gig in television, hosted by Nicole Byer, whose casting note was probably one sentence: can you talk for six hours around a man who is a skyline?
YOUR TURN: If the goal is hiding the most recognizable man in America, isn't the only honest strategy to fire the PR machine first?
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