Squarespace: A Cautionary Tale

Sesame Street’s Oscar the Grouch revels in being alone and miserable, so imagine the trash-loving Muppet’s surprise when he becomes a celebrity artist thanks to a website by Squarespace.

In a short film, ‘A Cautionary Tale,’ a woman discovers Oscar’s talent for piling his trash findings into artistic sculptures and says the world needs to know about his art through a Squarespace website, which she builds. As he protests, his trash can is swarmed by people coming to take a look.

His website becomes an instant hit, prompting the Grouch to become famous, with his own installation and eventually his own ‘Contemporary Trash Museum’. Through it all, he keeps telling people to “scram” and says his newfound fame as Oscar the Artist is the worst thing ever to happen to him.

In a revelation at the end of the film, he tells a crowd of reporters outside the museum that, even though he’s a famous artist, he’s never been more miserable in his life, a fact that quickly turns into a positive when he realizes that his misery is due to the Squarespace website.