The more you know
I'm making this post on a separate blog because i don't want to spoil the 'illusion' i've created over at the Pepsi Girl blog.
So if you're here, that means you're probably interested in knowing what the hell is up with that blog. Is it real? Is it fake? Who the hell is this Justin guy anyway? This is probably gonna be long so all you tl;dr fuckers might as well stop reading and go back to thinking whatever it was you were thinking about my Pepsi Girl blog.
Anyhow.
Sorry to burst your bubble people but despite what you believe... or want to believe..., the truth is, this isn't a fake blog. Nor is it really a real blog either.
...
Perhaps an explanation is in order.
First, here are some quick bulletpoint facts:
No, i'm not really obssesed with That Pepsi Girl.
No, i don't work for Pepsi. Or Apple.
No, i'm not getting paid by anyone to 'promote' Pepsi, Apple or Mandy.
Yes, i do think Mandy is very attractive.
Yes, i do wish the blog helps her become even more famous.
So. Is the blog real or fake? It's actually a little bit of both. And maybe more.
I think Susan Getgood said it best when she said:
Point is... everything on that blog was meant to be a joke. With exception, of course, of the whole 'promoting' of Mandy Amano, which i'm doing sincerely...
...just in a really weird way.
So no, THATPEPSIGIRL.BLOGSPOT.COM IS NOT A REAL 'STALKERBLOG'.
All the 'obsessed stalker' style posts were made to elicit the very reactions that i predicted TENS OF THOUSANDS of you would have.
So if any of you thought that the blog was either:
funny
sad
lame
pathetic
well put together
creepy
stalkery
'fake'
'real'
etc etc
...then that means i have succeeded in exactly what i set out to do by all counts. And that was to either make people laugh at the absurdity (those who you who got the joke) or to make people go WTF!? THIS GUY IS CRAZY (you know who you are, oh and by the way, you all suck for not getting the joke and taking things SoOoOoOo seriously. come on now...).
Truth is, i'm actually no stranger to making popular websites and buzzworthy posts.
And causing a little controversy every now and then.
I'm actually the creator of thatsjustnotright.com (aka fubar), a fairly popular blog/site that has over 17000+ registered forum members and averages between 15000 - 20000 hits a day (when i was still running it - more on this later). Which, i'm sure, is pretty 'small fry' compared to other larger sites out there, but hey, it's 'big' enough for me.
I've made numerous buzzworthy posts and 'scoops' in the 5 or so years i've been posting at that site. Posts that have been picked up by even bigger sites, like Gawker and Fleshbot. For example, i was the one who broke the Lindsay Lohan nip slip story, the one who made Psycho Girl (in)famous, the one who provided the definitive post on all things Libby Hoeller; amongst numerous other major (and minor) internet/celeb related 'scandals' and stories.
And i've also been known to help create online buzz for up and coming stars. Examples of celebs that i've helped hype up through the posts i've made on my site (before they got really famous) are Avril Lavigne, Lillix and Jojo. I hyped them up so much that news of my hype making eventually got back to them.
And as a result, Jojo and Lillix even stopped by to visit my site and leave comments on the posts i made about them.
Unfortunately, i can't really prove any of this to you right now because i no longer run thatsjustnotright.com. I recently retired from posting on there and sold the site to my host. So it's all under new management as of February 1st 2005. And any new content and changes since then weren't made by me.
Oh and i also deleted all my posts and archives off the site after i left. Which is why i can't actually show you that i'm not lying. But hey, if you ask any of the regular visitors that still frequent the site, they'll probably be able to tell you that it all really happened.
(update: i got a new domain name and restarted my site. it's over at dontlinkthis.com now. yes, intentional irony. and be warned, it's might be offensive to most people. it's not called fubar for nothing yanno..)
By the way, if any of you are wondering about the similarities between my Pepsi Girl blog and the Old Navy Blonde blog, it's probably because i also had a small hand in making that blog what it became to be.
Back in December, i posted about The Old Navy Blonde on fubar and got quite a number of comments for it from my readers. I also managed to get a little more information on who she was.
A visitor of mine borrowed some of that information (and some pics too) and used it to build content for the Old Navy Blonde site he made.
(If you check the site, you'll see a number of mentions and links back to fubar)
He then posted the link to the blog in the comments section of my site. I figured that it was post worthy so i put it on the front page. From there, the link started to spread across the internet.
It then got picked up by Steve from adrants.com, another visitor of mine.
