TV

The ‘Queer Eye’ Gang Loves Selling Weird Things On Instagram, And We Love Ranking Those Things

Queer Eye? More like queer... buy...

by Patrick Lenton  20 March 2019
Queer Eye Season 3 Instagram

Want more Junkee in your life? Sign up to our newsletter, and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook so you always know where to find us.

Queer Eye is here for its long-threatened third season, and it’s got me thinking about the past.

Related
The Hot Guy From 'Queer Eye' Who Can't Cook Roasted Junkee And Called Me A Bitch

It seems insane that only a year ago we had no idea who this Fab 5 were, and could never have dared imagine such a storm of hair and pants and smiles to grace our screen. Who could forget the excitement from the first season, all the people’s lives who were teased and tucked into more wholesome and appeasing units, the explosion of big personalities, the little jokes about avocado.

But most importantly, who could EVER forget the massive amount of quality goods and products that they helped bring to our attention?

Seriously, as their fame grew, so did their sponsored content, until it seemed like every single post on any social media you could name would feature Antoni, wild-eyed, mostly naked, brandishing a head of lettuce at you.

Please don’t take this as criticism — there’s nothing inherently wrong about sponcon. We must all, as they say, get that bread — or, at least, put a video of us endorsing that bread on our Insta stories. If I was even a quarter as famous as a single member of Queer Eye, I would absolutely endorse a weird cheese or an ill-fated flavour of cider for a pile of cash. Please, please let me endorse something, I’m POOR.

That said, while I understand the motive, that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to feel a deep overwhelming wave of fatigue and sadness every time I watch Karamo strutting next to a sassy sponcon for ready-to-eat wheat! That doesn’t preclude the fact that sometimes the products they promote are INHERENTLY very funny!

And they do SO MUCH of it too. Just so much.

So, let’s explore all the best sponcon from the wacky product horses at Queer Eye.

# 6: Bobby’s Lightbulbs

Here’s the thing — it actually makes SENSE for a lot of the Queer Eye guys to advertise stuff.

They each have their speciality: fashion, food, interior decorating, slut-shaming the gay community. They have experience and expertise that would make me say “yes, I would trust Tan’s advice on where to get a nice pair of pants. Show me those pants.”

So, often they do: Tan partners with clothes brands, Jonathan does a “how to shave” PSA. That makes sense! And Bobby sells a lot of homewares stuff, which I’d trust him on! Even when I thought he was was advertising the concept of doors for most of this post.

But even logical sponcon can sometimes be cooked. Let’s have a look at this exciting partnership for example:

I don’t know what it is about this post that I find so funny — is it just the fact that he ignored about 700 immediate puns, like “What a bright idea!” and “Having trouble finding lightbulbs? let me illuminate the issue for you!”

Or is it just that I find the concept of lightbulbs being “overwhelming” a stretch? I dunno.

# 5: Tan And Antoni Hate Pain!

Honestly, desperate PR companies must look at the Queer Eye boys and see them as a ray of sparkling light from the heavens.

The thing about their Excedrin promo is that there are several steps of complication involved. Excedrin, for Australian audiences, is a pain relief tablet that’s a mixture of paracetamol, aspirin and caffeine.

The vague idea of the whole promo is that there’s different types of headaches: Adulting, Commuter and Bad Date, and let’s be honest: it should have been Flu, Drank Three Too Many Wines After Work, and Millennial Screen Time Abuse.

So, already this concept means we’ve got a lot to get our (apparently, aching) heads around.

So, let’s throw some Fab 5 into the mix.

Not only is this funny because they’re roaming around with giant boxes of pharmaceuticals, but the specific angle they’ve gone with here is how annoying people are finding them. Cool for self awareness, I guess? I often wonder how much they get paid. I’d carry around a big pain box that said “adulting” on it for literally ten dollars, but I imagine their ceiling is a little higher?

I feel like in both these photos, Antoni is genuinely jazzed for low-grade pain relief, while Tan is suffering silently, looking through the image and letting the viewer know that he knows that you know, you know?

#4: Antoni’s Terrifying Portal To Another Dimension (Kansas)

The Facebook Portal partnership with Antoni only requires a vaguely insane twist of your brain to understand. As far as I can understand, the technology is a big iPad with Skype on it, which you use to talk to people — and Antoni does it while cooking eggs.

I dunno. But Antoni just brings so much weird energy into this.

I feel like this is less an advertisement, and more a cautionary tale: you too could have an awkwardly loud man speak over you, while aggressively parading eggs around. All you need is a Facebook Portal.

The video, if you can’t be bothered watching it, is a terrifying reminder of what it’s like to be Skyped by an acquaintance and not a friend.

Antoni, staring into the camera with eyes that mirror nothing more than the void itself: “I’m making soft scrambled eggs with creme-fraiche!”

Long silence,

“Where’s Marcy????????”

Also, at one point the other person in the video say to Antoni: “Your kitchen is immaculate, looks like there’s nothing in it.”

Pretty suspicious.

#3: Hanes Thirst Pance

I mean, this is actually fine. I don’t want to discourage this.

Underpance.

Antoni famously made a visual art term go viral when he packed his weiner into these pants that you can buy, and I think that’s great!

#2: Antoni’s Cheese House

I don’t want to single out Antoni, honestly, it’s just that he has about 300% more sponcon than the others, it’s just science! There’s two things you can’t change in this world, and that’s maths and how weird a house made of cheese is.

His sponcon is just next level. Maybe I’m even impressed, I dunno. Do I want to be him, or just utilise him for content?

So, let’s investigate Antoni’s most deranged sponcon. The cheese house.

How is there so much dark magic in one single image? How can I be so attracted and repulsed by a concept? This picture is a swirling vortex of bad vibes, cheese and money.

Why is he dressed like the conductor in an old timey train porn?

You know the TV show Hannibal, about a famous serial killer who made killing and eating people seem artistic and cool? Well, this image is what I imagine the show would start looking like if it went for 23 seasons  and started running out of ideas. If that’s too confusing: Antoni would kill you and make you into a cheese house. This is why Hannibal got cancelled — it would inevitably lead to Antoni’s cheese house!

I mean, let’s lay it out: the focus, the layout, the aesthetics are all perfect. If there was a Platonic ideal for how to pose a photo of a man and his cheese house, this would be it! Look at those lovely wreaths and fairy lights in the background.

Unfortunately, the inherent concept of a cheese house is a scary family curse.

This image is the last thing you see before you die.

But it doesn’t end there — he just keeps pushing this weird cooked obsession with this cheese brand, and introduces the most cursed concept in the world: love poetry full of cheese. If poetry wasn’t already inherently a terrible thing, imagine reading a poem about cheese from a book FULL of cheese.

Watch the video, it’s legitimately abhorrent.

Of course, I’m not the first to notice Antoni’s… passion for sponcon.

#1: Is This Sponcon For… Cops?

Hmm.

Queer Eye season 3 is currently streaming on Netflix.

Patrick Lenton is the Entertainment Editor at Junkee. He is available for sponsored content opportunities, he has no shame.