Viral marketing and propaganda -- The Cloverfield campaign

The upcoming release of the film Cloverfield has provided me with a fun distraction of late. The back-story that apparently is included with the film is interesting and deep, there is mystery surrounding the entire project and driving the online chatter about the film is a series of websites that are directly connected to main and subplots of the story. Following the story online we have the chance to see the present day in a past tense manner. It is also a chance to see a well-tuned online viral marketing campaign in action.

Viral marketing interests me because it works by exploiting social networking and the desire of people to conform and follow what is popular. It is a method of social control even if the goal is to simply make millions of dollars on a movie. The thing that fascinates me the most about these campaigns is that many people will still follow the marketing script even if they know for a fact that it is a manufactured process. When government propaganda is exposed for what it really is, the effect upon the citizenry is opposite; they feel duped and begin to swing their beliefs in the opposite direction. I often wonder if that point of critically, the point where citizens turn against the propaganda fed to them, has also been engineered. In this day and age, there is very little difference in the methodology between creating and waging a viral marketing campaign to advertise a movie, and creating and waging government sponsored propaganda to advertise going to war. The only real difference is the subject matter.

Viral marketing relies on people disseminating information about the product to people within their social network. Propaganda relies on the citizenry discussing the points of the propaganda with people within their social network as well. Viral marketing relies on peer pressure to help sell their product to people within the network because they want to fit in. Propaganda relies on citizens not questioning the “right” nature of what the propaganda sells by threat of ostracization from American society and the dreaded taunt of treason being thrown around.

When I was growing up this was simply called a fad. That is probably what it was called when you were in your teenage years. Clothing, music, language and pop culture tastes were determined by the sine wave of fads. Now, the medium for disseminating information has changed and we have the Internet and text messaging to speed the process and make it all encompassing. 23 years ago all it took was one Bruce Springsteen video and everybody simply had to have a jean jacket. Even then it still had no effect on people living in the suburbs and rural America, people who had no access to cable TV. Now, even my Mother can surf the web and she does indeed surf, even if it is only a dialup account.

The term viral marketing is itself a new term. First coined in 1996 by a Harvard Business School professor, it’s roots lie with media critic Douglas Rushkoff who wrote about advertisers infecting susceptible users and spreading the infection among other users. The spread could be charted long before the actual “infection” took place by using statistical analysis and the entire process could be tweaked for maximum effect by the marketer, even as the campaign was being run. Our self-awareness, or rather, the awareness of us by marketers and advertisers, is astounding.

Of course the irony of this posting is that I may be contributing to the viral marketing process by advertising the film and giving my reasons for wanting to follow the campaign. In effect, I could be feeding the beast intentionally. Then again, some unknowing traveler in cyberspace may see this posting and become enlightened to the interconnection of marketing campaigns and propaganda. Who knows?

Will I be a big fat hypocrite and see the movie? Probably. I have had a life-long love of horror movies featuring giants that goes back to my days of watching Shock Theater on WTVC in Chattanooga. I saw all of the giant monster movies on that show; King Kong, Son of Kong, The Mighty Joe Young. It Came From Beneath The Sea, Konga and all the Godzilla movies. I even remember seeing The Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman and feeling that pre-pubescent attraction to actress Allison Hayes in the title role. Talk about great legs. I even use my old VCR from time to time just so I can watch War Of The Gargantuas.

I’m also a big time sucker for any movie or book that requires in-depth study of specially written and complex encyclopedias and bibles to follow the back-story. I often wonder if this is the prime reason why I follow conspiracy theories and the high weirdness subjects. There are tons of back-story in them to sift through and in the end there is a monster to face.

The skinheads have their foot in the door -- slam the door.

Sometimes memories can come back and seem so real that I can taste sweat and blood in my mouth or smell diesel fuel exhaust on a cold dark morning where any sound rings like it’s inside a glass bell. When it happens an event will come to me in flashes with brief moments of visual and tactile clarity. A flurry of movement and I’m on the ground, a brief moment where I can see a flattened beer can on the asphalt and I can hear the sound of air rush just before the big Doc Martins’ begin stomping me. Another flurry of movement and the sensation of being pummeled followed by a vision of the hair on the side of a young man’s hand, a young man no older than me, just before I sink my teeth into the fleshy part of his hand and the pinky. I feel the resistance of his flesh and with the next two kicks I feel my teeth sink and embed deeply into his hand. Once my teeth have solid bone between them, I smell copper and then remember a flurry of arms and wails as I let go and they leave me under a bright and noisy light.

I remember lying on the ground with two sharp pains in my chest and side. One sharp pain when I inhaled and one when I exhaled, two pains with every breath. Each time I breathed I could feel the sensation of my breath being taken away by the pain. It felt like my side was cut open, but it wasn’t; it was the two freshly cracked ribs scraping flesh and muscle from the inside. I could see my breath and hear the idle of a garbage truck in front of the dumpster behind a business. The diesel smelled comforting to me, almost as sweet as honeysuckle, the diesel meant someone sane was there to help me. An older black man, older for me anyway since I was only 20 and he looked to be in his late 40’s, leaned in and asked if I was okay. His truck scared them away and from his cab and headlights he saw the final moments of my beat down. A half hour later I was in an ambulance and a few hours later I would be in a white duty van, being taken back to the ship with lots of questions awaiting from the duty officer when I arrived.

