Don't fake user-generated content

Posted by Aaron Gerdes Sun, 28 May 2006 23:12:00 GMT

The Brains on Fire Blog has a good overview on the Al Gore’s Penguin Army video.

Essentially, DCI Group, a PR firm that holds Exxon Mobil as an account, released an ostensibly funny video on YouTube mocking An Inconvenient Truth (and misusing the Linux penguin).

If their purpose was to send up a little flack on behalf of Exxon, they failed. The film wasn’t funny, didn’t make an effective point, and won’t appeal to anyone that doesn’t disbelieve in climate change.

Add some penguin egg on their faces for faking grassroots media. The lesson we can all learn is that falsifying user-generated content will backfire early and often.