Author: Clara Posner

Categories
Digital Culture Marketing

hellofriend: Mr. Robot and Social Media Marketing

While reading Lousia Stein’s Gossip Girl: Transmedia Technologies, I found myself wondering how my favorite TV shows use social media to effectively market themselves to mass audiences. Stein explores the relevance of social media within the narrative of Gossip Girl, but also how the show implements a line of transmedia extensions to attract viewers, using the example of a Social Climbing Facebook Game. I was intrigued by the elaborate depiction of digital culture, but I wanted to find another example of this type of marketing campaign. After conducting a quick internet search, I decided to focus on the show Mr. Robot. 

Outsider ⇝ Elliot Alderson ; Mr. Robot - Who is Mr. Robot? - Wattpad

Mr. Robot is a drama thriller that follows Elliott Anderson, a young programmer who works as a cyber-security engineer by day and as a vigilante hacker by night. Elliot finds himself at a crossroads when he gets recruited by a hacktivist group called society to help take down a company called E Corp, which is an all-powerful multinational conglomerate.  

Mr. Robot F Society Vinyl Car Sticker | Mr robot, Robot logo, Mr robot logo

For a show about a vigilante hacker, the Internet seems like the perfect place to launch a groundbreaking campaign and that’s exactly what happened. When marketing the premiere of the second season of Mr. Robot, the USA network went all out, attempting to bring the fans into the world of the show. The marketing consisted of hyper-targeted Twitter and Facebook ads to reach niche audiences, which appealed to various interests ranging from tech to comic books. In addition, the network released a series of online advertisements that declared “F— Social Media” and “F— the System”, in which the curse word is not spelled out and blocked by star Rami Malek. Not only do these advertisements consist of bold statements, but they serve as a spot-on introduction to the show.  

Is Mr. Robot really serious about the issues it exposes? - SiliconANGLE

A significant part of Mr. Robot’s second season campaign was done on Facebook, starting on July 7th, when the Mr. Robot Facebook page was “hacked” by the fictional group society for 24 hours. They ended up broadcasting 11 customized global rants via Facebook Live, following distinct tones and aesthetics from Mr. Robot. They also used paid promotion to target certain demographics, so each live video was tailored to localized current events, languages, and politics. Three days before the premiere of season two, USA Network hosted a Q&A with the cast on Facebook Live. After 15 minutes, the interview was “hacked” by a masked member of society, who “leaked” the first episode of the two-part season premiere. The premiere of the show ended up being available for a limited time on Twitter, Snapchat, Netflix, and USANetwork.com. 

USA just dropped Mr. Robot's season 2 premiere on social media | TechCrunch

Not only did this social media campaign encourage audience engagement, but it effectively captured the essence of Mr. Robot. Instead of just posting ads on social media, the team behind “Mr. Robot” produced interactive campaigns that brought themes and conflicts from the series to life.

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Uncategorized

Transforming The Traditional Sitcom: Applying Mittell to Community

After reading Mittell’s “A Cultural Approach to Television Genre Theory”, which emphasizes the negotiation between specificity and generality with genre studies, I wanted to know how this concept would be applied to Community, one of my favorite TV shows. Community is often categorized as a sitcom (or at least a satire of one) and follows the main character, Jeff Winger, a lawyer who is disbarred for faking his undergraduate degree and must enroll in a “community college” in order to resume his career. He is surrounded by a motley crew of students, who fit into various narrative archetypes, ranging from the tense perfectionist to the arrogant athlete.

Despite being referred to by popular media outlets as a sitcom and/or comedy, the show incorporates various non-comedic genres, structuring the narrative around tropes and conventions from TV, movies, and pop culture in general. There is so much going on within Community that placing the show under the label of a singular genre would be an overgeneralization. In order to apply media genres to the show, I decided to follow Mittell’s idea of narrowing the analysis to focus on a “specific aspect of a genre’s definition, meaning, history, or cultural value”, which avoids the “problems of overgeneralization that have been typical of more traditional genre studies, as well as acknowledge that genres are too multifaceted and broad to be understood in their totality”(70). In particular, I think a significant component of genre analysis within Community is its use of cinematic language and cultural references. Not only is Community about the semiotics of the sitcom and the tropes of almost every single genre, but it touches on the shared culture that the audience brings to the show.

Since it would be challenging to pick up every single allusion to literature and pop culture, every viewer is able to find their own path through the series. Each episode is a unique riddle, which allows the audience to find personal significance in the content. By engaging the audience through various cultural references, Community reifies sitcom conventions and connects them to the lives of viewers themselves.

Categories
Aesthetics Killing Eve Spy Thiller

If Looks Could Kill: The Ethics Behind The Fashion in Killing Eve

Type ‘Killing Eve‘ into Google and you’ll get everything: Twitter-based controversies over queerbaiting; fashion breakdowns in Vogue; video essays on the history of psychopathy and investigation.

For those unfamiliar, the show focuses on Eve Polastri, a bored American MI5 worker, who is assigned to track down the talented, psychopathic assassin Villanelle. As the chase progresses, the two develop a mutual obsession. The presentation of the cat-and-mouse relationship between an investigator and criminal is used as a site to explore conventional social morals. Since this form of storytelling has often been dominated by masculinity, Killing Eve portrays the classic assassin genre in a new light, with dynamic, female leads. Despite being complete opposites, both the protagonist and antagonist are successful yet flawed, dismantling the stereotype of the “perfect women”.

Major themes within this female-led dual narrative can be displayed through the fashion choices of Eve and Villanelle. Throughout the show, Eve describes herself as liking to observe others but not interested in being seen. This can be manifested in the style of her clothes, which tend to be simple and particle, consisting mostly of dull colors. Her fashion can be interpreted as defiance towards the male gaze, rejecting a prominent characteristic of many women portrayed in mainstream TV.

In contrast, Villanelle enjoys being observed by others, but on her own terms. Her fashion sense is bright, loud, and attention-seeking. Despite looking like she just stepped out of a magazine, her entire identity doesn’t revolve around her sexuality and physical appearance. She finds power in knowing she is beautiful but also knowing she is intelligent and can use her mind to manipulate everyone around her. Tailored suits are an iconic part of Villanelle’s style, clearly displaying both her power and the reversal of traditional gender roles in media.

The obsession between Eve and Villanelle is also largely played out with clothes, potentially indicating the presence of a female gaze within Killing Eve. An example of this is when Eve travels to Berlin following a lead, Villanelle steals her suitcase and replaces the contents with brand new, decadent garments. This can be interpreted as an attempt by Villanelle to manipulate Eve into understanding her own beauty. Eve is being seen, but she is being seen by another woman.

The relationship between the main characters and their fashion displays the way in which TV can be simultaneously aesthetic and ideological. The audience has the opportunity to find deeper meaning in both Eve and Villanelle’s clothing, visually indicating how the foundation of the show is from a distinctly female perspective.

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