random acts of boredom

I was perusing the interweb this morning, checking out the economic crisis updates and reading emails, and like always, I somehow ended up watching videos on collegehumor. This is a problem for me, cause it inadvertently leads to watching videos for 1/2 an hour or more if I don’t have to go to work that day. It can even be contagious enough that I end up switching over to youtube or vimeo to learn more about a subject or personality. Such was the case this morning. I came across a vlog by this girl Brooke Marks talking about how to score chicks online (one of those related video links on youtube to a video that isn’t at all related to the one you just finished watching). It was cute, err…I should say she was cute, and the vlog was kinda funny, and oh yeah, she did the whole thing in her underwear…

So, being interested in what else this quirky, funny, half naked girl had to say, I watched a few more. There was one about being an omnipotent TV exec and another about her dislike of boring video blogs on the internet. I don’t know why, but I kept watching more vlogs. Maybe it was b/c she was amusing, or half naked most of the time…but either way, I was hooked. However, something about these videos didn’t seem right. They started getting oddly personal and mean. I began finding ones of her breaking up with a guy who cries a lot, a date that goes wrong, and one where she kills a bunch of people and eats their flesh.

Wait…WTF?!?

Now, at this point, I start finding alternate versions of some the vlogs I mentioned above. Shot professionally. Showing the “outside of the box” angle. As it turns out, this entire scenario is a 18 part internet movie called “VLOG” by Twisted Pictures…”an original, full-length feature film about the in-depth investigation into the death of real-life internet ‘vlogger,’ Brooke Marks.”

I think this was a brilliant viral marketing campaign for a movie, in the same vain as all the pre-release internet hype for the “Blair Witch Project”. If I had seen the Twisted Pictures versions first, I would not have found it interesting. But since I stumbled across the fake vlogs (which were posted in June before the series started) and eventually found the alternate versions about the killings, I was hooked.

You can read more about the series here and watch all the clips on Break.com, starting with “Brooke Marks the Spot” on page 2 and working your way backwards.

Word to the wise, this is by the same guys who did the SAW series, so it’s very graphic.