Jason Kelce is asking Americans to mail their urine to AI data centers — not because anyone expects it to happen, but because the joke exposes how badly the industry’s water problem has entered the public imagination.

The campaign from Liquid Death and Garage Beer arrives as proposed data centers face protests, lawsuits and mounting suspicion in communities worried about water consumption, power demand, utility costs and noise. Some facilities use water for cooling, though the scale varies sharply by site and technology.

In the deliberately ridiculous ad, Kelce appears to pee into a jar before declaring, “AI data centers waste millions of gallons of water.” He then urges viewers to send their pee to a data center of their choice, while fine print makes clear they should not actually do it.¹

For the brands, the stunt is an attempt to package a serious concern in their familiar absurdist voice. Liquid Death creative vice president Andy Pearson said opposition to AI data centers has become rare common ground “across the political and cultural spectrum.” Garage Beer chief executive Andy Sauer struck a similar balance, calling water “the world’s most valuable resource” while saying the companies wanted to raise awareness and have some fun.¹

The joke nevertheless rests on a real dispute. Data-center developers say they use a range of cooling systems, including closed-loop and waterless designs, and seek to account for local water availability. A Virginia government-commission report cited by the industry found that most data centers use as much water as, or less than, a large office building — while acknowledging that some consume far more.¹

A second, more skeptical reading sees the campaign as advertising first and environmental commentary second. One critic described Liquid Death as “a marketing company that occasionally sells water,” calling the Kelce performance an “obvious stunt” and warning viewers not to send bodily fluids to strangers.²

That tension is the point: a comic pee song can make data centers look foolish, but it cannot settle the increasingly local fight over who bears the costs of the AI boom.