Yes, I remember skinheads.

They never went away, folks. They have always been with us; the last 6 years of xenophobia and Muslim hate have brought them converts. Now they feel emboldened and they are coming soon to a political rally near you. Stormfront, Aryan Nations and White Supremacists of all stripes are on their way to infiltrate and stand behind Presidential candidate Ron Paul. For the first time since Ross Perot ran for the office in 1992, we have a major not-by-the-books candidate, one that has something Perot never had; experience with the machine of Washington politics, and he’s gaining steam. The problem is the skinheads are out to wreck the party with their support.

It’s easy to say, “Well, I’m not racist and I don’t prescribe to their beliefs and supporting Ron Paul doesn’t mean I’m one of them or support them.” That sounds good but the truth is when you find common ground with groups of extremists as fucked up as the skinheads, it’s time to break that common ground and push the freaks to the gutter where they belong. It’s time for Ron Paul, and more to the point the Ron Paul supporters, to tell the neo-Nazis to go fuck themselves under threat of beating the holy living fuck out of every last one of them. I’m not a violent man, but I am all for beating skinheads shitless.

My experiences with these inbred shitheads were two fold. One was that they loved to show up at punk shows to see if there were any “easy pickings”. Easy pickings were either confused kids that were vulnerable to their recruitment. The other was people they could fight with. I had many physical scrapes with them over the years and only once, the experience I opened this post with, did they do real damage to me. The other area where I saw them was with the Klan. On more than one occasion did I run into Klansmen who were out doing their thing in packs, like wolves. Both the skinheads and the Klansmen have one thing in common. If their numbers aren’t good at the moment, they turn into pussies and won’t dare say shit even if they have guns or knives. Once they see they have the numerical and size upper hand, they’ll start the taunt and the beat down always follows the taunt. It’s like the playground in the 3rd grade on steroids with roid rage involved.

I’m not a large man; I stand all of 5’ 7” and weighed about 150 lbs back in the day, all of it muscle. But I have always “looked” like I can handle myself, which I can, and when they saw the discolored calluses on the ridge of my knuckles back then they looked at me differently, they assessed the situation and my skills more seriously. They always knew I was more trouble than was worth it unless they had a numerical advantage over me.

In the worst beat down I ever had in my life, I was surrounded by three of them, when I was alone and stranded after seeing a Minor Threat show. My old Dodge pickup died as I was leaving and I was forced to walk all the way back to the ship. I knew I was in trouble when I heard a low idling sedan cruising up behind me and low hushed voices inside the car. I stopped, stood my ground and in the end the fuckers might have sent me to the hospital but I can at least guarantee that some dumbass, if he’s still alive, has a God-awful scar and some nerve damage in his good hand, thanks to me. Wasn’t worth it, was it you fuckers? I got my licks in too.

The skinhead movement wants to prey on our frustrations with everything. They want to take advantage that we are frustrated by the lack of action by our government when it comes to immigration and border security. The longer it goes unchecked and the more angry we feel, the better the conditions are so they can start busting skulls unfettered and uncriticized by the good people of America. They want us to become so tired of the bullshit being done to our government that we are willing to jump on the same bandwagon as them when it comes to supporting a Presidential candidate. I’m not going to act all buddy-buddy with those fuckers and I hope you will shun them and point them out for the racist scum they really are.

The White Supremacist and Christian Identity movements have desperately wanted to be viewed in a more mainstream way for a long time. The conditions in this country have gone so far in the toilet that good people are now willing to lie in bed with a bunch of flea ridden shitheads just to get some change out of their government. Folks, if you lie with dogs, you will wake up with fleas. Don’t let the skinheads have a peek at the inside of the mainstream. Shoot them down and expose them whenever you get the chance.

To any skinheads out there who don’t like this post; go fuck yourselves. Fuck the Goddamn skinheads and fuck their bullshit ideas.

Don't be stupid, be a smarty, come and join the Jesus Party!

Coming soon to a ballot in your district, The Jesus Party. I can easily see this happening following the comments by James “The Dachshund Beater (http://www.nospank.net/dugan.htm) Dobson; that he will back a third party candidate if the Republican Party doesn’t pick someone who is, “conservative enough.” Talk about balls.

I think it’s time for the radical religious freaks to form their own political party, the Jesus Party. Where free spirits and those who live life without lies or shame are called heathens and are cursed. It’s time to put the extremists in a position where every American can see just how fucked in the head some of our worst fellow citizens are. No reason to pussyfoot around and pretend to be a “compassionate conservative”, just show the world how full of hate and contempt you really are. The rest of us can see what those folks are really all about and make some serious choices.

