Eric Cartman: The Real Entrepreneur
South Park’s spoiled, arrogant and furious character Eric Cartman is actually an entrepreneur; he’s in fact a good one. There are many episodes which show Cartman’s entrepreneurship but today I’d like to talk through one specific episode called “Christian Rock Hard (Season 7 Episode 9)” where Cartman and the boys try to form a music band.
Before you begin to read, I should warn you: Eric Cartman is one of the most racist and manipulative fictional characters. The stuff he does throughout this episode is not right, the way he does the stuff is. That’s why we will analyze how he deal with issues. I cannot put video samples here from YouTube because of copyright infringements. I put links to clips to the original South Park web page. So you can go through the clip first, then read below and so on. Let’s begin.
It all starts with Kyle realizing the members of the band are very diverse. It’s a good thing for a team but they need to practice a lot to work together. So inexperienced Kyle suggests to buy tons of music CDs and listen to them to find inspiration. It’s like saying “I’d like to build a business, just not what to build on.” Let me tell you something: It’s not gonna work.
Then, Cartman finds a big hole in the business: Christian Rock. He assumes people will buy their album for the love of Christ; even if it’s like crap. When Kyle rejects the idea, he comes up with an already successful example: Creed. When Stan does not want to be in a Christian Rock band, Cartman says: “You just start that way Stan, then you cross over.” Wow! He found a way in to the music business. You may need to do unpleasant stuff that others love just to get in; after being in the business, you expand to try to do something you love. That’s the idea.
Time matters. You need to be quick and be the first in the competition. Team also matters. You cannot do everything on your own. You need to get help from others. Although it’s a bit racist in the situation here for Cartman assuming Token has a bass guitar becuse he’s black, the lesson here is that it’s important to be aware of your surroundings. You also need to set your target audience. You need to make your people believe in your cause and stay right with you.
While Cartman’s making something already, Kyle notices that they don’t have enough money to get “inspiration”, so he starts to seek fundraising. It’s obvious, right? Without doing anything, you cannot make people believe you, let alone the investors.
There will always be cash cows in a business and they will always be as hungry as you; and unless you are like one of them, you cannot go on strike! You can’t act like them if you have not accomplished anything yet. You need to produce and you need to show off your product places that contains your target audience. Christian Rock is way cooler than popular music if the former one exists and the latter one does not.
You need to believe in your product; if you don’t, your customers surely don’t. You need to take advantage of opportunities. I’m not saying you should beat the hell up your rivals and take their places; but if an opportunity arises, you must take it — even if you need to break the rules.
We’re close to the end. You might have earned tons of money from your product but that does not mean you keep it to yourself. You invest (not all of it of course) in, you don’t escape from expenses and then you can reach many more people.
Coming to the moral of the story: If you do all of that, you might be successful; but if you do all of that for the sake of the wrong thing (of a bet in Cartman’s case), you still lose after all. Cartman has an entrepreneurial soul, he gets things done and done quick. With a right product and an attitude like Cartman’s, you definitely will be going places.
