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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: Cloverfield (1-18-08) » Cloverfield: General / Updates
[INFO] IMDB forum re:slusho shirts...
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1-18-08.livejournal.com
Boot

Joined: 25 Jul 2007
Posts: 53

 		Re: Ah Hum
tinag222 wrote:
DISCLAIMER: (<---emphasis, not yelling) SCUSEMOI PRETTY PLEASE.

I just wanna clarify for the official record for those of you who have possibly misunderstood my particular "thing" about the JAL website. Initially, yes, I wondered if this was a real site, never heard of it before and it's in Japanese or whatever laanguage it is. I did the whois myself and it didn't result for me but I did search and got the other domain options and they all resolved to the main site. I got it this is an OOG site. And yes, for you who brought it up, I did post these links in the is this site related stickie thing.

Once it was cleared up, that did not excuse the actual thing I noticed and a few others are recognizing and that is the specific url shown in the ad in the paper scan from the cloverfieldclues site (which rules majorly well, thanks soooo much for the thorough collecting of info) (and the avatar) (I'm not hotlinking btw ;-p) -----> recognizing the specific url in the ad has the japanese url and then the /happiness.

I, like a few others, or however many others, picked up on the obvious association to Slusho Happy thing....which is the email page for Satoshi. Then I went to that actual page and while I have no clue what any of it says, no matter how "realistic" it might be with content, immediately I see the little cutsey animal link. I went there and there's the page with the other cutsey animals like the slusho animals.

Only it may as well be Japanese to me, I have no idea what it says. Neither does anyone else apparently.

It is certainly no coincidence here that spawning directly from the fully American mystery trailer that had heavy Asian elements in decor, and guests for that matter, and where the main dude is about to go to long enough it justified a surprise going away party, the tshirt <---- the tshirt logo leads to the slusho site that is in english and Japanese or whatever it's called. Early on we got someone to translate the links and then so much for that. The whole site has a strong focus on Japan and presents english as "engrish" basically. (While 1-18 remains cryptically American).

Next tshirts come available...and they're being shipped with predominantly the same copies of the same newspaper from Japan that's actually Hawaii, that's now apparently nodding to Lost. And since we're peeking behind the curtain again, JJ at comicon clearly stated this whole idea was inspired on his trip to Japan to have an American monster that isn't Godzilla or whatever the other one he said, King Kong. But look again....Japan v American duo. So he went to Japan and digs it. No sweat.

But what is its relevance for our purposes? We're being primed with the Japanese kiss here. We've got an American trailer with a point blank clue in the Japan connection. We got an American guy wearing the tshirt for a Japanese product, which leads to the Japan/English website. We get shirts (well all of you cool people do...) from a Japanese company that's sporting an American website....shipped with Japanese newspapers....from Hawaii. I think this goes just a tad beyond simply being consistent so Rob can go to Japan - considering Rob apparently never leaves the country...so that cannot be the actual connection we're supposed to make. It's like those exclamation marks and what I mentioned regarding those, like the content of the history page (a Japanese story in engrish) is jumping up and down going HEYYYY! LOOK HERE!!! PSST!! PAY ATTENTION!!! HERE YA GO and it's being ignored because of the presumption this is all them not being ready for us or it's nothing but viral marketing (however agreed on this specific point on the tshirts, nailed it) so there's no real relevant usefulness in and of itself to ship the shirts with newspapers, real or faked, that cost money or the actual effort of making them all the top pages or the bottom pages or specific pages.... They aren't gift wrap...they've been deliberately included. With all the Japanese elements, some have said "gag gift"...

So okay, it's a nod from camp Abrams letting us know they're behind it. Well we knew that already with the trailer. They have no need at this late date to keep "nodding" at us with irrelevant fluff. It's already created its own momentum with all the various stuff popping up regarding it - we're past the part, especially with tshirts in hand, of needing to be encouraged to hang in there. I mean come on you guys...we've got the thread of doom of nothing really useful but socializing and it's well beyond 300 pages. I think we're on board and they know it.

To you guys who are so sure they're not ready yet, I guess I'm asking how you conclude this as the likely fact either way and then when do you know they'll be ready? What criteria are you looking for that is the proverbial starting gun shot? Is there a set number of PM "nods" we have to wait for to "go"? What they've already presented us has taken some effort and it was waiting on us, we're engaging these characters to some degree....but if they're experienced enough with TLE and S7, and they've got a ready audience, which do you think is their better option: keep baiting us with irrelevant gags and talking books with Lil for another 6 months and seriously thinking anybody's gonna be here in 6 months....or feed your market and bust out with it. Both sites didn't do much of anything until the EH needed to be handled and from that resolutions both sites have begun providing the content pretty steadily (it's just over one month and we're here), including real 'swag' I guess ya call it.

