Looks more like the intent from the start was for it to be an ARG for LoL players to discover, rather than an insidious snare for unsuspecting Twitter users...
Hey, so I agree with this post in that the Seraphine twitter account probably wasn't *designed* to emotionally coerce people into buying skins (I'm actually quite amused by it) but I think you're seeing the forest for the trees (you're focussing on a singular point that other members are making which might not convey what everybody else is thinking.)
I think this touches on a general grievance that people have when it comes to specific modern marketing, some examples of which have been posted already in this thread.
Let's take this tweet, for instance. There's no buildup to this punchline, that's the tweet. A juice brand is posting about depression. Is this a joke? Is this is real? We don't know. If you heard someone say this in real life out of context, you'd be a little alarmed. But by context, you would assume this is a joke. People do that in real life too, that's modern humour.
So if you heard this in real life even as a joke, you'd be like "oh ha, he's just being self-depreciative."
But this is not a person in real life making a casual joke. This is a goddamn juice brand. Why are they making this joke? Is it just for fun? These are the questions that come to mind whenever I see a tweet like this.
Let's shift gears a little into another example where a brand is giving us something that isn't a direct advertisement:
This is a mildly infamous commercial where the supposed intent is to show goodwill and promote peace out unity. It has been rightfully lambasted because even when that commercial came out people did not view law enforcement in a positive light, to say the least. Viewing this video in 2020?
Well.
So again, we ask questions: why was this commercial made? Was it to promote support for law enforcement and to help bridge the divide?
I know these
might seem unrelated (and unproportional compared to a video game twitter ARG-lite account,) and maybe you already have seen and agreed that these tweets/videos have concerns that people have rightfully brought up. But I want to reinforce the common thread is here is that marketing is crossing boundaries in that it's
trying not to pass itself as marketing. This is not great. This is a tiny* bit dystopian
*it's bad, man
I feel weird typing this out, because this happens.. so much nowadays, and I do not claim to be succinct in explaining this (there are good videos out there, but I'm making this post because maybe it's easier to digest.)
My friends are into K-Pop, Idols, Vtubers. I ain't about that life but I can't help but get drawn into it sometimes and I admit there's fun stuff, and as I mentioned I have been amused by the Seraphine twitter account, but when a juice brand starts talking about depression, when a cola brand promotes peace between the public and law enforcement, when a fictional video game character's faux-personal twitter account asks for emotional support, it's really hard not to go "wait, this is.. really fucking weird?"
And if you don't have any doubts, concerns, questions, or even a little voice in the back of your head going "this is a unusual way to advertise a product-" or even that you think that this is not an advertisement at all, I'm not sure what to say here.
