Last week, head honcho Josh Tyler told you that viral marketing isn’t real fandom. While he made a good case for his argument, I respectfully disagree – completely and wholeheartedly. As someone who has seen fandom in some of its best and lowest forms, viral marketing can be fandom, and it’s a viable and welcome tool for those who want to be a bit more immersed in their particular flavor of fandom.
The basis of Josh’s argument comes from productions like Lord of the Rings, King Kong, and Superman Returns, where directors and producers were giving fans an insight on the making of the film through blog updates, video diaries, and the like. His argument is valid – these were fan-run websites that managed to reach an accord with studios to feature this kind of content. I’ve met the fellows at TheOneRing.net and they are the true definition of this kind of fandom – fans willing to (respectfully) push the boundaries between fanatic and studio until something beautiful happens.
Viral marketing has not removed these inside look style websites from the world, although to read Josh’s rant you would think that was the case. Rob Cohen has been offering up behind the scenes content on this summer’s Mummy 3 for over a year now, while Zach Snyder continues to dole out Watchmen stuff – sure, the bounty isn’t plentiful, but it’s enough to keep our appetites whetted. The same was true of Jackson and Singer’s revelations on their movies. If these kinds of insights haven’t been eliminated, and viral marketing has just given us new conduits to get information, how is this something bad?
In Josh’s argument, he suggests that viral marketing doesn’t let you be a part of anything, but keeps fans at an arm’s length, away from what’s going on. I disagree with this philosophy. If anything, viral marketing embraces you within the fictional world it depicts. It’s great to see how Jackson created the illusion of different sized people in Lord of the Rings, but wouldn’t you rather actually be immersed in the world of Middle Earth? Through viral marketing we can be a part of Harvey Dent’s political campaign, dive a little deeper down the rabbit hole of the Matrix, and figure out what happened in Piedmont before the movie reveals it all.
The benefit of viral marketing is that it offers an exploration of the fictional world beyond what winds up on celluloid. How boring would The Dark Knight be if the first two thirds of the movie was made up of campaign rallies for Harvey Dent? Did we need to know where the Cloverfield monster came from to appreciate the movie? No – in fact, it probably would have spoiled the movie if everything came to a grinding halt for the plot exposition that would be needed to explain the beast. Instead viral marketing gives those answers to anyone who is interested without damaging the movie. In the case of Cloverfield, the viral marketing has kept interest in the movie going long after it’s left theaters, because all the pieces of the puzzle haven’t been found. That makes it a continuing game for fans and added publicity for the studio, who don’t even have to generate a sequel to keep buzz going. How is this a failure?
Josh talks about “passionate fandom,” which he describes as something that happens when people get together to geek out about what they love, whether it be at conventions or through computer screens. Passionate fandom can be a great thing, after all, without passionate fandom, we wouldn’t have a real Klingon alphabet (complete with a translated version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet) or a Serenity movie, or a second season of Jericho. Josh is right – those are fantastic examples of what fandom can do. Unfortunately passionate fandom also gives us Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, Harry Potter fanfic, and pornographic images of Legolas and Aragorn captured in an intimate embrace. Passionate fandom has its ugly downside just as much as it has its good side, and we can’t blame that on viral marketing.
The one downside of viral marketing is that the rewards typically are not instantaneous. When Peter Jackson allowed us to peek in on the filming of the Lord of the Rings series, we didn’t have to jump through any hoops to get to that window. All we had to do was visit the right website and click “Play.” This kind of spoon-fed content isn’t passionate fandom. Gathering together to talk about it may be, but watching a video is still just watching a video, regardless of what it’s about.
On the other hand, viral marketing asks the participant to be more active, to solve a riddle or puzzle, or to play a game with the reward as a prize instead of an instant achievement. Not everyone has the time to do that, so I can understand the frustrations of viral marketing. That’s where “passionate fandom” comes in. These are the people who are devoted enough to spend the time to solve these games and puzzles to get to the final reward. They get the experience of enjoying their game and we all reap the rewards of new posters, trailers, and yes, even a bowling ball (which, I’ll concede, was probably the worst planned viral game to date). In order to participate in these viral marketing schemes, real fans are putting their brains behind the challenges offered, and I’ll take a brain teaser over spoon-fed content any day.
Viral marketing not real fandom? Hell, viral marketing is almost a defining trait of real fandom, because who else other than a real fan would invest the time and energy it takes to complete some of it. Viral marketing doesn’t necessarily create new fans, but it becomes a forge to test those who would proclaim themselves passionate fans of something. The rest of us can show our passion by talking about the new trailer or poster (or bowling ball), but only the passionate fans who took the time to figure out how the game was played can show the battle scars and tell the truly interesting stories of sacrificing for their fandom.