(who coincidently also picked up my Jojo hype post to use as a story on adrants)
So anyway, fast forward to the 2005 Super Bowl, and there i was, with nothing better to do, freshly enamoured by Mandy's 13 combined seconds of screentime in the two Pepsi/iTunes ads, reminded of the Old Navy Blonde blog, and so i decided to make a fansite for 'That Pepsi Girl'.
Downloaded the ads, took a bunch of screenshots and made the blog within an hour or so of the Super Bowl ending.
To make things a little funnier, i decided to give the blog an over the top obsessed fan vibe. Hence the over-obssessive borderline stalker behavior in the posts. Because we all like to laugh at sad obssessive internet stalkers. Don't we?
So i showed a couple of friends. Among them, Steve, from adrants. I told him about the joke blog that i'd made in honor of 'That Pepsi Girl' and said that he could post about it if he ever was having a slow day (a reference to a comment that he got when he first posted about the Old Navy Blonde blog, somebody was complaining about how it was probably a slow day at adrants for Steve to be posting about 'some dumb fansite')
Despite it being NOT a slow day at adrants (due to Super Bowl ads mania), Steve posted about my Pepsi Girl blog anyway (Thanks Steve).
And that's when it started to spread. Other ad critic sites picked up on the story and they began calling my Pepsi Girl blog a fake (!).
See, McDonalds ran an ad about some Lincoln Fry thing during the Super Bowl. And they set up a fake blog to go along with the Lincoln Fry TV spot.
When all the ad pundits saw my Pepsi Girl site, they automatically thought that Pepsi was behind it. Probably thinking that the 'fake' Pepsi Girl blog was supposed to go along with the Pepsi/iTunes spots.
So then there was this huge debate among online ad critics and marketing people about fake corporate blogs. AKA 'flogs'. Some of them believing that the blog was made by Pepsi and some of them debating whether the blog was really real. Or really fake. Or fake fake. Or fake real. Or whatever.
(update: ThatPepsiGirl used to be the first 'flog' on the list at the fake blogs wiki. But apparently it's not anymore. I guess they finally realized that it wasn't really a corporate blog and took down the link)
All the while, there i was laughing at the thought of having fooled most these ad and marketing people into thinking that the blog was Pepsi's creation, even though it was never my intention to do so in the first place.
But since everybody was talking about it, i figured i'd just play along and play up the whole 'guerilla marketing' angle and throw in a couple of joke posts plugging Pepsi and Apple. Just to fool people even more. And for most of the part, it worked!
I e-mailed Steve about it and even he thought it was funny.
But then it was time to let the cat out of the bag. And Steve revealed that the blog was NOT Pepsi's idea and that it was just a JOKE.
Now keep in mind that Steve NEVER said anything about the blog being made by Pepsi in the first place. Everyone else just assumed that it was. But the rumors still persisted. Despite having the truth revealed.
Anyhow, the Pepsi Girl blog started getting linked to by other blogs. Some of them ad related blogs, some of them regular blogs. And quite a number of them from Germany (!). The Pepsi Girl link then starts spreading from blog to blog, forum to forum, country to country. All within the first 3 days or so. Last time i checked, That Pepsi Girl has been seen in Japan, Germany, Italy, Thailand, France, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Canada, and Spain. The link pretty much spread all across the world. Which happens from time to time. You know how the internet works. The only thing that could've make it spread even further is if it ever gets /.ed or farked. Which probably won't happen.
So from ad sites... to technology sites. ThatPepsiGirl started showing up on Apple and iPod sites. And you know how Apple geeks can get when they see a cute girl in a commercial. Remember Ellen Feiss?
ThatPepsiGirl got so big that it even got a small mention on MSNBC.com. And Wired.com. And Gizmodo.com. ThatPepsiGirl was EVERYWHERE. On sites both big and small. And thus, Mandy became to be known the world over.
So where will the site go from here? Not sure really. There's only so much one can do with a novelty site like that. I'll probably leave it up but i don't know if i'll be updating it forever. But i'll try. It really depends on how much content i can get to post up. Maybe i can turn it into a proper fansite or something somewhere down the line. We'll see what happens.
Now obviously i'm not really in love with Mandy or anything like that. But i do think she's beautiful and she definitely deserves to be a bigger star. Forget about the 'me' aspect of the blog. I didn't make the site for myself. And it's not supposed to be about some 'crazy internet stalker'. It's supposed to be about That Pepsi Girl. I made it for her. Mandy.
So here's to her being that much more famous as a result of the blog. And hopefully we'll get to see more of her in the near future.
Keep an eye out for mandyamano.com too. Which will be her official website once it's up and running.
