BROOKLYN, NY—Imagine a place where all the offers are epic, the deals never end, and shipping is always free. A heavenly kingdom where you can click a button and—like magic—the shower head, butt plug, or off-brand iPhone cable of your dreams appears at your door. This is the sales pitch of the Church of Amazon, the retail cult with the modest ambition of controlling all commerce in the known
BROOKLYN, NY —Imagine a place where all the offers are epic, the deals never end, and shipping is always free. A heavenly kingdom where you can click a button and—like magic—the shower head, butt plug, or off-brand iPhone cable of your dreams appears at your door. This is the sales pitch of the Church of Amazon, the retail cult with the modest ambition of controlling all commerce in the known universe.
Like all major faiths, Amazon has a logo (an impish, slightly lascivious smile), a spiritual leader (Space Pope Jeff Bezos), and a holiday: Prime Day, this day, the cunning Christmas-in-July scheme that serves as the online shopping giant’s holiest occasion.
Following the mysterious logic of the almighty, Prime Day is now 36 hours long, and was preceded by a series of Amazon-hosted concerts called “Unboxing Prime Day.” To promote the promotions for the promotion, the company released a teaser video earlier this month showing enormous “Smile boxes” containing “unforgettable events” being shipped around the world, possibly with celebrity guests packed tightly inside.
A coworker jokingly suggested that each mammoth box contained a single SD card. He wasn’t far off. Just two days before Amazon’s Brooklyn event, the company revealed the concert would be headlined by Ariana Grande, the babyish, recently engaged pop star who stands approximately four SD cards tall. Suddenly, Amazon’s big, stupid box presented a more intriguing opportunity, one that potentially ended with me, Grande, and Grande’s husband-to-be Pete Davidson all riding jet skis in the Bahamas.
My mission was now clear. I would ask Amazon for entry to the Grande concert and try to learn everything I could about the true meaning of Prime Day. In the process, I would also meet and befriend Davidson, who seems like a pretty chill guy and fit the big package theme.
There was only one problem: The event’s rules strictly prohibited vapes of any kind, and, like many members of the media, I have become hopelessly dependent on JUUL e-cigarettes. But with six nicotine lozenges tucked inside an Amazon-approved Ziplock bag (more on this later), I felt fully prepared on Wednesday for an evening of music, merriment, and, above all, unbelievable DEALS. I would end up chewing all six.
Nearing the event in an Uber, I was well into my first minty smoking cessation aid when I asked the driver to look for the giant Amazon box. In a strange coincidence, my driver told me he owned a box factory in his home country, but had given up both when his wife died suddenly. Some 10 years later, he was now a recently documented immigrant driving a cab, a search for greater opportunity he described as God’s plan.
I told him that I, too, had come to New York looking for better possibilities, but couldn’t explain how a giant box fit into any of this. In any case, my suggestion to look for the box was a mistake that stemmed from reading Amazon’s scripture too literally: I had assumed the venue hosting the concert would be done up to look like an Amazon package, but had no reason to believe this was actually true. (It wasn’t.)
After some confusion, he dropped me off at the entrance of the Duggal Greenhouse, a fashionably renovated dockyard warehouse, a little before 6 p.m., and I stuffed the Ziplock bag containing my Amazon-sanctioned possessions into my back pocket. In addition to vapes, security rules banned fireworks, umbrellas, drugs, drones, animals, whistles, laser pointers, weapons, coolers, and “any other items deemed to be dangerous or inappropriate.” That which wasn’t explicitly verboten then had to fit in a clear bag no more than 12 inches by six inches by 12 inches. As a cheerful public relations professional led me through the metal detectors, I was glad I followed the rules closely.
Overseeing approximately 80 early arrivers were about a dozen security guards and cops, as well as a sniffer dog and a police boat stationed on the water outside. Given the high-profile headliner, it seemed like a reasonable troop deployment, but still clashed with the otherwise intimate, town carnival vibe of the event. This served as my first lesson about the nature of Prime Day: It is fun, casual, and family-friendly, but also incredibly secure.
Prime Day also smelled a bit like fish. While the venue for the Brooklyn event was undeniably well-chosen, tucked out of the way and offering a handsome view of the Williamsburg Bridge, its warehouse origins were undeniable. It was a big box designed to house smaller boxes, a precursor to the grim fulfillment centers that have enabled Amazon’s global conquest. If nothing else, it seemed like the kind of place an Amazon warehouse might aspire to become should it tire of the pedestrian business of exploiting the working poor.
