#HireKevin: Man tries to become Applebee’s spokesman over Facebook

Facebook is topping all our news feeds with obnoxious brand posts, while hiding updates from pages we actually liked. Clicking to hide the post leaves me feeling impotent. My colleague Henry likes to leave stupid comments on these promoted posts, punishing the brands for so desperately chasing his likes.

It looks like Kevin Matuszak is doing that, but on a grand scale. He’s begging Applebee’s to hire him, in a Facebook comment thread that’s gotten 182 comments and 265 likes. And whoever runs the Applebee’s Facebook page has been responding every now and then, checking on his progress — and then helping him along. They’re trying to turn it into a publicity stunt. A very silly, stupid, actually-fun publicity stunt.

On Monday, Kevin wrote on the Applebee’s Facebook timeline: “hi, can I work for you?” They replied, “Check if your local Applebee’s is hiring!”

But Kevin said he wanted a job at corporate. And he kept bugging them. With updates like these:

He got a lot of support, and screwed with people who took him seriously:

And Applebee’s kept responding:

Applebee’s even tweeted out about the #HireKevin campaign, linking to a half-assed video remix he made:

This encouragement has blown up the #HireKevin tag. Kevin himself has obviously participated.

It seems like Kevin has a slim chance of actually getting some sort of gig out of this, thanks to the hunger a brand like Applebee’s has for “organic” customer interaction and “viral” marketing. But today Kevin has been escalating the crazy.

I imagine he’s keeping the Applebee’s marketing team on edge, as they wonder if further endorsement could force them to deal with an off-brand maverick.

Think he’s got a chance?

By Nick Douglas. Thanks to Virgil Texas for showing us the #HireKevin movement.