So if you're here, that means you're probably interested in knowing what the hell is up with that blog. Is it real? Is it fake? Who the hell is this Justin guy anyway? This is probably gonna be long so all you tl;dr fuckers might as well stop reading and go back to thinking whatever it was you were thinking about my Pepsi Girl blog.
Anyhow.
Sorry to burst your bubble people but despite what you believe... or want to believe..., the truth is, this isn't a fake blog. Nor is it really a real blog either.
...
Perhaps an explanation is in order.
First, here are some quick bulletpoint facts:
So. Is the blog real or fake? It's actually a little bit of both. And maybe more.
I think Susan Getgood said it best when she said:
Pepsi Girl blog wasn't covertly sponsored by Pepsi, so not "fake" in that sense. According to the latest info from AdRants, Pepsi apparently had nothing to do with it, but it was developed as a joke. So it wasn't authentic, or "real" as we have come to expect of blogs. But does that make it fake?
Point is... everything on that blog was meant to be a joke. With exception, of course, of the whole 'promoting' of Mandy Amano, which i'm doing sincerely...
...just in a really weird way.
So no, THATPEPSIGIRL.BLOGSPOT.COM IS NOT A REAL 'STALKERBLOG'.
All the 'obsessed stalker' style posts were made to elicit the very reactions that i predicted TENS OF THOUSANDS of you would have.
So if any of you thought that the blog was either:
...then that means i have succeeded in exactly what i set out to do by all counts. And that was to either make people laugh at the absurdity (those who you who got the joke) or to make people go WTF!? THIS GUY IS CRAZY (you know who you are, oh and by the way, you all suck for not getting the joke and taking things SoOoOoOo seriously. come on now...).
Truth is, i'm actually no stranger to making popular websites and buzzworthy posts.
And causing a little controversy every now and then.
I'm actually the creator of thatsjustnotright.com (aka fubar), a fairly popular blog/site that has over 17000+ registered forum members and averages between 15000 - 20000 hits a day (when i was still running it - more on this later). Which, i'm sure, is pretty 'small fry' compared to other larger sites out there, but hey, it's 'big' enough for me.
I've made numerous buzzworthy posts and 'scoops' in the 5 or so years i've been posting at that site. Posts that have been picked up by even bigger sites, like Gawker and Fleshbot. For example, i was the one who broke the Lindsay Lohan nip slip story, the one who made Psycho Girl (in)famous, the one who provided the definitive post on all things Libby Hoeller; amongst numerous other major (and minor) internet/celeb related 'scandals' and stories.
And i've also been known to help create online buzz for up and coming stars. Examples of celebs that i've helped hype up through the posts i've made on my site (before they got really famous) are Avril Lavigne, Lillix and Jojo. I hyped them up so much that news of my hype making eventually got back to them.
And as a result, Jojo and Lillix even stopped by to visit my site and leave comments on the posts i made about them.
Unfortunately, i can't really prove any of this to you right now because i no longer run thatsjustnotright.com. I recently retired from posting on there and sold the site to my host. So it's all under new management as of February 1st 2005. And any new content and changes since then weren't made by me.
Oh and i also deleted all my posts and archives off the site after i left. Which is why i can't actually show you that i'm not lying. But hey, if you ask any of the regular visitors that still frequent the site, they'll probably be able to tell you that it all really happened.
(update: i got a new domain name and restarted my site. it's over at dontlinkthis.com now. yes, intentional irony. and be warned, it's might be offensive to most people. it's not called fubar for nothing yanno..)
By the way, if any of you are wondering about the similarities between my Pepsi Girl blog and the Old Navy Blonde blog, it's probably because i also had a small hand in making that blog what it became to be.
Back in December, i posted about The Old Navy Blonde on fubar and got quite a number of comments for it from my readers. I also managed to get a little more information on who she was.
A visitor of mine borrowed some of that information (and some pics too) and used it to build content for the Old Navy Blonde site he made.
(If you check the site, you'll see a number of mentions and links back to fubar)
He then posted the link to the blog in the comments section of my site. I figured that it was post worthy so i put it on the front page. From there, the link started to spread across the internet.
It then got picked up by Steve from adrants.com, another visitor of mine.
(who coincidently also picked up my Jojo hype post to use as a story on adrants)
So anyway, fast forward to the 2005 Super Bowl, and there i was, with nothing better to do, freshly enamoured by Mandy's 13 combined seconds of screentime in the two Pepsi/iTunes ads, reminded of the Old Navy Blonde blog, and so i decided to make a fansite for 'That Pepsi Girl'.
Downloaded the ads, took a bunch of screenshots and made the blog within an hour or so of the Super Bowl ending.