That’s not to say it wasn’t fun. It was fun! Self-consciously, aggressively so. As I walked past an Amazon Treasure Truck and a Wickedly Prime snack station, an important-seeming man in a charcoal suit saw my press pass and asked me what I thought. As I mumbled a response, he said, “It’s cool, right?” without it really sounding like a question.
There was also, as promised, a giant Smile box on the premises, but no Pete Davidson in sight. Before I could investigate the matter more thoroughly, however, the evening’s first act began. The stage, I was disappointed to discover, hadn’t been decorated like an Amazon box either.
“There’s no innuendos, it’s exactly what you think,” sang Julia Michaels in a stage whisper. “Believe me when I tell you that he loves the color pink.” Taking the lyrics at face value, I concluded it was a song about a man with strong opinions about hues.
It was at this point that I began wondering how the event’s other attendees (about 300 of them by the end of the night) found themselves here. Amazon’s promotional materials framed the concert as a special invite-only “thank you” to “Prime members and fans,” but what fans and what members? I approached an Amazon staffer wearing a new Ariana Grande shirt for more information—and instead asked about free swag.
Andrew, who I soon learned worked for Amazon Canada, told me he picked up the tan Ariana Grande shirt I’d seen on various audience members in the “fan” line at the entrance. He offered to take me there, and I declined, before walking back to say yes, actually, I’d appreciate that very much.
After lots of laughing and high-fives between Andrew from Canada and other Amazon workers, I, too, possessed a tan Ariana Grande shirt. A smiling woman at the fan desk asked if I was from Canada as well. When I said no, she told me, “You should visit!” with an enthusiasm I still do not understand, but continue to believe. In that moment, she wanted me to visit Canada more than anyone has ever wanted anyone else to do anything, offering the kind of suggestion that is usually only shouted by audiences trying to prevent the deaths of horror movie characters.
This brings me to the night’s second teaching: Prime Day is energetic!!!
Around the time I popped my second lozenge, I realized I should take a full inventory of the night’s activities and offerings.
According to my survey, an attendee to the 2018 Brooklyn Unboxing Prime Day event could score the following freebies: bottles of Bai Supertea and Hint fruit-infused water; Wickedly Prime nut bars, fruit and nut bars, fruit, nut, and seed bars, roasted cashews, and plantain chips; self-designed Prime Day t-shirts; Hippeas organic chickpea puffs; SmashMallow SmashCrisp[ies]; various alcoholic beverages; Amazon-branded koozies; Amazon-branded sunglasses; Amazon Treasure Truck stickers; Flow spring water; Amazon Smile logo enamel pins; and, if they’re lucky, an Ariana Grande Sweetener shirt. Additionally, they could enjoy the following activity stations: the Amazon Treasure Truck LP ring toss game, the Prime Day papercraft photo booth, the Alexa giant Jenga table, the Alexa swim ring photo op, and the (previously suggested) Prime Day custom t-shirt center.
Alone, each served as a nice distraction between sets, but together they conveyed a larger message: our company is more than just cheap shit that shows up on your porch. Not only was each station connected with a different aspect of Amazon’s ever-sprawling empire, the concert itself was promoting Amazon Music (which is a thing, I guess?) and was broadcast on Twitch, the livestreaming service the company acquired in 2014.
This led to my third revelation about the spirit of Prime Day: Amazon is thirsty as hell.
Sure, the company’s primary mission will always be the continued growth of its worldwide caliphate, but, at some level, the extended Prime Day festivities suggested that someone at Amazon was asking where the real Bezosheads, the true ride-or-die, give-me-two-day-shipping-or-give-me-death Amazonians, were at.
Of course, it’s hard to get excited about Amazon, the faceless shopping giant we continue to use despite our growing awareness of its sins. Faced with this problem, the event seemed to ask, “If you can’t love Jeff Bezos, maybe you can love his good friend Ariana Grande?”
Fortunately for Amazon, we can, and we did. It turned out the Ariana Grande shirt was the secret to getting other audience members to talk to me (thanks again, Andrew from Canada), with multiple people approaching me throughout the evening to ask where I got it.
