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This past week at San Diego Comic Con, we've seen a lot of fans expressing their passion for their favorite stories. But we also got bombarded with manufactured hype. Why is it so hard to tell the difference between two? More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5596750&view=rss&microfeed=true Have you ever been walking around in your city, and seen somebody in a mask suddenly start dancing? Or perhaps a whole group of people? No, it's not alien mind control - it's actually people being controlled by a vast online conspiracy. They're participating in an alternate reality game called Top Secret Dance Off, where players are issued odd quests like "dance in a crosswalk" or "dance using only your fingers." Usually they vid their exploits and upload them to the site, so you can participate in this secret dance conspiracy while hidden deep in your underground bunker, far from the plague-infested zombies. More »
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If you're making a new piece of pop culture and you expect it to reach a mass audience, or even just a subcultural audience, you'd better have an ARG. What's that, you say? ARG stands for “alternate reality game,” and it describes a wide range of interactive puzzles that generally involve getting you to visit various websites, call phone numbers, and go places in major cities in order to get free shit related to a movie, TV show and even occasionally a book. Why are popular titles like Dark Knight and Lost using ARGs? It's more than just advertising: It's a way to build an instant fan base without working at it for years like Star Trek did. But so far, ARGs have few of the benefits of a fandom, such as a friendly community of like-minded people; and they have all of the bad parts of fannish behavior like pointless obsessiveness and fetishization of dumb swag. More »
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Fake billboards for Lost's Oceanic Airlines have been popping up all over the globe, touting their return to service and trips to "Places You Never Imagined," like Ames, Iowa and Tustin, California. They also promote their brand-new website at the bottom of each one of these billboards (which probably weren't cheap to rent). Of course, visiting this site takes you deeper into the rabbit hole. Soon you'll find yourself wasting precious hours while you try to unravel the "mystery" of flight 815. More »
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