I just saw this video that Microsoft produced with tips to host your own Windows 7 launch party. It’s obviously a joke, as the piece is produced like an incredibly hokey infomercial with four perfectly casted actors (a white grandmother, a white mother, a white 30-something hipster, and a black 30-something hipster) all prepping for a Windows 7 launch party. Watch.
OK, tons of random stuff is shooting through my brain as I watched this.
- Wha?
- Is this supposed to be funny? I didn’t laugh. There are no obvious jokes or real funny situations.
- Why are they referencing Windows 7 capabilities that nobody has seen yet, and not showing them to us?
- Are they riding the line between serious and funny hoping that people like me will question it and write a blog post about it therefore to get conversation going and more free word of mouth advertising?
- Does this make me want to get Windows 7? How?
- Why does Microsoft constantly miss the boat when it tries to be “hip and funny?” Don’t they have enough money to hire talented comedy writers and comedy actors?
- Did the script of this video start out as funny and then someone in marketing gave it a humorectomy? (Tip of the hat to Joe Keefe who taught me that term when I was writing corporate comedy for Second City.)
Do you have some insight that I don’t have on this video? Help me out here. I’m really confused.
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