Naming things is easy: Why not hold a talk about the Antichrist when people have been calling you one? Why not name a single song (or even write one from scratch) to cover up some controversy. Or, of course, why not name a movie "Frozen" when there are rumors about what happened to your founders body.

I feel like the PR benefit, even if maybe intangible or purely hypothetical, is so easy to justify given the low amount of effort involved in it.

Though I do think it's rather gauche to hold a public talk about the Antichrist in Thiels situation, I think that doesn't really dispell the rumors, it just brings him and the topic closer together? No? Maybe he's just trying to tell us something. :)

I would offer to qualify:

Evil

  1; to corrupt or pervert the potential of existential being

  2; the maiming or mutilating of humanity

  3; to willfully destroy the innocent