Social media has given birth to many new and innovative products to be bought and sold. It has been a game changer and has completely transformed the digital marketspace. This allows individuals and companies to sell and market their unique and quirky products. One could say that this freedom was pushed to the edge when 31-year-old Stephanie Matto from Connecticut, started selling her farts in a jar.
Matto rose to fame with her stint on a popular American reality TV show, “90 day Fiancé”. She then began growing her Instagram following and subsequently started a Youtube channel. She began her business after receiving requests on an adult-content website, Unfiltrd. According to Matto herself, she began this business because she “thought it’d be a hilarious publicity move that would get a lot of people’s attention.” Her diet consisted of fibre rich foods, beans and eggs. Protein shakes were added to the mix after the revelation that it made her farts smell even more unpleasant.
She was selling each jar for a whooping 1000 USD! With each jar going for this price and some even more, she made nearly 254,000 USD before announcing her retirement due to a health scare. She revealed that she felt she was having a stroke. In a statement to Jam press, she said, “I thought I was having a stroke and that these were my final moments. I was overdoing it.
"I remember within one day I had about three protein shakes and a huge bowl of black bean soup. I could tell that something was not right that evening when I was lying in bed and I could feel a pressure in my stomach moving upward. It was quite hard to breathe and every time I tried to breathe in I'd feel a pinching sensation around my heart. And that, of course, made my anxiety escalate. I actually called my friend and asked if they could come over to drive me to the hospital because I thought I was experiencing a heart attack," she added.
The New York Post reported that she was rushed to the hospital with chest pains. “I didn’t tell my doctors about the farting in the jar but I did tell them about my diet,” explained Matto. “It was made clear that what I was experiencing wasn’t a stroke or heart attack but very intense gas pains.”
On doctor’s orders she immediately made diet changes and went on medication to ease her symptoms. This effectively ended her business, but Matto remains optimistic. She recently launched a fart NFT, with a 100 NFTs unlocking a jar.
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