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Who run the world? Gamer girls.
ICYMI, Beyoncé made a rare, surprise appearance in a Verizon commercial that aired just after halftime during Sunday’s big game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers. The Grammy-winning megastar used the minute-long ad to announce her forthcoming country album (currently referred to as Act II), and to show off her range as she cycled through various stunts in an attempt to break Verizon’s 5G internet.
An extended cut of the ad that appeared online after the fact tacked on a brief clip of Beyoncé as a Twitch streamer named “iamSlayonce.” (The account is real and verified, by the way.) With Queen Bey dressed for the part in a pink cat ear gaming headset — and positioned with her fingers miles away from the WASD keys — the snippet soon had its own viral moment on Twitter/X.
It’s not every day you see Ms. Kitty Kat herself in a pair of “egirl cat headphones,” so I made it my personal mission to track them down. I had a strong hunch that they were made by the aesthetic gaming hardware brand Razer, as a handful of X users also pointed out, but I couldn’t find the exact model anywhere on the company’s website.
There’s a good reason for that, as it turns out, and it’s not because Beyoncé had the headset custom-made for her. It’s because the headset has been discontinued.
In an email to Mashable, a representative for Razer confirmed that Beyoncé wore a Quartz Razer Kraken Kitty Edition in her Verizon commercial, albeit with the original branding removed. The $149.99 wired Chroma RGB headset launched in 2020 as a cutesy counterpart to the Kraken Ultimate, and it was replaced last year by a newer model, the Kraken Kitty V2, which has a lighter, slimmer design and bigger cat ears.
With that said, I have two points of consolation for anyone who was hoping to buy Bey’s headset. One is that the Kraken Kitty V2 is only $99.99, or $50 cheaper than its sold-out predecessor. The other is the fact that the BeyHive hasn’t gotten to the Kraken Kitty V2 just yet: It was still in stock at multiple retailers at the time of writing. (That included Amazon, Best Buy, Target, and Razer’s website.)
The Kraken Kitty V2 also comes in a wireless variant — the Kraken Kitty V2 BT — which sells for the same price.
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Beyoncé’s Verizon commercial wasn’t the only big-game ad that featured Razer gear. OpTic Gaming’s Seth Abner, a Twitch streamer and former Call of Duty eSports pro who goes by the gamertag “scump,” donned a BlackShark V2 headset and sat in an Enki gaming chair during Mountain Dew’s Baja Blast-themed push with Aubrey Plaza.
“As the world’s leading lifestyle brand for gamers, we’re thrilled to have our partners at Verizon and OpTic Gaming feature Razer in their Super Bowl marketing campaigns,” Bob Picunko, Razer USA’s Director of Marketing, said in an exclusive statement to Mashable. “Iconic moments like Beyoncé donning our Kraken Kitty headset or Scump playing with Aubrey Plaza while wearing a BlackShark V2 headset, underscore the strength of our collaborations and emphasizes the growing cultural significance of gaming.”
Now, if we can only get Beyoncé to stream Red Dead Redemption 2 in honor of her new country era.
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