Rubin and McCarthy are in a fraternity of sorts: the Axe Republic. That’s the name that, without irony, the global Axe team uses to refer to itself. Theirs is an adventurous life, involving frequent forays into college towns, where the Axe team joins bar crawls and keggers. Older Republic members have designated “trendslators,” fresh hires who can explain what’s on teens’ minds. And when these new pledges are brought in, they’re even shown an indoctrination film. It’s a classic clip from The Matrix, where the hero, Neo, is offered two pills—a blue one to preserve his ignorance, or a red one that will show him a new reality. Axe is the red pill. “It encapsulates what the Axe Republic is about,” Rubin says.
This article on Axe Body Spray’s marketing is just chilling, just 70’s Friedkin sound design in the Exorcist chilling. ”Axe is the red pill.” No wonder Joe Pantalone wanted off the Nebberschenebber; it reeked of Axe. Also, dig this sentence a person that used to be a human being said out loud: “Axe is deliberately not telling the truth, so they’re being truthful about being untruthful. And there’s an honesty there that this generation really relates to.” WHAT NO WHY STOP. Imagine having thoughts like that inside of your head! It must be like that squid baby from Prometheus, except where that person’s brain used to be. Also: did you know one of Axe’s marketing initiatives was an online Scott Lobdell comic called Axe Anarchy: the Graphic Novel, about the anarchy that ensued when Axe scientists develop a scent that removes the inhibitions between men and women? And did you also know that we’re all dead and this is actually hell? It’s science! (The behind the scenes video starts with the artist talking about how he wanted to be a comic artist since he was a little kid, so… really if you think about it, him making a comic about Axe Body Spray is his childhood dreams coming true… I’m just going to pause here to weep my feelings out for a little while you guys). Or the part where Axe went to Howard University to figure out how to sell more Axe to African Americans? (Solution: they started selling Axe with the tagline “For Players Only”… you’re welcome, Black America). Or … or “In Tunisia, Axe enabled men to set their Facebook status as ‘in a relationship’ with hundreds of women”— what am I supposed to do with that sentence in my brain? That sentence is like a prequel to Olivier Assayas’s Demonlover…
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