I noticed an explosion of Birdbox memes on social media yesterday. I hadn't heard of the movie and did some research. Mediocre reviews and the plot seemed like ordinary horror/thriller. Still, these memes were popping up everywhere. No way this was organic.
I had to block mentions of this show's title on Twitter. It was getting ridiculous.
The FTC's Sponsorship Identification Rule requires influencers and marketers to "clearly and conspicuously disclose their relationship to brands when promoting or endorsing products through social media."[1] This is the reason you see hashtags like #ad on promoted posts from celebrities. Violations of this rule "can result in penalties far larger than any imposed to date by the FTC."[2]
I'd think that creating phony, low-follower accounts _en masse_ to promote a product would not circumvent the rule, simply because these accounts don't belong to "influencers." But I don't know. Can anyone with a better legal grasp on this chime in?
[1] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2017/04/ftc-s...
[2] https://www.allaboutadvertisinglaw.com/2018/01/fcc-revives-i...
So, perhaps the "fake looking accounts" is on purpose so as to (arguably) not be fraudulent; as buying well hidden accounts would be a very clear contravention of the law.
I think at the beginning the doctor literally says "ignoring your problems won't make them go away", it's extremely on-the-nose, and the bulk of the film is about trust and teamwork and that seems like it's going somewhere, and then you get to the end, and it like... nothing. Nothing is learned. Nothing changes.
The doctor even comes back at the end and you go "oh boy here comes the moral when we learn what this movie really was about" and she's all like "yay now we can be blind to our problems together" roll credits. There was so much opportunity in the premise and it's totally squandered.
Though at first my reaction was "oh look, it's 'A Quiet Place' but with sight instead of sound."
Funny how we're here discussing it now on the front page of HN though. If this tweet gets picked up by HN and other large forums, then I'll have to give Netflix marketing a "well played."
No heart behind it.
people mistakenly believe even influencers have bot or bought followers, just because their engagement is low
its just a poor metric to make a conclusion, and you'll have to accept that nobody knows anything
Hopefully they'll never got as far as making up a fake critic to promote the movie like Sony did with David Manning.
Seems just as plausible, if not more..
