There are some things that are so Internet that you can’t even begin to describe them. I’m sorry not to have a better word for the bizarre organic phenomena that occur across this vast network of tubes, but I’m sure someone smarter than me will come up with one and make a billion dollars while I cry into my Voltron blanket.
In case you aren’t a Netflix subscriber, or you didn’t read that weird personalized e-mail from CEO Reed Hastings, you might have missed out on the news that Netflix is splitting DVD and Streaming not only into two plans — but separate businesses. One of these businesses will remain known as Netflix and will be purely devoted to streaming. The other will be Qwikster, which sounds like a really terrible villain in a Saturday morning cartoon, and will focus on the DVD side of the business, with video games thrown in for good measure. If you want both of these things, you have to sign up for two separate services, and there will be no crossover between them — so you can forget that whole bit where you check to see if something’s streaming before you rent out the DVDs.
The sensibility of this business decision aside (there are numerous pros and cons, but in the end, it just makes Netflix look silly and out of touch more than anything), this turned into an entirely different kind of marketing animal today thanks to Twitter and one Jason Castillo. You see, Jason Castillo is a young man that enjoys the recreational blaze as well as the occasional trip to the gym. He also happens to own the name Qwikster on Twitter, complete with a blunt-smoking Elmo profile pic.
In its rush to announce Qwikster, it seems that Netflix had forgotten to properly handle the social media marketing aspect of this whole thing, and now their brand re-launch’s conversation is dominated by Mr. Castillo on Twitter, who got over seven thousand followers today. To add to the virality of this fiasco, people are now retweeting everything he says, acting like he’s the official arm of Netflix. The whole ordeal is a new kind of hilarity that’s only found on the Internet, and it’s been killing me today. A few samples of Jason’s wonderful insight into the world of Qwikster…
Prior to this afternoon, Jason’s last tweet was made a couple of months ago. I’d like to think he was smoking until this morning:
Apparently he’s got a bug problem:
And maybe even some kind of poltergeist in his house:
Jason realizes the gravity of the situation:
And now he wants to capitalize on the opportunity monetarily:
How embracing indeed, Jason!
Seriously, this is why the Internet is amazing. You can’t even make this stuff up. A note to Internet marketers: take care of this kind of thing before you announce your brand. This is the worst sort of nightmare for the people at Netflix, but at least the result for us is pure comedy.
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