Hussein is my middle name

It seems more and more people have been changing their names on their Facebook profiles. It's not for the reasons you think. They're not on the lam, nor have they gone goth and have taken on
the moniker of DarkAngel33. It's a form of political protest.

Suddenly my friend list is populated with people who have the middle name of Hussein. Coincidentally, the middle name of their favored presidential candidate, Barack Obama, happens to be Hussein. It also is a middle name that is used to portray the candidate as different than us, an arab, a muslim, a terrorist. None of those things are, of course, true and so by adopting the name of Hussein my friends are showing that they are the same as their candidate. We are all Husseins!

The practice of changing one's middle name to Hussein seems to go back to last fall, according to this New York Times article, but the real moment of activation seems to have occurred in February, after a radio pundit, Bill Cunningham, used Obama's middle name numerous times at a campaign rally.

The phenomena has been catching on steam ever since, especially these past two weeks. Checking Twitter conversations on changing one's name to Hussein, it seems as if the meme has reached critical mass. The pace of these conversations has definitely been heating up. The backlash has also begun with some tweets calling for people to stop christening themselves "Hussein." This was likely sparked by the McCain campaign's controversial negative tactics--their labeling Obama as an associate of terrorists--and McCain supporters reactions at rallies, which have been anything but subtle (the phrases such as "kill him" and "terrorist" have even been evoked at rallies).

This just might be the first time that social network profile names were being activated as a political platform. Who would have thunk that were possible? I doubt Zuckerberg.

Note again, people are ingenious. If we build platforms that are flexible, they'll find new ways to use them. The more ways, the more engaged they'll be; the more they'll use the platform. It's a simple construct, and it demands that instead of building fences one should be plowing an open fields where people can play.

Fan Fiction Micro-blog style

Looks like Mad Men has become another version of convertainment, conversation about a slice of entertainment as a piece of the entertainment's narrative. While not quite to the level of LOST, where online speculation about the island's mysteries and ARGs are actual pieces of the story, or LonelyGirl15, where videos directed at LonelyGirl and other fans were directly integrated with the narrative, the Mad Men Twitter-ers are extending the characters of the show through their conversation on Twitter. 

It would be more interesting if these conversations were actually sanctioned by the writers of the show.  More interesting still if you could then interact with the characters as LOST did in one of its summer ARGs (using IM as a way of letting users communicate directly with the characters in the ARG to find clues to a mystery).  Twitter actually makes that possible, and manageable, in a way that no platform has before.  I wonder what will be the first piece of televised fiction that will take advantage of it.

BoylanSeltzer Twitter Account

How Meta

How to do it

Ruby Pseudo has a few words on how to market to teens in the online world.  I especially love the fact that people aren't coming to your brand's website to click on a game where a girl loses her knickers.  I would say that's likely true. 

Ruby Pseudo

Seinfeld Ads have more exposure

According to Silicon Alley Insider's report, the much criticized Seinfeld ads for Microsoft have actually proven to generate more buzz than the "I'm a PC" ads that replaced them.  Of course, page views are not an accurate message of brand impression.  The true effectiveness of these ads, whatever their objective is, remains to be seen. 

Regardless of some brand tracker's determination of effectiveness (suspect at best), it's still my contention that the Seinfeld ads were a better stab at brand advertising than the "I'm a PC" ads and mainly because they weren't really brand advertising.  They were some sort of postmodern critique of brand advertising for a brand that doesn't need it.   

Microsoft has nothing to say about Microsoft.  Why should they? Over 85% of people in this country are using some form of a "PC."  Everyone knows Microsoft. Any ground they're losing in the market is due to lack of innovation and generally shifts in the category over the past 10 years, that they have been poorly positioned and too lumbering to quickly mount a response. 

Advertising can't help that, but it can do something else: nothing.

The Seinfeld ads for Microsoft are not advertising.  They were a sitcom, a bizarro world "Seinfeld" where Kramer and George have
become Bill Gates, a parody of advertising and a funny one at that.  Unlike the "I'm a PC" ads, which are dreadfully dull, The Seinfeld ads played at entertaining without brand communication.  They weren't trying to change our thoughts about Microsoft.  They weren't even saying anything about Microsoft.  They were saying something about other people trying to manipulate us through advertising.

