Mainstream Press "Cringes" At Win7 Launch Parties 830
lurking_giant writes "Well, Microsoft has done it again with the YouTube Windows 7 launch party video that is turning the stomachs of even the mainstream press with its clueless and campy marketing style. A Washington Post reader was quoted as saying 'If Microsoft had been put in charge of marketing sex, the human race would have ended long ago, because no one would be caught dead doing something that uncool.'" Even the Guardian's resident die-hard Apple hater calls it "the most nauseating advert in history."
First post... (Score:5, Funny)
I see everyone else is catatonic from watching the video.
Funny. (Score:5, Funny)
Come on, this video is complex, challenging art.
Corny Much... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Microsoft is pure genius (Score:5, Funny)
wait until you try the OS.
YouTube Comments Disabled (Score:5, Funny)
I like how they disabled comments on the video.
Because, of course, the video's obvious coolness needed no acknowledgment from the viewers.
Look at the Bright Side (Score:5, Funny)
So Microsoft will have to put with questionable content and I'll be there to vote it up and love it. Example:
*man sits behind TV set with only shoulders and head visible and upper arm working vigorously while expressions of joy cross his face*
Narrator: So there I was watching some kitten snuff films before my friends arrived for the Win7 Launch party.
*doorbell rings, narrator gets up to open door behind which are three guys with sunglasses on and a white powder visibly smeared across their upper lips*
Narrator: Guys, what's the deal, where are the hookers?
Christian Slater Sounding Partier: Yeah, Fred, about that, we had a little accident. One of the hookers got a bit lippy and they're not gonna make it.
Narrator: They're coming later?
Christian Slater Sounding Partier: Just make sure you don't leave any fingerprints on your dumpster if you go there tonight.
Narrator: Awesome, well, you all brought your stolen laptops so let's fire 'em up and start doing something better than snorting coke and killing hookers: installing Win7.
Remember, it's not just the comments that are impressively stupid on YouTube. There's also videos. Opening up your company to a video contest? Yeah, I'll be searching YouTube for "Win7 Launch Party REJECTED."
New Weight Loss program Discovered (Score:5, Funny)
This is nothing new (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft has been making crappy promotional videos for years and years.
Take a look at this MS-DOS 5 video promotion, YO MS Raps! [youtube.com]
Ballmer tries to sell Windows 1.0 [google.com]
This is the Windows 386 launch video with the crazy female office worker turning from Mission Impossible later on into a punk rock and Madona combo? [google.com]
Oh my god did that suck!!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
fun times, fun times (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Im waiting for the President to weigh in... (Score:5, Funny)
A shooting spree at the local mall gets media attention too, but I wouldn't want it associated with my brand.
Tuppaware party? (Score:5, Funny)
It wasn't until I was 1/2 way through the video where it dawned on me that they were discussing throwing a party to introduce their friends to all the cool new things that Windows 7 can offer.
Either Microsoft is planning on selling Windows 7 like tuppaware or what I just watched was the introduction to a very bad porno.
Missed porn opportunity. (Score:2, Funny)
Come on, this video is complex, challenging art.
I was hoping to see a bunch of anal sex with the caption being, "Hey, you got it up the ass with Vista be prepared for Windows 7!"
Probably an emergency measure by Google... (Score:3, Funny)
I wonder why...
My guess is that they were originally enabled, but Google didn't have the bandwidth to process the torrent of 0.0 votes.
Ratings were disabled for the video (Score:3, Funny)
I wonder why, they were ashamed of it as soon as they posted it.
I actually watched the whole thing... you guys didn't, so you didn't see the older lady and the oldest lady erupt into passionate lesbian sex. The dudes pulled out weapons and began close-quarters combat. The video ended with the Mac guy emerging from stage right and saying "pwn3d".
Re:Missed porn opportunity. (Score:5, Funny)
S3x (Score:5, Funny)
Blue-Balls of Death, eh?
Re:First post... (Score:5, Funny)
After watching the clock on the oven behind them lurch around between 3:00 and 5:00 I have an awful headache, and my eyes and ears are starting to bleed. I think I need to find a constant.
Re:Oh my god did that suck!!!!! (Score:1, Funny)
"Mike, there's a call for you on line 1 ... someone answering your Craigslist ad for a dwarf. She says she prefers to be called a little person, but other than that she thinks there could be some chemistry between you, if you don't mind her adam's apple. Should I put her through or take a message?"
