Uggggggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhh news now, and the website threatening to leak nude photographs of Emma Watson turned out to be a viral stunt to advertise a new marketing agency, which is, on the grand scheme of things, almost as bad [1].
[1] That is to say: it is probably a viral marketing stunt. It could still be 4chan ‘doing a 4chan’ and by the time the original countdown goes down to zero something else awful and terrible will happen
Quick recap: on Monday, Emma delivered a really badass speech to the United Nations, launching the HeForShe campaign that hopes to get men involved in the fight for gender equality. THIS WAS GOOD.
Almost immediately afterwards though, in the wake of the second wave of celebrity photos leaking via The Fappening, a website called EmmaYouAreNext.com was set up with a countdown for Friday night, which promised nude photos of the actress as some sort of ‘payback’ for her having the temerity to speak about gender issues in words that even the worst nerds on earth could understand. THIS WAS BAD.
And today, it was revealed (see [1]) that the website was a stunt to ‘start a conversation’ about celebrity hacking, and EmmaYouAreNext.com now forwards to a website for Rantic Marketing, which has an open letter on it addressed to Barack Obama, like that will work. THIS WAS SOMEWHERE BETWEEN ‘BAD’ AND ‘NOT GREAT’.
“We have been hired by celebrity publicists to bring this disgusting issue to attention," a statement on the website says. "The recent 4chan celebrity nude leaks in past 2 months have been an invasion of privacy and is also clear indication that the internet need to be censored." All of which sounds worthy… but also piggybacking on someone else’s impassioned speech is, like, the absolute worst way of pointing out a problem. Ever.
It remains to be seen whether ‘Rantic Marketing’ is an actual and terrible marketing agency or if it’s just the work of one misguided troll working under the name ‘Brad Cockingham’, but for now it seems like all the Emma Watson countdown fuss is over. THIS IS GOOD.