Erectile Dysfunction, Brand Preference and World of Warcraft
Yes, there is a connection, my friends. Leave it to me to discover it. I will now expound...
Last night during my nightly foray into WOW-land, I was chatting with my guild about the usual stuff. Casual observations, humorous insights, and the typical attention-starved jabber I'm becoming known for. Kind of pitiful, but endearing nonetheless.
I was making an observation about a guild member's name. Her name is Phedra. She has an alternate character in the guild named Sexyjoy. So I made a crack about her names forming some sort of Viagra-like commercial...take Phedra for the best Sexyjoy of your life. Not so funny now out of context, but frankly pretty witty in the kneejerk timeframe I concocted it.
For those of you who are unindoctrinated, WOW has a self-censoring mechanism built into its chat engine that prevents people from using profanity. Type most four-letter curses, and the screen automatically displays "#*%!#"...stuff like that. Being populated with a fair share of resourceful foulmouths, most people, if so inclined, find interesting workarounds for the restriction.
Turns out, "Viagra" is a banned word. So my joke first looked like I was being profane. I immediately shared my discovery with the guild, asking a few people to verify. Sure enough, you can't type in Viagra. You can display "V-I-A-G-R-A" and derivatives like that, but not the name in its unmodified form.
So, I made a subsequent crack about Viagra being a banned word, thinking to myself that Blizzard evidently believes that: 1) erectile dysfunction or impotence correction are too sensitive of subjects for the puerile sensibilities of the WOW community; 2) the word is structually too simliar to the female genitalia that shares many of the same letters and is, hence, netted by an algorithm incapable of splitting hairs, or 3) Blizzard is exercising some sort of backroom deal with the pharmaceutical community.
I started leaning to #3 when I experimented further. Keying in "Cialis", I was rewarded with an exact, uncensored display. My guild responded with their observation of my findings.
I think I'm onto something. Blizzard either hates Pfizer (makers of Viagra), or is in bed with Lilly (producers of Cialis). "I smell the roots of a lawsuit" I quipped, the guild quickly tiring of my diatribe.
Maybe there's more to it than meets the eye. Maybe this is the newest form of guerilla marketing. An insidious kind of brand loyalty generation. Product placement. Chat censorship. Mind control!!!
Maybe right now, there are hundreds of thousands of WOW-players who are shifting preferences to Cialis for the simple reason they can't chat about Viagra without being censored. Hence, "Viagra" = "@*#%" = "shit (insert preferred bad word)".
It ain't Watergate, but I think I've just put my foot into a deep morass of corporate intrigue.
And you all thought WOW was a waste of time. Sheesh.
Last night during my nightly foray into WOW-land, I was chatting with my guild about the usual stuff. Casual observations, humorous insights, and the typical attention-starved jabber I'm becoming known for. Kind of pitiful, but endearing nonetheless.
I was making an observation about a guild member's name. Her name is Phedra. She has an alternate character in the guild named Sexyjoy. So I made a crack about her names forming some sort of Viagra-like commercial...take Phedra for the best Sexyjoy of your life. Not so funny now out of context, but frankly pretty witty in the kneejerk timeframe I concocted it.
For those of you who are unindoctrinated, WOW has a self-censoring mechanism built into its chat engine that prevents people from using profanity. Type most four-letter curses, and the screen automatically displays "#*%!#"...stuff like that. Being populated with a fair share of resourceful foulmouths, most people, if so inclined, find interesting workarounds for the restriction.
Turns out, "Viagra" is a banned word. So my joke first looked like I was being profane. I immediately shared my discovery with the guild, asking a few people to verify. Sure enough, you can't type in Viagra. You can display "V-I-A-G-R-A" and derivatives like that, but not the name in its unmodified form.
So, I made a subsequent crack about Viagra being a banned word, thinking to myself that Blizzard evidently believes that: 1) erectile dysfunction or impotence correction are too sensitive of subjects for the puerile sensibilities of the WOW community; 2) the word is structually too simliar to the female genitalia that shares many of the same letters and is, hence, netted by an algorithm incapable of splitting hairs, or 3) Blizzard is exercising some sort of backroom deal with the pharmaceutical community.
I started leaning to #3 when I experimented further. Keying in "Cialis", I was rewarded with an exact, uncensored display. My guild responded with their observation of my findings.
I think I'm onto something. Blizzard either hates Pfizer (makers of Viagra), or is in bed with Lilly (producers of Cialis). "I smell the roots of a lawsuit" I quipped, the guild quickly tiring of my diatribe.
Maybe there's more to it than meets the eye. Maybe this is the newest form of guerilla marketing. An insidious kind of brand loyalty generation. Product placement. Chat censorship. Mind control!!!
Maybe right now, there are hundreds of thousands of WOW-players who are shifting preferences to Cialis for the simple reason they can't chat about Viagra without being censored. Hence, "Viagra" = "@*#%" = "shit (insert preferred bad word)".
It ain't Watergate, but I think I've just put my foot into a deep morass of corporate intrigue.
And you all thought WOW was a waste of time. Sheesh.
posted by JabberDrew at 6:57 PM
1 Comments:
Try creating a character named Bob Dole, Rafael Palmeiro or Mark Martin. If you get *#%^..*& to death by twelfth level warthog named Eli sporting a hard-on that lasts 4 days, you can be pretty sure you're on to something.
Post a Comment
<< Home