Our identity was stolen.
It’s true. Our identity was stolen.
Did someone hack our bank, social media, postmates account and are now using our identity to buy who knows what on the dark web? No.
Did we naïvely send a “reliable African prince” $140,000, our first-born and social security number to help him move a large sum of money from a deceased relative only to find out it was a scam? No. (mostly because we didn’t have the $140,000 handy at the time of contact)
Something much worse. Much, much worse.
We are talking, showing up to the first day of kindergarten in 1997 and realizing not only are there other Ashleys in this world but Ashley W., Ashlee E. and Ashley R. all have the same Lisa Frank lunch box as you.
At first you are stoked. Then the reality of being called “Ash” or “Ashley M.” or “No, the other Ashley” for the rest of your childhood career sets in. Oh, and the whole lunch box mix up. What is this “ants on a log” shenanigans? Ashley R, doesn't your mom know eating ants is bad & tasting celery is worse?!
So our identity…
It was just an ordinary Tuesday here at Headliner HQ. We were going on plotting, planning, bantering, building Headliner when the news broke that Spotify’s podcast focused platform, Spotify for Podcasters, was no longer in beta.
As you might suspect, we love shiny new podcast platforms. So we and I really mean *I* here — did what any curious podcast industry loving person would do, googled “spotify for podcasters”, clicked the first link and BAM that’s when I saw it.
Our beloved blue to pink gradient. THE Headliner gradient. Splashed across the entire site. ~ goes to Twitter ~ The blue to pink beautiful-ness is oozing out from all corners of their well constructed, podcast loving, tweets. The horror.
Not going to lie, my first reaction was to post in our #winning slack channel with something along the lines of “branding looks familiar lol”.
Then it set in. The theft. “It’s no big deal. It’s not exactly the same. We still have our identity.” I told myself to move on…
Now, this wasn’t the first time I’ve seen THE Headliner gradient out in the wild. There have been others. Usually one offs here and there. This one. This Spotify one. This was different. It was the one that opened up the flood gates of the blue to pink goodness.
In the days, weeks, months after this revealing day in August I see the Headliner Gradient everywhere. So much so, I thought my contacts where tented pink & blue.
I’ve had enough. We’ve had enough. And we are coming to take back what is ours. #ReturnTHEGradient
We can’t fight this identity theft alone. We need your help. If you see a THE Headliner gradient anywhere — website, app, flyer, pencil case, etc — tweet, insta dm, tag @headlinervideo, carrier pigeon, text (347.815.9536) us and let us know.
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