“I’ll Buy You a Ham-BURGER When I Get Back From the TOOOOOOOMB!”

Around this time last year, I was completely caught up in Cloverfield and its viral marketing campaign.  There’s something captivating about a seemingly ordinary source of entertainment being enshrouded by puzzles and mysteries.  Not everyone can pull off publicity stunts like this (ex. Ruby Tuesday), but a new “campaign” has come forth.

On November 21, 2008, a website by the Milwaukee Tourism Commission appeared online and was accompanied by a video called, “This is My Milwaukee” (as seen above).  It becomes apparent early on that the eleven minute long film is obviously not made by the real Tourism Commission and most people would assume it’s just a spoof.  But if you rewatch the video and dig a little deeper, it’s evident that something much larger than “a bunch of film majors having fun” is at work.

Let’s start with the video.  It starts out by using the look and feel of a 90′s era cheesy promotional script, complete with shots of the city and people doing random happy things.  A “British” narrator does most of the talking and does his best to convince young professionals, former residents, families, and teens to come live and stay in Milwaukee.

Here’s where the weird stuff comes in.  Little sidenotes make it apparent that America, and perhaps the world, underwent a cataclysmic event and Milwaukee is among the few places where people can find safety.  However, there’s still a threat by Go.D.S.E.E.D. and its fragments.  The narrator says that Go.D.S.E.E.D. is locked away in a tomb underground and advises that teens stay in groups to ward off any attacking “fragments”.  There’s also a reoccuring theme of Voltaire and a heart-shaped plant called fennel, which is referred to as “the family tree”.  The video ends on a silly note with a treasure hunter who’s determined to raid Go.D.S.E.E.D.’s tomb, and is followed by the credits which are laced with crudely-drawn anime images and a stereotypical Jpop song.

Watching the video made me laugh, and I was curious to see if there were possibly more spoof videos done by this “group”.  I did a few Google searches and was surprised at the variety of results that showed up.  Many were for forums where other people were deep in analysis and speculation over the whole thing.  Then I noticed a link for a “This is My Milwaukee” wikipedia site and things turned from funny to bizzare.  Mymilwaukee.wikibruce.com lays out the big picture that you might miss if you only see the promo video.

Timeline of Events

On the original My Milwaukee website, there’s an email address, phone number and mailing address available.  Most people figured that the information was fake, but some decided to call the provided number to see what would happen.  Surprisingly, people actually answered the phone and they remained completely “in-character” and faithful to the video’s storyline.  These discussions led to further clues, videos, and images along with the creation of an “official” Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube page.

The “game” has moved even further into the real world by incorporating mystery items.  One of the puzzles led a person to the New York City Library where he found a note related to the game hiding in a book.  There was also a hidden clue at a cafe in San Francisco, California.  That is some serious planning going on, and I have a feeling that things are only going to get bigger from here on out.

Speculations and Theories

1. Viral Marketing – Many people think that My Milwaukee is some big viral campaign for an upcoming game or movie.  Cloverfield comes to mind since it was released in theatres around this time last year, and J.J. Abrams hinted that he’d be up for making a sequel.  Others think it’s related to Portal or Half Life, or it could be for a completely new project.  I’m hoping that this is for a movie, because all I have is a Wii and I doubt it’d be released on that if it’s a game. :\

2. ARG – No, not the sound.  It’s an acronym for Alternate Reality Gaming, a method that lets you play in a fictional world by utilizing things in real life.  My Milwaukee might not be an introduction for a game, but the game itself.  If so, you have to wonder how and why the people behind the scenes are doing this.  So far there’s been no fee to play along, and it has to be costly for the creators to pay website, phone and fax expenses.

3. I found this theory on an archive site, and it made a lot of sense to me.  Here’s a repost:

Milwaukee is already overrun. We don’t really know how this exactly works, but let’s look at the facts:
The Go.D.S.E.E.D was buried underground by the people who survived the destruction of milwaukee. Terry Nanny then sais: “They had hoped it would stay sealed up in the sarcophaugus etc etc”. They HAD HOPED. Makes it sounds like it didn’t stay buried at all, or at least won’t.

Another obvious hint towards this is how these people seem to have little to no understanding of how humans really work. The whole “teenagers” bit and everything else seems so fake and done by machines or something not living at all.

Moving on, what’s the deal with: “burying” the roots. Roots want to be buried, that’s how they grow, right? By burying them, you’re helping them grow.

Flare guns, also. Come on, flare guns? don’t plants WANT light? Rebreather? Photosynthesis, anyone?

Photosynthesis is a metabolic pathway that converts light energy into chemical energy. Its initial substrates are carbon dioxide and water;

so if the rebreather does what I think it does. (spews out carbon dioxhide) then that’s just cool for the plants.

Basically it seems to me that the whole video tells you exactly the opposite of what you SHOULD do for survival, but rather what you SHOULD do if you want the fragments to get you.  Furthermore they stress you should stay out of sector 21. Let’s not kid ourselves, they’re saying this because sector 21 is in some way their weakpoint. That’s why they don’t want you here. They also stress that you should move in groups most likely because if they do run into you, they can now kill or do whatever the fuck they do, to all of you, and all you’ll be equipped with is equipment that will only make it easier for them.

Moving on, at the very end of the video he mentions how everything regrows in the spring. I didn’t think too much about this until I read what Mike Russel had said to one of the people calling him up saying they wanted to move to milwaukee.

He advertized said person move there within 4 months because something really big was happening around spring.

The last odd thing about the video is the fact that it’s appearantly very dangerous to stay outdoors, yet the whole movie is filmed outdoors, which makes to belive it couldn’t have been made by the actual residents of milwaukee.

I agree with opinion that the people in the video probably aren’t real humans.  It’s revealed that the company of Blackstar (which just makes me automatically think of Soul Eater) is the one who caused the apocalyptic events to happen and this is their way of making amends.  I think it’s more like Go.D and its fragments are using Blackstar as a front in an effort to lure humans into their trap.  Another thing that’s been bugging me is the format of this campaign.  I feel like there’s a red herring in there somewhere that’s keeping people from seeing something that’s really crucial to the answers.

In any case, the My Milwaukee website has a countdown in its upper right corner which should end on January 16th.  Something big will definitely happen at midnight so I’d suggest checking it out.  In a funny way, all of this creeps me out more than the whole 2012 end of the world speculation.  Whoever is in charge is able to keep thousands of people following this campaign in line with only the smallest amount of clues and prompts.  It must be tiring to do something in real time like this.  I have to wonder how long this will go on, especially since one of the character’s Facebook profile had the current year as 2011 (and was promptly removed the next day).

Last Thoughts: The next pet I get will be named “Terry Nanny”.

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For more info, visit these sites:

http://thisismymilwaukee.com/

http://mymilwaukee.wikibruce.com/Home

http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/index.php?f=245