i subscribe to the viralbomb newsletter and last week i received two emails from this list, monty python’s silly walk generator and dude corp anims. both are nice. yet both fail to exite me.
and especially with the monty python one that is rather surprising, to be honest. i mean, i worship monty python and they have built an excellent, silly application, that was fun to play with. yet the simple fact that they built this to try and shift product somehow taints it for me. in this case even the product, they are trying to sell is excellent, collections of favorite monty python moments by the various protagonists. so why am i not exited?
i have very mixed feelings towards this trend towards viral campaigns. is a viral still a viral when that was its intention? or in other words, can a viral be created, planned? was it not part of the exitement that you never knew what would “go viral” and everybody would create stuff hoping that it would?
it has changed so much from a few years ago when you received an email from a friend saying “have you seen this …?”, all exited and you clicked the link and felt like you were part of something. i can still remember the first time i received a link to a weebl & bob episode in an email. w00t. yay. now these things keep coming in and are quickly losing their appeal. they only mildly amuse, never exite.
slowly such emails start to feel like spam, because you never know where it will lead you. they still can create a buzz, but they have lost their purity, their innocence, through the simpel fact that they were created and sent out with commercial aims. ever since the marketing guys have noticed the potential of viral campaigning its been getting ugly. as usual.
language. i think, at the very least, lets stop calling them virals. they are adverts and commercials. maybe we call them commirals? because i still like the odd real viral™ in my inbox.