People are dumb and easily manipulated, but not dumb enough to hear someone say, "I use this product and I'm quirky" and then feel better about using the product.  If anything, when drawn attention to that manipulation, they respond with scorn.  The Seinfeld ads are drawing attention to that fact. 

Why the universal scorn on the blogs? Perhaps the reason everyone online hated the ads was that everyone writing about them online are in some form of media or in the advertising industry.  No one likes to be the butt of a joke. 

Silicon Alley Insider

What's the meme?

What exactly is the purpose of referencing the Rick Roll meme behind Chris Matthews during the Vice Presidential Debate countdown? It makes me wonder.

It also makes me wonder what exactly are the core components of a meme on the Internet? Is citing the lyrics of the Rick Roll song capture the spirit of the meme? Or is the true spirit the misleading link to an absurd video? I'd say the later. 

Rick Astley's songwriting is the equivalent of a baby drooling pablum from its mouth, but they are not really that funny.  Being told to click on an important link, say for a political cause, and that link actually leading one to Rick Astley singing out the dribble lyrics, that's funny; that's worthwhile of becoming passed around.

That's the core of an Internet meme.  These online meme's are more than content; they are interactions. 

So, how do you Rick Roll the Vice Presidential debate? I don't know for sure. 

But on another note, did you read what was in the Washington Post this morning?

"In a surprise turn of events, Sarah Palin's competent performance in last night's debate has seen John McCain's campaign surging in the polls, and taking an eight-percent lead over Obama-Biden.  Joe Biden this morning, deeply disappointed in his failure, withdrew from the race.  'It's the patriotic thing to do,' Senator Biden said, 'We all must make sacrifices to bring change.'"

Obama's reaction and the rest of the story here:  Washington Post

New Journalism?

It would be interesting to see someone take on the model described in this piece by Jeff Jarvis.  It takes the notion of citizen journalism and transforms it into a collective journalism.  It would also be interesting to tie this into social media, the place where breaking news breaks these days. 

It would be a shame, though, to see the article disappear.  The article is the main location of thoughtful, measured analysis.  Without that we're left with conversation, curation and running analytic discourse.  All good things, but not the same as one person's view point, objective or not, presented at length.

Buzz Machine

This about says it all

The History of Viral Videos

This interesting article from Videogum suggests that 2006 was the golden age of Viral Video.  The author sets out a convincing case.  2006 was when YouTube truly exploded as an online activity (and time waster), and the moment before the platform was appropriated by advertisers.  There were a lot of fun and quirky videos that appeared.  It's reasonable why one would argue this as a golden age. 

I'm not sold.

I have a problem with calling any of the videos he cites viral videos.  I also have a problem with viral video as an advertising concept. 

The Shining mash-up or the Numa Numa guy, or any video of some little kid being kicked in the balls by a donkey--aren't these just videos?  They are just on a new platform--a TV with a bunch more tubes?  The fact that they were spread--were viral--is the networked distribution methods that the Internet allows.  It's not that the videos are uniquely infectious or have some novel magic in them that compells us to share them. 

And we've always wanted to share moments in video, film, TV.  Consider "I Love Lucy." That Lucy has such mad schemes.  And that Vitametavegamin skit was pretty darn funny.  I'd love to share it with you . . . Wait a second . . .

That was convenient.  But I could also have sent you a video tape.  Or acted the skit out. Or described it in writing.

You get the point.  Sharing is not novel.  The Internet just makes it a bit quicker to share on a mass scale. 

So, back to the golden age of viral video: I'd say post 2007.  It's OK Go and the Volkswagon dominatrix commercial and LonelyGirl15, not the skateboarding dog.  Because the only way a video could even be a viral video is in its use by advertisers, or shameless micro-celebrity wannabes.  Without the intention of creating a video that will spread, there's no viral, just video.

That doesn't mean that viral video is a good thing or a good use of an advertisers time.  It's the opposite, a poor use of a new media to spread an advertising message and generally a tremendously inefficient one. I learned that from experience.  The real bacterium here are advertisers, and marketers, out there who think they're creating a revolution, when they're actually just putting edgier TV spots on a new platform.  That's kind of sick.

Pass it on.

Videogum [via Gawker]