Jack White Publicity Stunts 2015-2025: A Speculative Digest

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Jack White Publicity Stunts 2015-2025: A Speculative Digest

By Jeremy Gordon, December 18, 2014 at 1:30 p.m. EST

It’s the end of 2014, and Jack White is clearly bored--or assumes we are with him. How else to explain White’s creation of a virtual reality app, vying for the world record for pressing a vinyl, putting a hologram into one of his records and this single-in-a-couch business? It seems he can't top himself with each new promotional scheme, but as fans are finding out, he’s just getting started. Below, we’ve chronicled the projected arc of his future career.

January 13, 2015
Nashville police are alerted to a clammy man in a coachman’s hat reportedly stuffing his hands into people’s pockets and purses. The man in question is revealed to be White, who admits he was distributing thumbdrives to unwitting strangers. The drives are found to contain an unlabeled mp3 of thirty minutes of White howling "Support analog media" over an epic solo.

February 29, 2015
White appears on an episode of "Sesame Street" where, in a rare moment of savviness, he sips a cup of tea and tells Kermit the Frog that "audio preservation is everyone’s business"—the first joke he’s made since the 2002 roast of Jason Von Bondie at the Friars Club. The moment is ruined when, after being asked an unrelated question during an interview with a college newspaper, White goes on an unhinged, 37-minute rant about how, conceptually, a talking frog is "ridiculous."

April 12, 2015
White launches the Jik Jack app, which is just a BBS for users to anonymously complain about the state of modern music.

March 8, 2016
Inspired by the Foo Fighters’ Sonic Highways, White releases Pump n’ Play, an album of songs recorded on a reel-to-reel four track at rural gas station bathrooms around the country. "There’s nothing realer than a gas station bathroom," he states in a press release.

November 23, 2016
White becomes a minority owner of the St. Louis Blues franchise, but sells his shares only a few months later. He later admits he had no idea he was buying a hockey team.

April 2, 2017
White announces the inaugural Jack White Festival, where he’ll play every single song in his discography. Upon purchasing tickets, fans are mailed instructions for hand-crafting a very specific type of dugout canoe made of "cedar struck by lightning" that is required for entrance, along with a set of coordinates within the Everglades, where the festival is held. "That’s the devil’s territory," a grizzled parks veteran says to anyone who’ll listen, though no one pays attention. None of the attendees are ever heard from again, though it’s clear from their tweets they had the time of their fucking lives.

January 1, 2018
In a surprise move, White shuts down his signature Third Man Records and launches Fourth Man, a label exclusively devoted to pressing EDM on vinyl. While sales are robust, his hardcore fans are confused—further still when White demolishes his guitar before the crowd at the Electric Daisy Carnival right before singing over Zedd’s remix of "Fell In Love With a Girl". He and Skrillex get an apartment together in Berlin, become recluses, and spend their days perfecting the next-level drop. White donates his extensive fedora collection—by now, the largest in the world—to an Austrian hat museum. According to friends, White spends his nights jamming with an electro-reggae band and has never been happier.

April 19, 2021
On the 20th anniversary of Third Man’s original launch, White releases a 19,000 word handwritten letter through his publicist announcing the closing of Fourth Man and the relaunching of Third Man—this time as "Third Man Classic." The label commemorates its return by issuing the long-rumored Lazaretto "super-ultra" LP deluxe edition, which comes with 622 LEGO pieces that can be assembled into a playable copy of the record. "You’re a genius," White’s accountant says with a choke in his voice at the board’s first meeting, which is held in room 414 of the Gunter Hotel.

May 3, 2022
Morning golfers at the Hillwood Country Club are scandalized when, one morning, Black Keys guitarist Dan Auerbach is spotted sprinting from White’s nearby manse. Auerbach, who’d disappeared years earlier, reveals he was kidnapped by White following a disagreement in the carpool line at their children’s school. White is sought for arrest, but remains on the lam for several years, bouncing between houses maintained by members of the White Swirl fan forums while penning several unpublishable manifestos he mailed to Rolling Stone. (Though one heartbreaking entry, titled "To Meg", is enough to make magazine founder Jann Wenner sob for eleven consecutive hours.) At White's trial, he reveals he recorded an album sourced exclusively from the licks he forced Auerbach to hear on repeat. (Auerbach's captive wails can be heard in the background.) "It’s my masterpiece," White says, proudly, "I've finally captured the true sound of the blues." 

August 7, 2025
While in prison, White enlists "This American Life" journalist Sarah Koenig to backtrack the recording of the Auerbach torture record. At the conclusion of the 12-part radio serial, his reputation is irreparably tarnished when Koenig concludes that, yes, his guitar tone could sound a little more authentic