Before we begin – before we even get remotely started here – we feel like we need to state one thing, and state it as firmly as we possibly can.
FUCK THIS PRICK.
The name Martin Shkreli has been pinging around the media sphere over the past few days, because the 32 year-old former hedge fund baby/current chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals bought the rights to an out-of-patent drug called Daraprim (one that is more or less a standard in the treatment of infection in some AIDS and cancer patients) and hiked the price of it from $13.50 per pill up to $750 a pop. And he did it literally overnight. A 5000% increase in price because one can only assume that swim up bar in his backyard isn’t going to line itself with a solid gold countertop.
Worse still, the dickhead of monumental proportions announced his genius business move by swanning about the media circuit and acting profoundly smug about the whole exercise. Exhibit A:
His social media presence was unusually defiant as well, going to the point of actually posting Eminem lyrics to give himself a pat on the back.
Unfortunately for ole’ Shkrellex, the internet don’t take too kindly to heartless arseholes. And thus the great tsunami of vitriol began rolling in.
And it wasn’t just anonymous users on the internet that started giving him the stink-eye. The man has been soundly hounded out by just about everyone under the sun, including – unbelievably – Donald Trump.
“This young guy raised the price to a level that’s absolutely ridiculous, and he looks like a spoiled brat to me. You want to know the truth? He looks like a spoiled brat. And he’s a hedge-fund guy, who, as you know, the only one that I’m raising taxes on. They are going to be paying up. But I thought it was a disgusting thing, what he did. I thought it was a disgrace. I know, it’s terrible, but in particular, there’s something about that one, the way he raised it and to that extent and then he sat back smug like he was hot stuff. That guy is nothing. He’s zero. He’s nothing. He ought to be ashamed of himself. And I think probably, at some point, the public is going to get him to reduce it somewhat, but I think what he did was a disgrace … I thought it was a disgrace.”
If DONALD FREAKING TRUMP is telling you you are being a douche, then holy shit are you ever being a douche.
But it gets even weirder. As it turns out Shkreli has an affinity for early 2000s emo and pop punk, and had forged a business relationship with Geoff Rickly – the frontman for the band Thursday.
Shkreli had met Rickly after the “businessman” bought a guitar that Rickly had used to record Thursday’s 2001 album Full Collapse for $10,000.
Shkreli subsequently became the chief financial partner in Rickly’s recent foray into record labels, pouring some $600,000-odd into Rickly’s Control Records.
But now, following the outrage from the general public – as well as at least three of the bands on the label’s roster – Rickly and Control have cut ties with Shkreli, in a move that Rickly admits could spell the end of the label.
And how has Shkreli responded to all of this furore?
By tucking his once-smug tail between his legs and going into hiding, refusing to do anymore interviews and turning his once very active Twitter account private.
But not before posting this.
A “busy and important job.” Yeah, righto m8.
In honour of Shkreli’s supposedly punk rock proclivities, there’s barely a more appropriate musical accompaniment to his skittering into the shadows than this.