The are giving us stuff...they've been doing it all along. And each time something is presented it's kicked around for a bit ad then disregarded in favor of "who's the monster" and the poster art and what's up with the BTS filming....ignoring both sites. I do get it that we are LOST as to what to do but aside from the distraction itself, I'm getting the impression that as a group at all, it's the assumption they're not even ready so this is all PM nods and gag gifts and bait that is preventing any discovery, let alone solutions and movement. None of us knows they're not ready or when they'd be ready if they weren't....it's an assumption. But it seems to be one that's having a negative effect of stonewalling instead of overcoming and finding out. Makes me frustrated because I've not got the professional UFer midas touch to solve anything when I'm not entirely sure what to do either way and looking to the experienced to do what you guys do better than the government so we can gasp and awe and gush...and learn and play and participate and help.

/this was not a rant. It was more like pleading to reconsider this assumption they are not ready when it really does look like we aren't ready. If I'm wrong, so be it. But if I'm not wrong we're wasting their time. Sad They're clever but they're not Einstein here. But then again, if they've stumped UFers I'm duly impressed Razz Gets the inexperienced nowhere though.


Think of the other stuff they've done....does any of this fit their MO specifically? Not so much copying for here, but the same procedure, or the same sort of trail or hint, etc.

And don't flame and wig out. I'm being serious. Just frustrated and feel a little useless....


TL;DR

PostPosted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 7:47 am
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tinag222
Unfettered

Joined: 27 Feb 2007
Posts: 521
Location: Here, Now

 		human...
Quote:
Is that possible? Would 1-18-08's PR/ARG people really not have expected us to find out that the newspaper was from Hawaii, not japan?


After my "thing" above there, I'm bias on the side that they've not underestimated us, we might be underestimating them....but I can't say for sure. But at least there's tshirts that I'm glad for....and haven't been able to get yet which is just ....*sucks*.....

Quote:

Or let's look at it this way: is there any reason the movie's protagonists would have any link to Hawaii? Obviously, the fact that the newspaper comes from Hawaii points to the fact that there are Japanese interests in Hawaii (immigration/cultural exchange). Maybe the protagonist's flight to Japan was routed through Hawaii?


I totally went off and tangented off my original comment about the JAl site (yes OOG) but the happiness, and with regard to your above comment. That I quoted, not the one you called that guy an ass Razz I don't think he's (or she's?) being an ass....he's got a point. Anyway, re: the real airline - it would not be out of the question for a real time BTS agreement/contract to insert content if they have the connections....such as JAL might be mentioned or used in the movie....or that Paramount backs it and would have the clout to work a deal with Abrams to install a very legitimate appearing article, story, ad, and more specifically, being able to create a branded style page with a unique but associative name (happiness, slusho, etc.) and that page is the page that's IG, not the whole site. Doing it that way does remain inside the ARG code or whatever in making it real world friendly but still game.

I can't say anything about the Hawaiian connection, I just saw that a few ago, but for the Japan one, this is all spawning from slusho itself, not the trailer, so if there's a connection at this stage it seems to me it's going to be directly relevant to the slusho site/content, etc. in game sense. I strongly feel we need to pursue the Japan connection....but there's still the whole slusho site itself we've sort of shrugged off - so maybe some of the content in this apparently real Japan paper, is not necessarily OOG even if the paper is. Go to slusho, order tshirt, email slusho, happy, get tshirt, get curious newspaper segments, out of all the Japanese, there's a url in english everyone of us can read...follow "the happy trail" - happiness....see associative content and look there for whatever.

Reason I'm going here on this is that I did check out the english version of JAL and there's not any "happiness" page. If happiness was actually part of the OOG site in full, why would it not also be on the other site? And why would it be in english on the actual Japanese site where nothing else is but 3 words that are standard links.

That's why I was urging your help on the translation. It's going to look OOG legit if it's being presented in a realistic manner, so in this case it would take scrutinizing the happiness page or the newspapers for anything that might be relevant. A story, a name in a story, a phone number, a company name, a photo, some background thing in a photo - and given how they've been presenting this, it's been the incidental stuff you'd consider incidental that has provided discovery...and laced with these exclamation style foreground things, the obvious stuff....

Then again, you'd have the same problem...if you're new at it you might not know what you're supposed to look for and the ones that could show ya can't read it.

