Apparently not. A syndicated article circulating through daily newspapers today reports that Miss Teen South Carolina's unforgettably embarrassing flub in last year's pageant has solicited (gasp) job offers from TV producers. Hopefully Lauren Caitlin Upton can remember her lines if a deal goes through.
Beyond my personal feelings about how terrible it is to reward mild stupidity with air time (a la Kellie Pickler and Jessica Simpson), this article highlights a phenomenon that shouldn't be ignored among PR professionals. It's the reason why Lauren is better known to many than the pageant winner, Miss Teen Colorado, Hilary Carol Cruz. According to the article, Lauren's "success" is "mainly due to the YouTube Web site's posting of her jumbled response to a question on why many Americans can't find the United States on a map. The 48-second clip received 19.9 million viewings and countless online imitations.
The very fact that months later I am writing about the new "L.C." goes to show how YouTube can make someone/something POP! If YouTube can turn a bumbling beauty queen's 48-seconds of fame into calls from The "Today" Show, imagine what it has yet to do for us PR peeps. So what do you think? Is there such a thing as bad press?
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Is there such a thing as bad press?
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2 comments:
Its beautiful... looking into her eyes is like looking into the deep, empty void of space.
A very interesting topic. Some say all press is good press, but that begs questions.
Example: Say there was a story on someone breaks a code who works for the N.S.A.? The guy is real happy, 'cause he did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people readers of that article never met, never had a no problem with get killed. Now the politicians are sayin', "Oh, Send in the marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some kid from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes back to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices. A cute little ancillary benefit for them, but it ain't helping the reader’s buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back of course, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So now our buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive, so he's got to walk to job interviews, which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State.
So was that good press on the N.S.A.? I'd hold out for somethin' better. Maybe a story on a guy who just shot his buddy, took his job, gave it to his sworn enemy, hiked up gas prices, bombed a village, clubbed a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and joined the National Guard? He could even be elected president.
All in all, not all press is necessarily good press.
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