Was I supposed to read the text? Was I supposed to listen the 'crashing of waves' that suddenly played over my itunes? (which was playing 'love in this club' by usher---psych. just kidding.) Was I supposed to link to some an advertisement for clorox-- side note: isn't it a bit ironic that a bleach company is advertising on a green-centric, save the planet-style website? doesn't bleach kill the environment?
Anyway, after clicking the 'find out more' link (yes, i'm a sucker i know for even doing that) I discovered that I could (a) read about the greatness of the show (as reviewed by animal planet reporters, hmmm..) (b) tell a friend to watch the show (email them via yahoo) (c) watch a preview for the show (only after downloading media player x, y, or z) but not actually WATCH the whales. oh, and on the side of the screen I could click to learn how I could cruise to the Caribbean for under $300! -- because people who like watching whale-hunters get attacked obviously like the ocean and marine life and thus obviously like the Caribbean and thus clearly want to cruise there in a giant white prison ...(maybe even actually hitting and killing a few whales on the way and definitely dumping oil into the sea.)
As you can tell, I was underwhelmed by the site's blatant material focus and even more unimpressed by the fact that I couldn't watch WHALE WARS.
My quest continued though and I clicked on one of the dozen or so pull-down menu options at the top titled "videos" --> "watch entire episodes". At this point I was met by offers to watch shows on TLC, The Discovery Channel , or Animal Planet ---and told that I HAD to download "The Player".
I hate TV. and I hate it when it mixes with the web. so to add mandatory downloads and ads was not good .
I ended up watching a take2 version of Grizzly Man called "Living with the Wolfman".
Guess how it ended?
okay, so not as violently as Grizzly Man--but even my viewing experience online was marred by a mandatory show (however brief) of ads before I could watch it. And then some more at the end (and more links to click on for what to watch next.).
Did I do it? Ha. take a guess.
What did I think of HBO Voyeur?
Well, it did remind me of Rear Window (a trick I think was intentional on the part of the designers--> a way to say "oh, look how much we know about film. If you know as much as we do you will get this allusion and then we can smile about it together") and although the ads seemed more 'toned down', they really were just as present as ever.
No comments:
Post a Comment