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I Love Bees Coming to an End

Posted by Zonk on from the dude-it's-a-hurricane-put-down-the-phone dept.

With the gold status of Halo 2, the ILoveBees performance will soon come to an end. Wired has an article discussing the meme in depth, and going into details about what exactly it is. If you haven't had a chance to experience the phenomenon yet, the article does a good job of laying it out. (Though the performance finale doesn't come until Halo 2's launch day.)

15 of 247 comments (clear)

  1. Uhh yeah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    It's just a marketing campain... whats the big deal?

    1. Re:Uhh yeah by garcia · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Well, Slashdot has become a marketing website for a prominent MP3 player, a certain browser, and various OSs that are not made by Bill Gates. Does that stop people from coming here? No.

      What it does do, though, is give us a place to bitch about it :)

    2. Re:Uhh yeah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, that really explains it.

      Rather than making people jump through a bunch of stupid hoops to hear an mp3 clip, why not just put the audio drama thingy online in one single downloadable file and let us listen to it? This is just fucking dumb and people who get into it are idiots for falling for geurilla marketing bullshit.

    3. Re:Uhh yeah by Destoo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Just don't buy the book and wait for the movie adaptation if that's your cup of tea.

      A lot more people probably checked out the story seeing they might get involved in its unfolding.

      --
      I for one welcome our new alternate-reality "majestic"-type puzzle making overlords.
      Then again, I've played Myst IV.

      --
      Nouvelles de jeux et technologies en français. TC
    4. Re:Uhh yeah by Auckerman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      For those of you who don't understand this kind of marketing:

      Two kinds of people will talk about it. First kind being those who "played" the game, with the second kind being everyone else going "wtf". In all cases, they will mention the game it advertises. Case in point, Slashdot just advertised Halo 2 for free, while pretending to be talking about something most people don't care about called "ILoveBees".

      Best kind of advertising gets people talking about the product. It's easy to go from a conversation about "it's just a (dumb) market campaign" to "Halo 2, that's coming out?!". Same thing with the subservient chicken website.

      Move on, nothing to see here.

      --

      Burn Hollywood Burn
    5. Re:Uhh yeah by barcodeplane · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You're telling someone that on slashdot...think about it...

  2. 'Meme' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Dude, I hate to tell you this - but 'meme' doesn't mean what you think it means.

    People just like to say "meme" I think. Sounds deep.

    1. Re:'Meme' by Vaevictis666 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      The proper mocking quote is:

      You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means.
      - Inigo Montoya

  3. Why do people use the word 'meme' so often? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The word 'meme' comes from some outdated bogus theory that the same ideas that drive genetic traits also drive ideas. While people would agree that there is superficial similarities, the ideas of memetics have largely been discredited for decades... only to have the word 'meme' resurrected by a bunch of "postmodern" pretentious weenies that seem to think that the word meme is hip.

    1. Re:Why do people use the word 'meme' so often? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I hate to be all postmodern (gawd, you have NO idea how much I hate it), but the use of the word "meme" could be valid.

      The primary reason is that words have no written-in-stone meaning. They mean what they're used to communicate. The origins of the word "meme" with memetic theory are a quaint dictionary footnote, much like the fact that terrific and horrific used to mean more-or-less the same thing. Now they don't. Things change.

      So meme, as it is currently used, is an idea. Not an idea for anything tangible like how to build a better mousetrap, but more of a way of looking at or describing the world--a "this is how things work" or "this is the way we should look at concept X". Often, these memes (see, I used it!) are completely bogus, but people like them because they sound nice, appeal to some logical design, or validate the way people felt about things from the beginning. The meme is distinct from other ideas in its ability to spread so easily. In comparison, scientific ideas require evidence to convince. Religious ideas often require wars to convince. Memes just hop from person to person.

      So I agree that the theory which coined the word meme was bogus. I also believe that most memes are pretty much bogus too. But I think there is a value in having the word. It's smaller than a paradigm, but bigger than a breadbox. You can use them in the predominant discourse about patriarchal hegemony. Well, I made that last bit up. I have to poke fun at postmodernists or I'll feel dirty from defending a word like "meme".

  4. WOW by seven5 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Now i know the ignorance level is at an all time high here at slashdot these days, but every single comment i just read full of it.

    "i went to that dumb website when it started, and its dumb. Its still dumb now. This advertisement is Dumb. Sorry i missed out on all the DUMB"

    While yes, it does amount to marketing, its way more than an advertisement. The sheer level of involvement in the people who produce an alternate reality game is enough to peak your interest. Try going to http://www.argn.com or http://www.unfiction.com and learning about what I Love Bees actually is and then bewilder us with your obsessive commentary.

    1. Re:WOW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The sheer level of involvement in the people who produce it is uninteresting. The sheer level of involvement in the people who play it is sad. Just think how much of your life you are wasting IN A FUCKING ADVERTISEMENT.

      And if you're going to try to do "viral marketing", it should at least be something people can join in and participate in. As every person I know who has visisted the site will attest - it's pointless. You go to the site, look around for a minute, figure "I can't figure out what the fuck I'm supposed to do or what to click or what this shit is" and then go to some other site and never think about this lame crap again.

    2. Re:WOW by garcia · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Now i know the ignorance level is at an all time high here at slashdot these days, but every single comment i just read full of it.

      "i went to that dumb website when it started, and its dumb. Its still dumb now. This advertisement is Dumb. Sorry i missed out on all the DUMB"

      Now while I see what you are saying and I agree with you at least as far as everyone hating everything... I have to say that marketing schemes have been popping up everywhere trying to get people involved and it seriously reminds me that you need to watch A Christmas Story more than once during its Thanksgiving -> Christmas Eve runs...

      "BE SURE TO DRINK YOUR OVALTINE"

      Remember that in this day and age we have pay-for radio play so that songs get boosted on the charts, we have Jeep getting involved with Geocaching to spread little yellow pieces of marketing trash around, and payphones ringing across the country just so people get excited about a product.

      How about you not get suckered in and you buy the product because it's superior not because the marketing gods have your brain by the balls.

  5. I sorta like bees... by OzKFodrotski · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't see why everyone is so up-in-arms about this thing. It was an alternative-reality advertising campaign for Halo 2. If you didn't get anything out of it, it probably wasn't for you. If you're a rampant conspiracy theorist like me, then you probably found it interesting. If you got into the story, answered some payphones, etc, then it was definitely meant for you.

    If you followed it every instant of every day, forfeiting sleep, food, and work time for the purpose of tracking it, then it probably means you need to get a significant other. ;)

  6. Re:players are retarded by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm not the one investing a significant portion of my precious life into AN ADVERTISEMENT and saying "oh, but the characters in the advertisement seem so real!".

    This is like getting involved in the old Maxwell House serial commercials where that couple met and fell in lover over coffee over a number of years of commercials - and actually being attatched to them and shit. It's sad and pathetic and I'm really afraid of what is going to happen with MTV and other groups get ahold of this idea. We're going to have twelve year olds spending all of their school time day dreaming and playing on their cell phones, texting each other to try and figure out some Pepsi and Snickers candy bar alternative reality game.