McDonalds and Fandom Replaced A Wiki Page With An Advertisement (kotaku.com) 43
An anonymous reader shares a report: Grimace, an ancient McDonalds character who -- recent marketing blitz aside -- may be so unknown among younger readers they will actually need to consult a website to find out who the hell he is, has for a very long time had an extensive page up over at the unofficial McDonalds Wiki. Until this week, at least, when McDonalds paid the site's owners to temporarily replace Grimace's biography with a paid advertisement.
Let's be clear up front: the original biography, written by critic, writer and digital marketer Nathan Steinmetz, aka Humanstein, isn't the most important piece of historical information on the internet. Doing exactly what it needed to do, it served as an introduction to the character himself, before also (this was the real highlight) delving into real-life matters like Malaysian Happy Meals, records of his public appearances and a list of the people who had voiced the character and worn the purple suit. Or it did, until it started looking like this instead. At time of writing the page had been completely hijacked, Nathan's research wiped and replaced with reminders that people can go buy a Grimace meal at McDonalds and play a video game based on the character. The wiki's changelog says the swap is temporary, running "for the length of this [advertising] campaign." [...]
Let's be clear up front: the original biography, written by critic, writer and digital marketer Nathan Steinmetz, aka Humanstein, isn't the most important piece of historical information on the internet. Doing exactly what it needed to do, it served as an introduction to the character himself, before also (this was the real highlight) delving into real-life matters like Malaysian Happy Meals, records of his public appearances and a list of the people who had voiced the character and worn the purple suit. Or it did, until it started looking like this instead. At time of writing the page had been completely hijacked, Nathan's research wiped and replaced with reminders that people can go buy a Grimace meal at McDonalds and play a video game based on the character. The wiki's changelog says the swap is temporary, running "for the length of this [advertising] campaign." [...]
That'll teach him (Score:4, Insightful)
To contribute content for free to some commercial site.
Re: (Score:2)
Simple: Fork the content to your own site.
God Bless Hrvoje Niksic, et al.
As Whoopi Goldberg once said... (Score:2, Funny)
... "Girl's gotta eat.".
If McD's politely asked, or paid him, to make the change as a part of their ad campaign, and he's free to make the change back once the campaign is over.. What's the beef? Seeing pretty much a nutt'n burger here.
It's not like Apple's trying to trademark, patent and copyright you know.. ACTUAL APPLES.
"Where's the beef" is Wendy's (Score:2)
What's the beef?
Careful, or you might have off-brand Pippi Longstocking [wikipedia.org] breathing down your neck.
Ummm... (Score:2)
I feel like the next picture is of everyone enjoying tall glasses of McDonalds orange drink, and the picture of that is a bunch of dead bodies laying face down in their Big Macs.
Re:Ummm... (Score:4, Interesting)
Typical hate propaganda (Score:5, Insightful)
"McDonalds paid the site's owners to temporarily replace Grimace's biography with a paid advertisement."
"At time of writing the page had been completely hijacked"
Only in Propaganda World does the owner of a web site making a voluntary change count as hijacking.
"Wah, wah, wah, I can't control what someone else does with the web site they own! Somebody change my diaper!"
What happened to "my network, my rules"?
Re: (Score:3)
What happened to "my network, my rules"?
This is the internet; that only applies to stuff I agree with.
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Preceisely.
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Nobody out there is claiming that Fandom does not have the right to change the page, just that it feels kinda wrong, as the wiki contributor put it:
“But I am an avid wiki reader and have half a dozen bookmarked. If you want the rundown on the continuity of Doctor Who audio dramas or all the pop culture references in an episode of the Venture Bros you pretty much have to go to a Fandom wiki. I think these wikis are an incredibly important resource and it just feels really gross that any company can ste
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On the other hand the Fandom wiki is hosting all sorts of content that probably violates all kinds of copyrights... The fact that any of it exists at all is because of the owners good graces.
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If an owner of said copyright ever got into their mind that the Fandom content was harmful to their property, it would disappear promptly.
I'm reminded of Beatallica. They mashed up the Beatles and Metallica. They were about to be crushed by the recording industry when Lars Ulrich got involved. Apparently the members of that band liked the mashups, so they got them a record deal. All was well and good for a while, until a new administrator took over the Beatles catalog, a purist. He refused to license t
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Seriously? Are we thinking of the same Lars Ulrich? You know... Hilly Rosen and the RIAA's little quisling errand boy?
What happened? Did he drop Molly that day and temporarily become something other than the complete shithead he's otherwise always been?
Re: (Score:2)
Yup. I think he took all the hate he got about Napster personally and decided to be less of a jerk. Also, Beatallica was reasonably funny and also talented. "Sandman" to the tune of "Tax Man" was pretty excellent.
In my day trolling meant something! (Score:2)
I think trolling DarkOx is admirable but please make an effort. Tell us why DarkOx is a faggot piece of shit in an amusing way. Maybe use ChatGPT to write a story, song, or poem about DarkOx.