Re:Microsoft is pure genius (Score:5, Funny)
Read the Guardian article [guardian.co.uk]. What you're feeling is called "shitasmia".
Re:First post... (Score:5, Funny)
But seriously, what are Microsoft getting at? This is looking more and more like a cult thing than ever. Inviting friends over to preach to them about the virtues of Windows 7 so the unrepentant soul might offer sacrifices and money to the Microsoft god? I found the advert really eerie and unsettling...
I couldn't get the word 'scientology' out of my head when watching this... The church of Microsoftology - has a nice ring to it. Doctrines include Windowsology (overarching doctrine which includes many sub-doctrines and principals including DOSomatics, BSODology and Restartology) amongst many others.
Its Ballmerific!
Fools (Score:5, Funny)
Windows 7 themed jello shots, strippers and potato cannons.
You can thank me later.
Get the stones again (Score:3, Funny)
The start me up campaign was pretty good if I remember.
Get AC/DC or something. Something Thunderstruck or Back in Black.
Then go hire a music video guy to do some funky video where everyone's face turns into a window.
Why is this so hard?
Re:What's the target audience think? (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft is the new Tupperware?
Re:Corny Much... (Score:3, Funny)
Black Guy: "Can you believe Microsoft put the launch of windows 7 in our hands?!"
Group: *laughs*
Black Guy: "Are they nuts or what?!"
Group: *laughs*
White Guy: "(maybe|only)*** by letting you be involved!"
Group: "ooh harsh!"
If only they had followed up with
Black Guy: *pounds White Guy for being a jerk*
White Guy: *screams like a girl while blood gushes from his nose*
Women: *laughs*
it would have avoided
Me: *pukes*
***unintelligible
Re:First post... (Score:5, Funny)
Obligatory XKCD (Score:5, Funny)
http://xkcd.com/51/ [xkcd.com]
Re:What's the target audience think? (Score:3, Funny)
Fortunately I don't have to use it. I have Debian.
This is the part where you hop on your motorcycle and wheelie the f out of there, right? RIGHT!?!?
Exactly what they wanted. (Score:4, Funny)
Someone needs to do a Linux party video.... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Im waiting for the President to weigh in... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:This is nothing new (Score:3, Funny)
"Except in Nebraska!"
Crap. I wish they'd saved that restriction until now so I could avoid this latest iteration.
Re:Clock! (Score:5, Funny)
It's the new episode from Brannon Braga!
http://www.hulu.com/watch/97929/flashforward-no-more-good-days [hulu.com]
"For 2 minutes and seventeen seconds, we all blacked out..." ... in the future!"
"We didn't black out sir, we were
"What did you see?"
"It was too horrible to talk about."
"Come on honey... What was it?"
"I was STILL at the release party!"
Re:Probably an emergency measure by Google... (Score:5, Funny)
lol (Score:2, Funny)
Re:First post... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:First post... (Score:5, Funny)
This is your party...
This is your party on Windows 7...
Re:First post... (Score:4, Funny)
HA HA!!!! Yes, the video sucked, but I found cool links!! And, I got a new sig!!!
I LOVE this story!
Re:First post... (Score:4, Funny)
Competition between OS's?
Doesn't that break the party's TOS?
Re:First post... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:First post... (Score:2, Funny)
Let's pick and choose some quotes from the video. Are we talking about the launch of an OS here, or kinky new toys for a swingers' party?
Look at the activities you and your guests can try at your party, and choose the ones that seem to you to be the most fun. There's a video of each activity from one of our parties, and we have tried them all, right?
Some of the host notes, they list bonus activities... But you may wanna try them, but you have to make sure you have the right devices at hand.
I mean, it's a good way to get things going, right? Whatever your party is, you got four separate videos of each of us doing bits and pieces of this kind of thing at our own parties...
You figure out what your guests want, and maybe just play it by ear! In any event, we each did an activity or two.
I mean, bottom line, guests love it when the activity is about them. Hey another thing, I found that it really helped to name the person to be first with the hands-on activity, and have them pick the next person, and so on and so on.
Some activies have a ... modest setup, you know, they require certain things for you to have at the house.
