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No, you aren’t reading an SEO-charged title of a spam message, the title of this post is accurate: A company in Singapore owns the rights to the hottest phrase in U.S. social media right now, Charlie Sheen’s “tiger blood.”
The Hollywood star’s recent public statements against his former employer, CBS Television, have been widely documented, as well as his strange messages to the media in interviews and via Twitter. But the most popular phrase to emerge during Sheen’s rants is his claim that, “I’m different. I have a different constitution, I have a different brain, I have a different heart. I got tiger blood, man.”
The tiger blood phrase has become one of the most repeated jokes for its audacity, but in the process the phrase has actually gained currency with t-shirts emblazoned with the phrase popping up and even Sheen himself chugging a bottle labeled TigerBlood (just after he waved a machete in response to the news of his firing from CBS) yesterday in Los Angeles. When reporters asked when TigerBlood as a product might be available Sheen (perhaps joking, perhaps not) said, “Soon enough…”
Given the term’s popularity and Sheen’s recent embrace of social media, we thought it made sense to track down the owner of TigerBlood.com to see if there might actually be a future for this as an Internet product. We learned that the domain TigerBlood.com actually belongs to a company in Singapore that sells, no joke, anabolic steroids. Operating online since 2005, the site now sits unused with nothing on its homepage other than an “under construction” message. But a bit of archive sniffing revealed that the site once had an active business selling steroids online. As if channeling the current spirit of Sheen, the site advised:
“Remember steroids are powerful tools in [the] hands of educated, down to earth reasonable athlete and a way to early grave in hands of ignorant, irrespobile [sic], unrealistic and blinded by wish to succssed [sic] no matter what fouls.”
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We reached out to the site owner to find out if there had been any bids on the domain name, but have yet to get any response.
Update: The site owner responded: “We have noticed very high increase on traffic on our web site, but since are distributors and have no retail sales, it has not affected us directly. We do not plan to sell the domain.”
Further proof that the phrase has gained currency on the Internet came when we searched for different iterations of the TigerBlood domain name. The timing of the new registrations were too coincidental to be anything but Sheen-related. On March 1, a Massachusetts man registered the .net and .org versions, on March 3 a San Francisco man registered the .biz and .co versions, and on March 4 an anonymous party registered TigerBlood.tv (perhaps Sheen himself?).
According to a 1931 translation of Li Shih-chen’s book on natural Chinese medicines “Pen Ts’ao Kang Mu,” tiger blood, “builds up the constitution and strengthens the willpower.” So, at least in terms of a dramatic product backstory, Sheen may actually have something here.
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And as if that weren’t enough TigerBlood for you, an interesting side story came about involving high profile tech venture capitalist Mark Suster and L.A. media consultant Brett Schulte. On Monday a tweet appeared on Sheen’s stream that read:
“I’m looking to hire a #winning INTERN with #TigerBlood. Apply here – http://bit.ly/hykQQF #TigerBloodIntern #internship #ad”
While many assumed the tweet (which has since been removed) was a direct message, it was in fact an advertisement connected to Ad.ly, a service that integrates celebrity endorsements into social media platforms. Suster’s L.A.-based investment firm GRP Partners, a former investor in CitySearch, Starbucks, Office Depot, Costco and Egghead Software, is also an Ad.ly investor. Upon seeing the Sheen ad/tweet, Suster tweeted enthusiastically:
“Holy shit. @adlyads just ran first @charliesheen ad. It’s converting like mad!! TigerBlood mad! #winning”
Not long after, Schulte responded to Suster’s tweet with one of his own:
“Failing. Badly. Really Mark?” and “Putting @internships with an out of control celebrity drug addict is your idea of a win? Integrity much?”
The morality-fueled drubbing led to a rather heated public argument that, at the end of the day, was resolved amicably. Nevertheless, the incident further proves how a simple story about an actor engaging in a media circus can today quickly turn into a story about big business once social media becomes a part of the story.
