E.B. White said “Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it”. In other words, explaining a joke tends to ruin it. However, when it comes to things of a ludicrous nature, analysis often serves to heighten my amusement. So it is with this tweet, which followed the recent passing of Nelson Mandela:

Awful, just awful.

I first saw this via my pal Neven Mrgan, who retweeted a link from @Arr, wherein the post was dubbed “the tweetest tweet of all time”. There’s a pretty good history of marketers and the like using social media all kinds of wrong (Kenneth Cole is a repeat offender, for example), but this is just stunning. I spent some time trying to trump it:

• R.I.P. Nelson Mandela, man who was black, like Armani’s stunning new ‘Midnight’ line of leather jackets.

• R.I.P. Nelson Mandela, human who ate food, just like what we serve here at The Olive Garden. Where you’re family!

• R.I.P. Nelson Mandela, man who was imprisoned, just like the criminals the Corrections Corporation of America keeps locked away behind bars.” [Editor’s Note: Twoosh!]

I don’t think she can be topped though. Let’s quickly dissect Finke’s tweet. It starts by segueing from the incredible real life of Nelson Mandela to a damned movie. It then makes sure to mention the star, Idris Elba, with some truly bizarre grammar. Finally, it closes with a mention that the movie “has awards buzz”, though reviews appear decidedly mixed. It’s an astonishing train wreck, all the way from the comma on to the period.

But I skipped over the capper, the thing that really kills me. That’s right up top, where Finke felt the need to mention the fucking distributor for the film, The Weinstein Company. Thank goodness she had enough characters left to squeeze that one in there, because it’s truly important.

Less than an hour after her horrible initial tweet, Ms. Finke decided to dig herself in deeper, with this defense:

Multiple people attempted to get through to her and make her realize the disgusting crassness of what she wrote. They pointed out, simply, that she’s also a human being. Me, I’m not so sure. If she is, you certainly wouldn’t know it from her tweets.

One of the big new things on the web is targeted advertising. Using cookies and other tracking methods, sites can customize ads for you based on what might interest you. For instance, if you use Google to search for “pregnancy”, you might find your web surfing has a significant number of baby-related ads. While this can occasionally be useful, it’s also often disturbing, even creepy.

Of course, sometimes the results are downright hilarious. Such was the case when my friend Mike Ash was perusing one of his favorite sites and was greeted by a familiar face:

Pretty sure I recognize that llama

Avatar is everywhere right now. It opened this past weekend in thousands of theaters and took the number one spot at the box office. But while it just opened to wide release, it’s been annoying me for several months. A large part of this dislike stems from the many places I’ve seen Avatar:

• Multiple movie trailers

• Innumerable TV ads, for both the movie and associated products like the Avatar video game

• Seemingly every print and film media publication

• Other commercials

In fact, it would probably be easier to provide a list of places I haven’t seen Avatar:

• A movie theater

Sure, I’ve heard some good things and I may see the movie eventually. The point here, however, is that the advertising campaign associated with this movie is just massive. The strangest part about it is the last item on the list of places Avatar has appeared: other commercials.

I first noticed this before a Simpsons re-run. A simple animation of Bart was shown, while the announcer said something along the lines of “See Avatar in theaters. But first, see The Simpsons next”. These were two wholly unrelated things, oddly smashed together by one awkward voiceover.

Next up, I saw Avatar in this LG ad. Watch it if you like¹; the short version is that a man is showing off his projector cell phone [Editor’s Note: Ah…ha.] by playing a trailer for Avatar. The commercial then focuses on the phone, before showing an “Avatar: Only in theaters” frame near the end.

What’s really set me off, however, is this nonsensical McDonald’s ad. Again, you can click to watch. The gist is that the audio from the ad, played over alternating scenes of Avatar and people clutching McDonald’s food, advises us to “Celebrate a taste like no other with a movie like no other. Bite into Avatar at McDonald’s and prepare to be thrilled”.

What?!

It was as I was ranting and raving about this stupidity, that I was hit with a horrifying realization. I don’t know how I’ll go on from this, and it’s so bad that I’m not even sure if I should share it with others. I think it’s best if we at least face reality, however.

That reality is that this is product placement. It’s product placement inside another commercial. They’ve finally run out of places to insert ads into content. And so, it’s come to this:

They’re putting ads inside of ads.

Footnotes:

1. Archived here. ↩︎