The current crop of 4th tier bathing beauties who are running for President are too afraid of telling hard truths and making hard choices. The Congress is locked in it’s own paralysis of doing the right things for fear of being branded as one thing or another. They are afraid of the consequences. The consequences being the loss of their cushy job in DC and that fear is something that shouldn’t be a part of the job because we all know those lobbyist positions are lined up after a career in politics. We need men and women to make the hard choices and say the things that have to be said to get us on the right track. Instead they’ll talk the talk that they believe is the talk we want to hear.

There was a time, even in the small north Georgia town I grew up in, that getting a bit too full of the Holy Spirit would bring about the response of the common sense most of us have. There was a time that we did not suffer fools gladly and it was encouraged to call things exactly as they appear to be. The fundamentalists had a side role in local politics and social issues, the role of the lunatic fringe. This was the case up until the early and mid 80’s. What precipitated this change from sanity to all-out goofiness? The fear of satanic forces.

Starting with the whole back masking phenomenon in the early 80’s I saw the attitudes in my small town change. First it was the satanic influences upon the young with rock music. Then they added the “epidemic” of drugs and they brought it full circle in the early 90’s with fear of the Clintons and the supposed hidden agenda of one-world secularism. As if the whole scene weren’t enough, my little hometown newspaper began operating a program where they asked the local citizens to rat each other out over who was selling drugs. Honest to God, they instilled fear into the citizens and then asked readers to send in their reports of suspicious activity to the newspaper, which would be forwarded to the local law enforcement authorities. The editor of the paper at that time was a former aid to radical right wing Congressman, Larry McDonald.

How did they frighten and change the minds of these simple country folks who had always maintained country smarts? Fear of everything that sits on the other side of the mountain and fear of it invading and taking over their small town, that’s how they did it. In a town like I came from, there are two mountains that separated us from the rest of the world. Nothing good or positive happened on the other side of those two mountains. To add to it, one mountain was where the drug dealers had their crops and the other housed devil worshipers. I am serious.

Lookout Mountain was where, according to rumor, pot growers had clandestine fields of dope, guarded by men with hunting rifles and woe to anyone who happened upon them. The other mountain was where two Satanists lived in their estate named Corpsewood (http://theconspiratorsnest.blogspot.com/2007/04/from-archives-look-back-at-corpsewood.html) . The mountains were more than just geological boundaries for the community; they became symbolic of barriers to keep the rest of the world at bay.

This is was a microcosm of the path we as a nation have gone down in the past 6 years. Fear of anything beyond the boundaries of our coastal areas and fear of anything beyond the borders that separated the countries we are sandwiched between. Everything on the other side is evil and satanic and we are constantly being infiltrated by demonic forces that threaten us.

In many ways, the field of Conspiracy Theory studies is similar to this phenomenon. We, the CT enthusiasts, are constantly trying to warn everyone else of the dangers we see. Dangers being guided by unseen forces, forces of evil. The problem with both CT studies and extremists religious causes is that far too often we both go into extremely radical territory. I myself understand that I have ideas that stray into the fantastic. However, there is a difference between the two groups. The radicalized religious want to alter the way we all live. They wish to enforce their beliefs upon all of us. The conspiracy theorists only want to broaden their, and your, horizons and expose the false idols around us.

It is easy to see the far religious right wishing to enslave all of us while the conspiracy theorists are trying to free us by exposing the plots. What is most surprising to me in this process is how many conspiracy theorists wind up like Texe Marrs and become caught in anti-Semitism and I really believe there is a trigger point which starts this conversion. Once they head down the “Jewish conspiracy” path there is rarely an outcome other than far right-wing political extremism.

So let’s all cheer for the formation of the Jesus Party. Perception and reality, ideaology and truth rarely meet in the center. Sooner or later the far right-wing of this country will need to show their true colors, on full display for all to see. After all, if you are going to be a full blown fascist you might as well wear the t-shirt that shows you were there for the party.

Astroturf movements and blog comments

A comment left by someone on the 12th for my post about the recent Blackwater legal maneuver seemed a bit odd to me. After searching a bit I found the identical comment posted on three different blogs that were commenting on this story. While I can understand the desire to post a comment on a subject that you feel strongly about, the overall tone and attempt to redirect attention away from Blackwater and into “ambulance chaser” hatred didn’t sit right with me. While I only did a quick search for similar comments on blogs, finding 3 identical comments in only a minute from a loose search query makes me wonder if the anonymous poster of the comment (using the name “scar’d” in the other postings) has a dog in this fight, so to speak.

Astroturf movements get started in similar ways as this and viral advertising gets spread in a similar manner as well. Individuals with an agenda to spread an idea with ulterior motives do tend to seek out open comment sites such as message boards and blog comments. While I can’t say with certainty that the poster is an agent tasked with seeding this idea their action fits the mold. Is this comment poster hitting other blogs and message boards with this same message in an attempt to sway attention away from the direction of the Blackwater suit and stir anti-lawyer sentiment as the means of distracting us from the subject?

For your own thoughts here are links to the comment posted here at my blog as well as the other three blogs.