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Famous Girl Trying To Find Guy Who Lost His Jacket? Total Fraud

Brian Fairbanks — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:18:00 GMT

For the last week or so, the whole of the internet has been trying to determine whether this YouTube video and series of news stories is real or staged by an attention-seeking "actress." Here's how we figured out the truth...

In order to avoid giving this woman and her annoying clothing designer's viral marketing campaign any added publicity, we'll refrain from a few of the details. A Sydney Morning Herald story from the other day claimed the 24-year-old met a guy at a cafe, hit it off with him, didn't get his number, and later noticed his jacket had been left behind. She took the jacket home with her and left a "Lost and Found" note with a waiter, who is quoted in the article as saying she is "genuine," as if there was some sort of question about her tale's legitimacy already. The national media picked up the tale of love at first sight and the blogs were linking to her website, which she had turned into an ad for herself, but for this anonymous guy's enjoyment only. She posed in his jacket and made sure we all saw her underwear... and the coat's supposedly top-notch lining.

Then, this:

1) She knows just enough about the guy that it sounds like a full description, but it sounds like a full description written by someone trying to make up a generic, imaginary dude. For example, for this Sydney Morning Herald story, she couldn't describe his face whatsoever, but she knows he was wearing jeans, a white shirt, and black shoes. He's "six foot tall, toned, and hot"? That could be anyone.

2) In the above video, she never mentions the name of the cafe she found the jacket in. That right there tells you with absolute certainty that she's a fake... or an idiot.

Other bloggers are beginning to weigh in on this-- insisting that this is another obnoxious viral marketing campaign. Aren't there laws against this kind of thing? When advertisers started putting subliminal messages in movies and other media, governments passed laws to stop the practice; maybe they should ban the same thing-- "false news reporting as advertising" or something? "Internet video advertising without proper identification?"

In any case, the woman has since taken down her very obvious website, which depicted her posing provocatively in the jacket, making sure that the jacket looked even better she did in her underwear.

Here's the original article.

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Video of the Day: Where is My Bailout?

Emily Farris — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 21:13:00 GMT

Pixies + Fight Club + Huge Economic Crisis = Pretty Great Video Remix. It's rare we say we wish a video was longer... even if it is viral marketing.

Kanye West Wants You To Be Like Him, This Apparently Involves Lots of Alcohol

Emily Farris — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:20:00 GMT

Unless you have a particularly keen eye and have been thumbing through the "Strictly Personals" section of New York Magazine, you may have missed the print advertisements for Be KANYE, a campaign starring Kanye West and lots of really bad graphics.

The ads are clearly for Absolut Vodka, though the "product" is an Alka-Selzter-like tablet that can instantly transform you into Kanye West.

We're just as confused as you are, but earlier this year, the company announced its "In An Absolut World" campaign, promising to profile Kanye, Eddie Izzard, Perez Hilton and Zach Galifanakis (a strange mix, if you ask us) as "Absolut Visionaries," among less famous subjects, like a random pregnant man. So this must be Kanye's vision.

But if Kanye's vision is really that everyone should want to be like Kanye, doesn't this, um, make him a douchebag?

Here's hoping he's in on the joke and either way, the website is still fun, because of (and in spite of) the fact that it looks like a website would have looked if it were made before websites existed, while offering absolutely no information on what this Be KANYE business is all about.

However, the site counts down to something on July 13, so maybe everything will make more sense then.

In the mean time we highly encourage you to check out bekanyenow.com and call 1-877-Be-KANYE (235-2693 for those of you with phoneputers, you're welcome) if you'd like to become a Kanye groupie. We'll be contemplating our belly buttons and trying to figure out what will happen on the 13th. It better blow our fucking minds!

[BeKANYEnow.com]

(Thanks, Lauren!)

If it Looks Like an Orgasm, And Sounds Like an Orgasm, It Must be an Orgasm

Emily Farris — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 14:48:00 GMT

An unnamed model is suing a jewelry company for $5 million, claiming they tarnished her "wholesome" image in a viral ad campaign that, as far as we can tell, very clearly portrays her having an orgasm. Her lawyers say the ad was just supposed to be a woman getting excited by a man putting nice jewelry on her. We think she probably should have started asking questions when they asked her to writhe and moan in front of a rolling camera while wearing only a teddy and a diamond necklace. But you decide for yourself. (Probably NSFW, though).

[FoxNews.com: My Commercial Looks Lewd]