Ummm…okay then.
The nude photo leak threat targeting Emma Watson earlier this week turned out to be a viral marketing stunt by a site calling itself Rantic Marketing. Rantic claims to want to shut down the website 4chan, but the “social media marketing enterprise” may itself just be a hoax. The original website surrounding the false leaks, EmmaYouAreNext.com, threatened to release nude photographs of the 24-year-old actress and included a clock counting down to Saturday at midnight ET. The person who posted the website said it was in retaliation for Watson’s well-received speech that she gave at the United Nations on Sept. 20. However, by midnight on Wednesday, the URL redirected to Rantic Marketing’s website. Watson’s face and the countdown clock has been replaced with a banner that says, “#shutdown4chan” and an open letter to President Barack Obama that claims celebrity publicists hired the marketing company to popularize a call for Internet censorship and the end of 4chan. Initially, the threats were reportedly posted on the anonymous, forum-based website 4chan, which was previously the center of previous celebrity photo hacks. An earlier version of Rantic’s website claimed to have worked with such companies as McDonald’s and Rockstar Games.
So, let me see if I understand this: a marketing company was hired to launch an anti-nude leak campaign or whatever and their big plan was to scare the living shit of Emma Watson by pretending to be a person claiming to have nude pics of her just so they can shut down the site where this whole thing started? This company must have a lot of interns. If you’re gonna make your whole company interns, it’s probably best to let them post things that will get a lot of hits thereby making you more money that you don’t have to pay them. Things like, “14 Animals That Make You Wish You Had A Mustache” for instance.
