Amber Mac

I have to write this post to save my mom (and other caring peeps) any heartache.  While scrambling to pack last Thursday night for a weekend in PEI, I jumped on my computer during the late quiet hours in my house to catch up on email.  I clicked on a link from a good friend of mine, a link that had no message but "This is really weird."  The link led to a page with a title "Who is Amber MacArthur?" 

Like any savvy web person, I clicked the play button.  The video, which to a sleepy me, appeared like a regular ole sensational news story from Miami about a serial killer.  I guessed that it was just a raunchy coincidence that my name was associated with the sickness of it all.

Towards the end of the video, I paid a little more attention when I saw my name written on a parking garage wall in "fake blood."  Following that, the personal details got a little, well, they hit a little too close to home (name, gender, age, occupation).  And, I must admit, I was pretty freaked (maybe something to do with having a very open relationship with the web and being very tired). 

It sunk in pretty quickly (OK, it took 10 terrifying minutes!) that "Giving your friend the Dexter treatment" is a whacked-out viral marketing campaign for a TV show (in other words, you can input any victim's name, gender, occupation, etc.).  I still don't think it's very funny.  I tried to explain the whole campaign to my mom and warned her to pay no attention to such an email link, but I'm afraid she now thinks the Internet is evil.  I told her that TV is evil, web people wouldn't create such a thing ;).

P.S.  Yeah, yeah, I know that Dexter is supposed to be a great show (heard it from a few peeps so far).  I just wanted to write this quick post to get the word out that the viral marketing campaign might be too "sick" for its own good.

March 14th, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (24)