A man dressed in a hot dog suit attempted to teach attendees of a Vancouver wellness summit a lesson over the weekend.
Artist Douglas Bevans said that he hoped selling $38 "restorative" hot dog water outside the event for Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop lifestyle brand would encourage people to think.
"We really need to think more critically about what is being sold and what kind of claims are being sold and who is selling it," Bevans told CTV News. "We're all vulnerable in this era, I think. We're all inundated with people claiming things."
The bottles retailed for $37.99 and came with the wiener included. Bevans attempted to sell them outside the "In Goop Health" event at Vancouver's Stanley Park Pavilion, the first Paltrow's brand held outside of the United States.
"Although humorous, Hot Dog Water is not a prank and people are not being tricked into drinking it," Bevans also shared in a press release. "Rather, in its absurdity, the art performance encourages critical thinking related to product marketing and the significant role it plays in our purchasing choices."
Goop attendees did not seem particularly charmed by the display.
"There's much more important things to protest than this," a woman, who did not release her name, told him according to the Province. She also accused Bevans of bullying women who just wanted to do yoga and have fun together.
Tickets to the sold-out event cost $400 plus tax and about 200 people attended on Saturday, a Goop spokesperson told the Province. Paltrow did not make an appearance.
Goop has made headlines in the past for its dubious recommendations, including telling women to insert jade eggs into their vaginas to help with hormonal health. The company was forced to pay $145,000 in settlements over unscientific claims made to sell products, Global News reported.
This isn't the first time Bevans has sold his prestige hot dog water. At the Main Street Car Free Day festival over the summer, he managed to convince people to drink about 60 litres of samples and sold a bottle or two after advertising the "keto-compatible" drink's supposed ability to erase crow's feet and help you lose weight by using buzzwords like "electrolyte imbalance", homeostasis" and "metabolic demand," according to the Vancouver Courier.
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