J'accuse

Speak to me of universal law
The whores hustle and the hustlers whore
All around me people bleed
Speak to me of your song of greed

Heidi Cee doesn't exist. Which isn't, on its own, either surprising or unusual. A fake blog, fake Myspace and Facebook, lots of people do that. There's a phone number involved, that may be fake also. It follows Gabriel's GIFT; anonymity and an audience changes people in the way that inspires after-school specials and in-depth reports on Dateline. I'm not impressed that the internet gave birth to a fake person, I'm impressed that it was corporate and university sponsored.

The IACC, a corporate organization fighting counterfeit merchandise, mostly clothes and fashion, paid for a college class about marketing and PR to be taught by an nontenured computer graphics professor. The class was monitored by the IACC to ensure it didn't stray from their approved curriculum: creating a fake persona to decry counterfeiting. Can you say "shill?" I think you can.

An anticounterfeiting group created a counterfeit person to convince their consumers not to buy goods from counterfeiters. The university went along with it. The students were given course credit for doing the IACC's ad work, and paid the school for the chance to do it. Nice.

Over the years I've developed a reaction to advertisements: logos, mascots, any kind of branding. There's even a vocal tone and cadence that turns my stomach, a voice that says "I don't know you but I want something from you." A firm, clammy handshake usually comes with that voice. I'm allergic to anything with the artificial air of advertising. The siren's song of "guerrilla marketing" and "viral video" doesn't draw me, can't even through subterfuge. The reek of commercial camouflage repels me. You know that much alliteration is serious. I can't sympathize with people who feel betrayed by the blog of a stranger which turns out to be a marketing campaign. Be angry at the school for building the class, sure, but don't be angry that they ran a con on you.

There are women who are paid to go out with men for a night, or several nights. The woman starts talking to another woman, introduces her client to the conversation, then excuses herself. They're called wingwomen, and this asynchronous matchmaking is no more than personal marketing. You don't get to be outraged because advertisers are using now established vectors more aggressively. If the students hadn't done the wetwork for class credit, I wouldn't have thought twice about this. It's notable for a few days then will be buried by the RIAA and MPAA being much more corrupt. This was bush league stuff; the IACC has to do better than this to get a lasting taste in my mouth. I might feel differently if I was a a student at Hunter.

No, I'm mad about the atrocious writing on the fake blog. The second entry, March 21, tells the reader that the fictional Heidi has been at Hunter for almost four years and is an English major who wants to go into journalism. It also tells us that the Heidi uses phrases like "Fashion is my liiiiiiiiiiiiiiife =D." This is indicative of the Heidi's use of ideographs common with fourteen-year-old girls, not third-year English majors. The Heidi also doesn't know the difference between nauseous and nauseated. Student, please. If you can't get those two straight by junior English you need to consider a career as a secretary for people that can. The Heidi goes on to detail the loss of a Coach handbag, a gift from her near-boyfriend serving in Iraq, a dear and expensive gift that she used to tote her gym clothes. That's just poor plotting, and things go downhill from there. I'd say I felt nauseous, but I have a better grasp of English than Hunter students.