More Corporations Getting High on a Drug Called Charlie Sheen

As we wrote yesterday, companies are trying to take advantage of the Charlie Sheen phenomenon on Twitter without taking on the risk of hiring Sheen as a sponsor.

Ford and Poster Revolution were the first to jump in, but now we have an update to the cravenness watch. A whole host of companies have purchased a turn on the #Winner hashtag.

AMC Theatres is promoting some free stuff contest for the film Beastly. Arby's is shilling for the Angus Three Cheese & Bacon burger. Audi (Audi!) is selling a bunch of its cars including the A3, A8 and R8. And social music startup Songza is promoing itself.

Sheen may not be making money off of his Twitter celebrity, but Twitter sure is. And as Gawker's Adrian Chen asked me last night, "Shouldn't some of the blame be put on Twitter for ACCEPTING the money for Sheen-related hashtags?" And the answer is yes.

If you're keeping score at home, then, here's your list of companies trying to ride the Sheen machine: Ford, Poster Revolution, AMC Theatres, Audi, Arby's, Songza and Twitter itself. Apparently, anyone and everyone can cash in on this guy.

Update 5:06pm: Infiniti has joined the Charlie Sheen profiteering bandwagon.

Alexis C. Madrigal

Alexis Madrigal is a senior editor at The Atlantic, where he oversees the Technology channel. He's the author of Powering the Dream: The History and Promise of Green Technology. More

The New York Observer calls Madrigal "for all intents and purposes, the perfect modern reporter." He co-founded Longshot magazine, a high-speed media experiment that garnered attention from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the BBC. While at Wired.com, he built Wired Science into one of the most popular blogs in the world. The site was nominated for best magazine blog by the MPA and best science Web site in the 2009 Webby Awards. He also co-founded Haiti ReWired, a groundbreaking community dedicated to the discussion of technology, infrastructure, and the future of Haiti.

He's spoken at Stanford, CalTech, Berkeley, SXSW, E3, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and his writing was anthologized in Best Technology Writing 2010 (Yale University Press).

Madrigal is a visiting scholar at the University of California at Berkeley's Office for the History of Science and Technology. Born in Mexico City, he grew up in the exurbs north of Portland, Oregon, and now lives in Oakland.