Zoey explains what she calls Mulvaney’s “straight shot to fame” noting how he has been promoted by CAA, “They recently bought up a few ad agencies such as Droga5, a very successful ad agency that has really pushed woke advertising for brands like Under Armour and
The New York Times.” Zoey historicises how Droga5 was eventually acquired by William Morris giving other examples of acquisitions in mergers stating, “I’m suggesting this as a very good example of how different types of media companies, brands and talent agencies are merging. The end result: a made-up character such as Dylan is created. He is the whole package and everyone profits.”
Through her knowledge of talent agencies, Zoey explains how Mulvaney was catapulted into social media celebrity:
I happened to notice Dylan was with CAA when he first got traction. That piqued my interest given he was just some low rent influencer a few months ago. To get signed by CAA is major. This is not the privilege of many much more talented, bona fide actors or influencers. When I first noticed Dylan, I looked into his agent, Stephanie Paciullo at CAA. I thought it was odd that someone with quite a high profile roster would have Dylan Mulvaney as her client. I then looked into her wider remit which is to merge brands, talent, influencers and specific products. As mentioned before, brands do not always want to spend millions with A-listers, but they need a famous face for their campaign. Dylan is perfect—cheap, big TikTok following, shameless.
Hypothesising that Paciullo likely created Mulvaney from a data-driven brief, Zoey speculates, “Her remit covers creative talent and digital advertising. With that context, I am in no doubt Dylan was created in a boardroom. If you look at Paciullo’s clients, you can see why the media is so complicit. The roster touches every area of media and there are a lot of folks like Paciullo at CAA.” Indeed, CAA employs various agents whose client list moves around identity politics [the] category for “
Women’s Empowerment” includes other men aside from Mulvaney, such as Janet Mock and Laverne Cox.