#bc they misheard someone screaming 'IT'S ALIVE IT'S HUGE' as 'IT'S A LION IT'S HUGE'

[yunisverse]

Oi! You! What is a rant about a cartoon/animation/passion that you’ve wanted to spill for a while but haven’t gotten the opportunity to? Lay it on me!

you want it? you got it.

let's talk about Cloverfield's viral marketing campaign.

July 2007, the first Transformers movie hits theaters preceded by a strange trailer. There's no name for the film, just the date of release: 1-18-08.

1-18-08.com is found (don't go there now, some jerk snatched the domain and runs malware ads now), a site which has some scattered photos of the party from the trailer. You can move around the photos, and flip some over to get notes.

Slusho!, a Japanese drink company, is found thanks to its logo on a shirt in the trailer. The company's site loaded with Engrish about how Slusho makes you Zoom! You can't drink just six! It boasts of its secret ingredient, known only as Seabed Nectar.

Then comes the discovery of Tagruato, Slusho's parent organization. Tagruato is vague as hell about what their company is actually about, but what's most clearly documented are their deep sea drilling sites, and news of them sending a satellite into orbit.

The Myspace pages for various characters in the upcoming movie are found, mostly just the characters chatting like normal pals. One character's page, Jamie, hides a link to the secret site shared with her long-distance boyfriend Teddy where she records video messages to him. She knows he's off saving the world or whatever, but she's lonely!

Tagruato's website uploads an assurance to investors that the claims in the article from Ravaille Research Center are baseless, and its author is known for suspicious work. Googling RRC results in worried posts from families asking about the article, which says that cursory experiments with samples of Seabed Nectar show rapid cell growth, muscle growth, sharper eyesight, increased strength, and a sensation of full-body tingling described as a "wave of happiness."

People can buy merch of shirts from the Slusho! website. At first the packages are lined with Japanese newspapers, but over time some people find crumpled Tagruato documents with a hastily scrawled message to the recipient, from "The Whistleblower," trying to warn that employees have gone missing.

Tagruato's site is hacked, images of its CEO defaced. Hints in the images eventually lead to the site of the ecoterrorist organization TIDO-Wave, who are determined to bring to light the shady underbelly of Tagruato and Slusho. Most notable is this Seabed Nectar stuff is a closely-guarded secret, and definitely not FDA-approved.

Jamie's videos to Teddie are getting less sweet and more irritable. He used to be so good about calling, now he's gone radio silent. After weeks of nothing, Jamie opens a package from Teddie containing "evidence" and some kind of warning about Tagrutto or whatever, and frankly she's insulted he had to make up a whole song and dance instead of breaking up with her like a normal person.

At one point, calling Tagruato's contact line mentions a memorial service. TIDO-Wave's site uploads an article with more information: a famed marine biologist who'd been working for Tagruato's medical branch tragically died while camping with his family shortly after his retirement. It's rumored he made an incredible discovery right before retiring, but his computer, papers, and all research files are mysteriously missing.

1-18-08.com is slowly being uploaded with more and more photos, of soldiers and debris-filled streets and an explosion on some sort of ocean tanker. The photos show timestamps all throughout the night the movie takes place, and a timeline is starting to form. If you stay on the site for six minutes, a monster's roar can be heard.

The Whistleblower leaks a report of the various deep sea oil drills owned by Tagruato, noting that their most recently constructed drill not far offshore from New York has no report of oil whatsoever. So what are they doing there?

Tagruato's space division happily reports the success of their satellite in orbit. It even got a really good picture of a piece of a satellite falling. Some other satellite, not theirs. It's probably fine.

TIDO-Wave has been making plans to infiltrate the suspicious drill site off the coast of New York called Chuai Station, but when they arrive at the coordinates there's nothing there.

Soon after, reports flood in about a horrible altercation at the site; there are news reports in at least six different languages about the event showing footage of Chuai collapsing and sinking under the waves in a matter of minutes. Footage from workers trying to escape from inside the station shows armed Tagruato personnel on the site, and a recording from an escaping lifeboat shows massive chunks of metal debris launched out of the ocean after them as they escape. With knowledge that TIDO was in the area at that time, it's believed to be a terrorist attack. One news report mentions concern about dark shapes under the water shortly before Chuai sunk: if it's an oil leak, that could spell huge consequences for the surrounding area.

Jamie's still uploading videos to let Teddy know how Over Him she is. Him and his stupid games and his fake evidence. "Do Not Eat," huh, well, here's what she thinks about your stupid spy games, what are you gonna do, asshole? oh wow it tastes really good though. Damn she is FULL of energy. Fuck you Teddy she's gonna go PARTY and NOT think about YOU.

On MySpace, friends are congratulating their buddy Rob on getting an incredible job opportunity what will require him to relocate to Japan--he's supposed to help figure out how to market this super popular drink over there to Western buyers. His friends are planning a goodbye party on the night of the 18th.

So like. Know that 99% of this never appears in the movie. One character wears a Slusho! shirt, Jamie can be seen for a split second passed out on a couch. At the end of the movie, you can catch a distant splash as a piece of a satellite falls into the Atlantic. Most audiences don't notice or care and lose nothing having missed all of it. In fact, I didn't find most of this until AFTER seeing the movie.

but GOD did I think it was rad. For most people Cloverfield was just a generic monster movie that gave them motion sickness, but the marketing campaign gave me brainrot for YEARS after it faded from the public consciousness.

I have not and don't intend to ever care about anything else JJ Abrams has ever done but god DAMN if he didn't get me with this one.

so yeah there's your ramble thank u come again