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.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I agree with your first response. Wha??
Definitely a lot of “Wha?” – but hey, at least they have token geek totty… right?
Even us internal folks are mortified–simply mortified. You’d think with the coffers full of money that we could hire decent PR firms… I don’t know why I’m shocked every time this happens.
“I’m a PC…and I don’t think that was funny.”