In the cult-hit 1997 documentary, “Hands on a Hard Body,” the people who wanted to win a truck just had to touch it. Twenty years later, an event currently being broadcast on Facebook Live goes one step further. At least 11 people would kiss it for more than 24 hours. Local radio station 96.7 KISS FM is holding a competition (and publicity stunt) in Austin, Texas to give away a free car. Thousands have tuned into the live stream of ‘”Kiss a Kia,” which started with 20 people and is down to 11 in the second day of the competition. It’s been shared over 1,000 times on Facebook.
Participants are allowed to move, cough, and make noise, but they have to keep both lips on the car. Some are seen listening to music on headphones to pass the time and one contestant was watching Netflix on his phone. Contestants get a 10-minute break each hour — so technically, they need to kiss the car for 50 minutes each hour for 50 hours.
As of mid-morning Thursday, there were 11 people remaining. If two or more people are still kissing the car at the 50th hour — 9 a.m. on Wednesday — their names will go into a box and a winner will be drawn. He or she will walk away with a 2017 Kia, which retails at $23,095, which would otherwise cost $462 per hour after taxes to earn in the same 50 hours. And that doesn’t include the gift taxes that must be paid on such a prize.
The competition mirrors that which inspired the 1997 documentary “Hands on a Hard Body” and the Broadway musical based on it. In that instance, 24 contestants competed for a Nissan Hardbody truck in Longview, Texas.
This is certainly not the strangest or even the most exploitative contest people have participated in to win a prize. During the Great Depression, people would twirl around the dance floor until they dropped in dance marathons for money. What started as a fun competition ultimately was “often made into exhausting and exploitative spectacles that abused the financial desperation of the contestants,” according to the film archive at University of South Carolina. In one such dance marathon in 1930, a couple won $2,650 (or $37,600 adjusted for inflation in 2017) after dancing for 2,831 hours, 4 minutes and 30 seconds (nearly 118 days).
In this case, a KISS FM DJ hosting the live stream repeatedly assured viewers, “We aren’t here to exhaust these people,” and EMTs were standing by to help. “I don’t see anyone acting crazy or shaking and acting delirious; that happened to some earlier contestants,” another DJ said.
Still, the cheerfulness of the radio host felt incongruous with the humbling competition behind him, as he predicted four people would stick it out until the end. “Everyone’s going to be famous by the end of this competition,” he said. “And don’t worry, all the kiss marks will be washed off before we give the car away.”
This article was originally published in Marketwatch.