To make things a little funnier, i decided to give the blog an over the top obsessed fan vibe. Hence the over-obssessive borderline stalker behavior in the posts. Because we all like to laugh at sad obssessive internet stalkers. Don't we?
So i showed a couple of friends. Among them, Steve, from adrants. I told him about the joke blog that i'd made in honor of 'That Pepsi Girl' and said that he could post about it if he ever was having a slow day (a reference to a comment that he got when he first posted about the Old Navy Blonde blog, somebody was complaining about how it was probably a slow day at adrants for Steve to be posting about 'some dumb fansite')
Despite it being NOT a slow day at adrants (due to Super Bowl ads mania), Steve posted about my Pepsi Girl blog anyway (Thanks Steve).
And that's when it started to spread. Other ad critic sites picked up on the story and they began calling my Pepsi Girl blog a fake (!).
See, McDonalds ran an ad about some Lincoln Fry thing during the Super Bowl. And they set up a fake blog to go along with the Lincoln Fry TV spot.
When all the ad pundits saw my Pepsi Girl site, they automatically thought that Pepsi was behind it. Probably thinking that the 'fake' Pepsi Girl blog was supposed to go along with the Pepsi/iTunes spots.
So then there was this huge debate among online ad critics and marketing people about fake corporate blogs. AKA 'flogs'. Some of them believing that the blog was made by Pepsi and some of them debating whether the blog was really real. Or really fake. Or fake fake. Or fake real. Or whatever.
(update: ThatPepsiGirl used to be the first 'flog' on the list at the fake blogs wiki. But apparently it's not anymore. I guess they finally realized that it wasn't really a corporate blog and took down the link)
All the while, there i was laughing at the thought of having fooled most these ad and marketing people into thinking that the blog was Pepsi's creation, even though it was never my intention to do so in the first place.
But since everybody was talking about it, i figured i'd just play along and play up the whole 'guerilla marketing' angle and throw in a couple of joke posts plugging Pepsi and Apple. Just to fool people even more. And for most of the part, it worked!
I e-mailed Steve about it and even he thought it was funny.
But then it was time to let the cat out of the bag. And Steve revealed that the blog was NOT Pepsi's idea and that it was just a JOKE.
Now keep in mind that Steve NEVER said anything about the blog being made by Pepsi in the first place. Everyone else just assumed that it was. But the rumors still persisted. Despite having the truth revealed.
Anyhow, the Pepsi Girl blog started getting linked to by other blogs. Some of them ad related blogs, some of them regular blogs. And quite a number of them from Germany (!). The Pepsi Girl link then starts spreading from blog to blog, forum to forum, country to country. All within the first 3 days or so. Last time i checked, That Pepsi Girl has been seen in Japan, Germany, Italy, Thailand, France, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Canada, and Spain. The link pretty much spread all across the world. Which happens from time to time. You know how the internet works. The only thing that could've make it spread even further is if it ever gets /.ed or farked. Which probably won't happen.
So from ad sites... to technology sites. ThatPepsiGirl started showing up on Apple and iPod sites. And you know how Apple geeks can get when they see a cute girl in a commercial. Remember Ellen Feiss?
ThatPepsiGirl got so big that it even got a small mention on MSNBC.com. And Wired.com. And Gizmodo.com. ThatPepsiGirl was EVERYWHERE. On sites both big and small. And thus, Mandy became to be known the world over.
So where will the site go from here? Not sure really. There's only so much one can do with a novelty site like that. I'll probably leave it up but i don't know if i'll be updating it forever. But i'll try. It really depends on how much content i can get to post up. Maybe i can turn it into a proper fansite or something somewhere down the line. We'll see what happens.
Now obviously i'm not really in love with Mandy or anything like that. But i do think she's beautiful and she definitely deserves to be a bigger star. Forget about the 'me' aspect of the blog. I didn't make the site for myself. And it's not supposed to be about some 'crazy internet stalker'. It's supposed to be about That Pepsi Girl. I made it for her. Mandy.
So here's to her being that much more famous as a result of the blog. And hopefully we'll get to see more of her in the near future.
Keep an eye out for mandyamano.com too. Which will be her official website once it's up and running.
Well look at that. See on the internet you can't even trust that the "psychos" are really psychos. Well you have done a hell of a job, especially with, as you said, a little blogspot site. I am sure the girl the commercial will reap some of the benefits also. A little buzz, especially in what she does, never hurt anyone. I had heard of thatsjustnotright.com before. I think I have seem some links from The Superficial and Gawker tracking back there. Nice job.
Not a bad way for a student to spend some free time at all.
- angryhamster.com (via e-mail)
posted by Justin @ 7:00 PM