In any case, none of the setup is too hard, right? You need to make sure that you're ready to go when your guests arrive and, there are bonus activities in some cases and, you wanna go deeper perhaps into it then you have to have the equipment to do that.
I think the biggest thing is to be totally creative with the party and the activities. I mean, this is your party!
Have fun out there!
Re:Ratings were disabled for the video (Score:3, Funny)
Now THAT would be a party!
Re:It looks like even they know it sucks... (Score:3, Funny)
Or the interns they gave the police escort to. What no one talked about was that it was actually a prisoner transport.
Re:First post... (Score:5, Funny)
The clock on the oven kinda reminds me of the estimated-time-remaining clock on a windows file copy dialog.
xkcd:
http://xkcd.com/612/ [xkcd.com]
Re:What's the target audience think? (Score:4, Funny)
Microsoft is the new Tupperware?
Tupperware: Hard to open and full of food that was new a long time ago.
Windows: Slow to open and full of stuff that was new a long time ago (on Macs).
So pretty much true, exept without the freshness.
Re:Microsoft is pure genius (Score:5, Funny)
What you're overlooking is that you have no idea the circumstances under which he's using it. He could be using it in a virtual machine. He could be dual-booting with another OS. He could actually be using the beta for its intended purpose: to test it. To see if he can break it. To see if it's actually functional. You have no way of knowing what other systems he's using, or what other computers he's got.
I originally had debian, xp, and openbsd running on my three main computers. I found that in order to hack the gibsons I needed more power, so I installed my zero-day windows 7 on all of them. With my newly acquired megahertz I just cruised right through the firewalls, disabled the ai, and floated off into cyberspace.
I hope this clears things up. Now can I come back to the Slashdot cool table?
Top 10 Windows 7 Launch Party games! (Score:5, Funny)
Apologies in advance to David Letterman:
* Pin the tail on the Ballmer
* Simon says "UAC needs your permission to continue"
* Monopoly
* Your files in a haystack
* Twenty clippy questions
* Musical thrown chairs
* Darl McBride pinata
* Red Light, Green Light, Blue Screen
* DRM may I?
* Phone Home Scruples
Re:First post... (Score:5, Funny)
There is a simple explanation. While you are watching the video time ceases to have any meaning. The laws of physics and nature are rent asunder and you are thrown into a reality in which only you and that video exists.
What you may, or may not, realize... is that the clock is different for every person. It represents an unconscious awareness of something very wrong.
Be happy you have seen the clock. Sadly, some people don't even see it and don't even realize what has happened to them. Like many poor victims they have been traumatically wrenched from this reality and cannot understand, will not understand, what has happened to them. Shoved violently across existence into a sea of un-time they will experience this state of agony forever.
A work of evil worthy of the old gods it is.
Re:First post... (Score:5, Funny)
"One table top centerpiece for decoration"
A centerpiece? A fucking centerpiece? Really?
The BSD party kit is so much easier. Weed and sunglasses.
Re:First post... (Score:2, Funny)
That suggests a great marketing strategy for Linux: Throw Linux kegger parties next door to the W7 parties. Motto: Get smashed with Tux. [kegel.com]
Re:First post... (Score:5, Funny)
A work of evil worthy of the old gods it is.
They are among us and they are on the internet.
Let me tell you a story.
Stacy Griffith, 15, liked frequenting chat rooms online. One day, she met a funny, goofy boy who was deep and intelligent. They talked all the time and eventually, they decided they were going to meet up at a mall in Stacy's home town.
Only when they met, Stacy realized he was no boy.
It was motherfucking Cthulhu. Holy fucking shit.
5,000 Americal girls lose their sanity to Cthulhu each year. Stop online predatation from Great Old Ones before it can start. Educate your children about Cthulhu today.
(Seen on Wil Wheaton's blog [typepad.com].)
Re:First post... (Score:3, Funny)
Not if it's rigged.
Re:First post... (Score:3, Funny)
Stronger solutions may increase the rate of rehydration, but can lead to runaway exothermic parties. Discretion is advised.
Re:First post... (Score:4, Funny)
But everyone knows that only Windows XP runs a netbook properly, there's no way you'd get Ubuntu to work a webcam unless it was at 2fps, in grainy black and white and with no sound.