Really it’s a wonderful time to be a troll so there’s no excuse for this.
Re:Typical hate propaganda (Score:5, Insightful)
"McDonalds paid the site's owners to temporarily replace Grimace's biography with a paid advertisement."
"At time of writing the page had been completely hijacked"
Only in Propaganda World does the owner of a web site making a voluntary change count as hijacking.
"Wah, wah, wah, I can't control what someone else does with the web site they own! Somebody change my diaper!"
What happened to "my network, my rules"?
"my network, my rules" is fine.
But it's important to remember that any site driven by user-content is also subject to an emergent informal social contract between the site and users.
A big part of that is the users understanding how the site will use and treat their content when they contribute it. Some of that is built into the site legalese, but it's mostly just an informal understanding of how the site will present and use that data.
So yeah, the owners of Fandom are fully within their rights to change the rules on the fly and violate the existing social contract.
But the users, and more importantly contributors to Fandom, are also within their right to get pissed off that the existing social contract was broken.
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Any implication that there might be legal action comes from your hallucinations, not me.
Get help. You need it. At least take a remedial course in reading English, or have an adult around to explain things to you.
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> What happened to "my network, my rules"?
Nothing. But the whole philosophical point is that wiki it is supposed to be an objective, neutral POV, reference backed up by appropriate citations. Throwing all that away and turning the site into a corporate billboard is certainly within the owner's rights. But it's antithetical to the whole point of a wiki and is not the contributors signed up for when they choose to write or edit wiki articles. It's basically a bad faith move on the part of the owner.
An
Re: Typical hate propaganda (Score:2)
Now if only we could summon that sort of energy for something a bit more useful. Naaaaah, much easier to fling my feces around and thump my chest because I was "right".
freedom of the press (Score:3)
Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.
--H.L. Mencken
An apropos biographical detail (Score:2)
His name was originally (and is apparently once more, I'm guessing from McDonalds' action):
"The Evil Grimace"
Re: (Score:1)
Presumably, at some point McDonald's learned how to do proper market-impact research, and presumably they found out that Grimace wasn't doing anything really great for their advertising or image, because nobody could ever figure out what he was, and he wasn't cute or particularly interesting. Hamburglar is a far better villain character, for a whole collection of reasons.
And then, on top of th
Sad (Score:2)
McDonalds and Fandom Replaced A Wiki Page With An Advertisement
That made me grimace. I wonder if there's a meal I could buy that's designed to instill joy in its consumer.
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That made me grimace. I wonder if there's a meal I could buy that's designed to instill joy in its consumer.
A joy meal? Maybe, if you eat enough joy eggs [google.com] you could call it a meal.
I would pay money for a grimace meal (Score:1)
Either a human actor in a suit or some sort of purple being. I’d rip them limb from limb and enjoy their greasy industrial-quality-meat-fed goodness. Then maybe I’d head over to the ball pit and devour a few neglected children if I were still hungry.
Avoid the fries and drinks, totally worthless cheap calories.
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Fandom.com != Wikipedia. Yawn. (Score:2)
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A social media site suddenly changing policy and violating user expectations for cash in a new way is definitely tech news.
It's one thing for a free site to decide they don't like a user and discontinue an account.
It's quite another thing to _replace_ their content, a relatively definitive article on a topic, with a paid ad.
Both content creators and media companies should find this interesting news, as expectation management on both sides is key to such sites being viable.
Re: (Score:2)
A social media site suddenly changing policy and violating user expectations for cash in a new way is definitely tech news.
not only is it not tech news, its not even news!
My site, my rules - yes, with a "but" (Score:1)
Of course, if that's your page and you allow people to contribute free of charge and in the freedom of their time and what they want, of course you retain the right to change anything and everything they write whenever you want and replace it with whatever you choose.
You must be aware, though, that people will very likely not take that with a shrug. Of course I have no right to the page I contributed, and neither do I have any right to any of the content. But on the other hand, you want my contribution. Mor
Re: My site, my rules - yes, with a "but" (Score:2)
I find it odd that there seems to be this weird idea in a lot of businesses lately. That idea being "well now that I'm big enough, I can piss off those whose content *is the actual fucking product* on my site, be as greedy as I want and people should, at worst, look the other way. At best? Why they should cheer me on as I get rich off their work, duh!
I know I won't be saying this to anyone "important" at these places but uh...
Fuck you. What should happen is that your content creators should pull up stakes a
Old fart uses fandom, gets irked by nonsense (Score:2)
I use fandom to find out about...stuff...that I don't otherwise know from being old and out of touch of the popular and churn of the hoi polloi.
I give this story two eye-rolls, but would be unhappy... with seeing this if I just needed to know why a furry-joke punchline mentioned Grimace.
Disclosure, I am American. Mickey Mouse. Betty Grable. le 'ot Dog.
My opinion of Fandom justified again. (Score:2)
Favorite character (Score:2)