8 degrees of advertising separation

So, I think the story goes something like this:

There's a band called The Bastard Fairies.

On their website they offer their latest songs for free download, asking all to copy and pass them on to spread the word about their band.

The Bastard Fairies make a video called "The Coolest 8 Year Old In The World Talks About O'Reilly" and posts it on YouTube on November 1.

The band is credited at the end of the clip. On their MySpaceMusic Blog, comments refer to the clip as "the add". It's easier to find (new) bands on YouTube than it is on MySpaceMusic.

"So I was watching Oprah the other day and that idiot Bill O'Reilly was on the show. He was taking the common view that violence today comes from kids like me playing video games and listening to rock music. Well let me remind you that violence in society is nothing new and violence in music is nothing new either. How about 'Onward Christian Soldiers' and 'Ten Little Indians' for example."

Quick search of the Oprah site to find:

"Bill O'Reilly: You know, we have our military fighting for our country overseas. We at home have to fight for our country... What are the kids listening to now? Ho's. Glocks. Drugs. We've come a long way, haven't we? … These are the kids at 9, 10 …They know all about it. There's no more Temptations. They're obsolete. How about movies? What did we go to see? We went to see The Blob. Steve McQueen running around going, "There's the blob." We had a lot of laughs. Popcorn. Now they have a chainsaw guy cutting off people's arms. That's what kids are seeing. Oh, we've come a long way, haven't we? This country is under siege."

(Ummm... didn't the generation who made and watched 'The Blob' invent the internet? Aren't they the ones who own all those entertainment and news companies? Oh, never mind...)

Over a month later as the clip's hits soared, Fox News' Impact Segment with Bill O'Reilly does a story on the clip under the banners "The Rise Of The Machines" and "Internet Abuse?".

O'Reilly: "This little girl was posted saying vile things. We're not going to publicise the site or the adults behind it - we know who they are. But you need to know what's going on."

Fox edited out the reference to O'Reilly and invited a guest (Boston Child Advocate and Attorney, Wendy Murphy) to damn the parents of this child and to talk about it as "child abuse". He: "This child is being raised by nuts." She: "A child of that age has no idea what she is saying" (an odd thing for an advocate for children in abuse cases to say). Although it's not included in the YouTube clip, O'Reilly went on to say that Social Services should be brought in to investigate the parents as "simply not suitable to raise the child".

BTW, this time last year, O'Reilly and Murphy were criticised for mis-representing the American Civil Liberties Union's position in a trial case: The ACLU were arguing for the same sentences for heterosexual and homosexual cases involving sex with teenagers. Murphy described their view as "Yeah, you gotta love it when they're waving the flag of constitutional rights around for kids so they can have sex with adults."

Anyway, The Bastard Fairies at some time (added?) posted a comment with the clip:

"OFFICIAL STATEMENT: THIS VIDEO FEATURES A TALENTED YOUNG ACTRESS PLAYING A FICTITIOUS CHARACTER. IT IS A COMMERCIAL FOR THE BAND 'THE BASTARD FAIRIES' AND DIRECTED BY AN AWARD WINNING DOCUMENTARY FILM MAKING TEAM."

Wendy Murphy herself once said: ""What happened to the idea that the press should disclose all the facts because only the fullest plate of information leads to the truth? What happened to the principle that, in the marketplace of ideas, everyone gets a voice, however meek?"

By December 10 the clip of the 8 year old had rocketed up the Viral Videos Top Viewed list (where you can track where videos were first posted and by whom). By December 12 it has almost 730,000 views on YouTube, 8500 comments (for and against - quite a heated debate - ages unknown) and around 11 video responses, including Air America Radio who themselves posted a recorded excerpt of The Stephanie Miller Show laughing at O'Reilly's comments over still photographs - how to get radio onto YouTube. Miller doesn't mention The Bastard Fairies and so really ends up just playing in O'Reilly's yard.

Meanwhile, it appears that someone at Fox was that week trawling the same internet sites that O'Reilly complained about (where they came across the "8 Year Old") and found on LiveLeak (of all the possible stories which included North Korean anti-american clips, Madonna demonstrating a blow job with a bottle, and movies from troops in Iraq) a clip of a distressed father who had been separated from his son for 12 years trying to commit suicide by setting himself on fire during a discussion about father's rights on live TV in Italy (link). Different upload at YouTube here.

Fox did a short "shock and amazement and watch this" story about it (link - "You talk about making a statement!"), used the LiveLeak footage (watermark top left corner) and re-wrote the LiveLeak comment as their own voice-over. Ok - they may have sought out the original ANSA news service report, but either way they got it wrong. He had been re-united with his son after a 12 year separation. Fox said he was protesting the separation from his son; ANSA said it was to call attention to dads unable to see their children.

So in this join-the-dots about how to get exposure in the media and on the net, I have contributed mentions and links to at least eight companies and organisations. The name of the Italian man is Nicola De Martino.

And the same weekend that I find the O'Reilly clip, I read in the 'Escapes' section of the New York Times (on-line) the headline Times Sq. Ads Spread Via Tourists’ Cameras - about how advertisers have discovered the potential of our postings on the net to spread their words and images. Their example: Times Square, New York - not just all those tourist photos of walls of advertising but staging events within Times Square that get photographed and uploaded to blogs and Flickr and such.

Hey! I've done that too.... October, 2001. The news banner announced the start of bombing Afghanistan. I took a picture.



Same as this post...

...without the bombs....