OMG Boston!

As viral marketing, I would say that this whole debacle worked quite well. Besides the odd LJ icon, I was totally unaware of the existence of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. I am now aware of its existence.


Click on the above image to generate your own terrorist threat.

EDIT: Maybe I'm just tired, but this whole funny incident does seem to have some interesting overarching themes and hints at one of the contradictions that I can only hope will eventually tear neo-conservatism to shreds. Corporate interests are closely entwined with an authoritarian government, but the kinda-free market clashes with the culture of fear and control. You can see the conflict most plainly around the issue of immigration—it's in the interest of businesses to exploit the cheapest labour possible, which is that of illegal immigrants, but that runs up against the more old-school American Right, which wants to shut down the borders.

With the Lite Brite Terrorism Plot, you've got a stroke of unintentional marketing genius. The whole thing will translate into dollars for Turner, which suggests that other companies may want to use similar strategies. Modern capitalism survives, in part, by co-option, and if it can co-opt hysteria around terrorism (and hipster cynicism about said hysteria) it will.

So what happens when marketing by any means necessary hits up against the state's need to repress anything it sees as a threat. Do we all take bets on who wins?

OMG Boston!

As viral marketing, I would say that this whole debacle worked quite well. Besides the odd LJ icon, I was totally unaware of the existence of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. I am now aware of its existence.


Click on the above image to generate your own terrorist threat.

EDIT: Maybe I'm just tired, but this whole funny incident does seem to have some interesting overarching themes and hints at one of the contradictions that I can only hope will eventually tear neo-conservatism to shreds. Corporate interests are closely entwined with an authoritarian government, but the kinda-free market clashes with the culture of fear and control. You can see the conflict most plainly around the issue of immigration—it's in the interest of businesses to exploit the cheapest labour possible, which is that of illegal immigrants, but that runs up against the more old-school American Right, which wants to shut down the borders.

With the Lite Brite Terrorism Plot, you've got a stroke of unintentional marketing genius. The whole thing will translate into dollars for Turner, which suggests that other companies may want to use similar strategies. Modern capitalism survives, in part, by co-option, and if it can co-opt hysteria around terrorism (and hipster cynicism about said hysteria) it will.

So what happens when marketing by any means necessary hits up against the state's need to repress anything it sees as a threat. Do we all take bets on who wins?