While I was anxiously anticipating the return of Agent Michael Scarn last week, I spotted a face from the past in a Volkswagen commercial on NBC. Specifically Shawn Fanning, the creator of the most well-known peer to peer transfer tool at the turn of the millennium a.k.a. Napster. The commercial is designed to be a faux talk show with a talking classic Volkswagen Beetle as the host. You’ve probably seen a version of this commercial by now as there are a few variations with different guests.
While the commercial rolls on with an interview of Shawn, the viewer never hears the word “Napster” in the conversation. Since Fanning doesn’t own the company anymore, I presume it would have been illegal for Volkswagen to mention Napster without getting the thumbs up from the new owners. There’s a couple mentions of free music, but nothing specific to Shawn’s relationship to his infamous program.
The baffling aspect of Volkswagen hiring Fanning as a pitchman is that he’s a nobody for the majority of the viewers. Granted he had a few seconds of screen time in the 2003 movie The Italian Job as an opposing villain to Seth Green’s character, but his face isn’t recognizable to anyone outside the tech world. The only reason I recalled his mug was because Napster was wildly popular during my college years. Add the fact that Napster was never mentioned in the commercial and their targeted audience becomes severely limited to people that have memorized Shawn Fanning’s face.
Plus it was a silly commercial to begin with…
