Season 3 of Hacks, the Max comedy about comedy, shines a light on fan-made merch. In episode 2, superstar comedian Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) who also heads an eponymous merchandise empire on home shopping network QVC, gets very upset when a fan shows up outside a gig with an unauthorized “Saint Deborah” candle.

She demands to know where he got it. The excited fan replies, “Etsy,” and Vance snatches away the candle and storms off, much to his delight. The next day, Vance presents her business manager, Marcus (Carl Clemons-Hopkins), with a stack of pages – she has printed dozens of the unauthorized merch listings – and demands that he get to the bottom of it.

MAX image: On “Hacks,” Deborah Vance presents her business manager, Marcus, with printouts of unauthorized merch listings and demands that he get to the bottom of it.
IMAGE: Eddy Chen/Max

Marcus meets with one of the creators, Ezekiel (Guy Branum), another huge fan, who started making merch because he couldn’t find a Deborah Vance tour jacket in his size, so he made his own – and quickly sold out when he posted a few for sale online.

“There is a community of people out there who are hungry for this stuff, and I gave it to them,” Ezekiel tells Marcus.

Ever the savvy business manager, Marcus suggests to Deborah that they bring Ezekiel and other creators into the fold as a way to expand her merch offerings and further engage her fan base (and boost profits).

This storyline offers two takeaways for the promo industry:

  • Make your merch size-inclusive. Fans come in all shapes and sizes, and everyone wants to show off their favorite things, people, bands, brands etc.
  • Look at what fans are doing on maker sites like Etsy and Redbubble for inspiration.

Curiously, the HBO Shop (it hasn’t rebranded to Max like the network) doesn’t offer any Hacks merchandise, although there are plenty of options for fans of the Sopranos, which closed with a famously enigmatic fade-out … in 2007.

Perhaps the subplot is a wink from the show’s writers to the independent creators selling their own Hacks wares through sites like Etsy and Redbubble – and to the fans clamoring for it.