(wow, totally SAW4 ! I get it!)

PostPosted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 7:49 am
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human
Boot

Joined: 10 Aug 2007
Posts: 31

 		Re: human...
tinaG,

Good posts. You obviously have experience with ARGs. I think part of my attitude toward this is a bit of disappointment with LOST, actually. Smile I followed that all through season 3 and by halfway through 3 I was pretty apathetic toward it. It didn't gel for me. It meandered, dropped hints that never really got followed up.

Now, as I said, I have some experience with Japanese, but I am far from fluent. What I've read on the newspapers and the JAL website has been stunningly mundane. The newspaper covers baseball, some martial artist with a reference to a gold medal, there's political news with specific mentions of Obama and Hillary Clinton even, etc. The JAL site link was, yes, in English, but only because you can't really have Japanese URLs. The cutesy animals are coincidental. I believe that strongly. Japanese marketing is rife with such things, whether or not they are marketed to children. For example, I just went to the Japan Rail (national rail service) site and found this page immediately: http://www.jreast.co.jp/suica-info/index.html

It's a campaign for selling their long-term rail passes. For adults, adult commuters. And it's got a frigging penguin mascot, for Locke's sake! Very Happy That's just an example.

From my experiences in Japan I am inferring that Slusho's animals are not themselves a road marker for the game. In fact, I think they are copying Japanese marketing techniques to appear authentically Japanese. Just like they are passing off an American-published newspaper to appear like Slusho is Japanese. And this, unfortunately, leaves us stranded, as far as I'm concerned.

Now, a suggestion: if you want to get the newspapers translated, dispatch a call out on Livejournal or some other groups where bilingual users would be willing to translate a page or two of the text. That's not impossible to do, but it feels like it's beyond an ARG at that point, if it requires that level of linguistic specialization. And the problem is, there's not even a faint arrow pointing us toward that road. Is it the game?

Finally, my problem with 'gr0wler' is that if he can't present his point without adolescent sarcasm, I don't want to hear it. If he can't be civil, he can fuck off and die. Razz

PostPosted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 10:08 am
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GrOwLeR
Boot

Joined: 08 Aug 2007
Posts: 47

 		Re: human...
human wrote:
tinaG,

Good posts. You obviously have experience with ARGs. I think part of my attitude toward this is a bit of disappointment with LOST, actually. Smile I followed that all through season 3 and by halfway through 3 I was pretty apathetic toward it. It didn't gel for me. It meandered, dropped hints that never really got followed up.

Now, as I said, I have some experience with Japanese, but I am far from fluent. What I've read on the newspapers and the JAL website has been stunningly mundane. The newspaper covers baseball, some martial artist with a reference to a gold medal, there's political news with specific mentions of Obama and Hillary Clinton even, etc. The JAL site link was, yes, in English, but only because you can't really have Japanese URLs. The cutesy animals are coincidental. I believe that strongly. Japanese marketing is rife with such things, whether or not they are marketed to chilren. For example, I just went to the Japan Rail (national rail service) site and found this page immediately: http://www.jreast.co.jp/suica-info/index.html

It's a campaign for selling their long-term rail passes. For adults, adult commuters. And it's got a frigging penguin mascot, for Locke's sake! Very Happy That's just an example.

From my experiences in Japan I am inferring that Slusho's animals are not themselves a road marker for the game. In fact, I think they are copying Japanese marketing techniques to appear authentically Japanese. Just like they are passing off an American-published newspaper to appear like Slusho is Japanese. And this, unfortunately, leaves us stranded, as far as I'm concerned.

Now, a suggestion: if you want to get the newspapers translated, dispatch a call out on Livejournal or some other groups where bilingual users would be willing to translate a page or two of the text. That's not impossible to do, but it feels like it's beyond an ARG at that point, if it requires that level of linguistic specialization. And the problem is, there's not even a faint arrow pointing us toward that road. Is it the game?

Finally, my problem with 'gr0wler' is that if he can't present his point without adolescent sarcasm, I don't want to hear it. If he can't be civil, he can fuck off and die. Razz


well my problem with you is that you are a poo-poo head!!! Twisted Evil
Seriously though, it seems that this whole newspaper ordeal got dismissed right away, meanwhile, there are several pages of several threads with deep thought going into things like "OMFGZ... AKM might mean A Kool Monster!" or " the donky is blinking a binary pattern that = 212-334-5678, everyone call this number now and say the secret word!". All I'm simply suggestion is that saying that this paper coming from Slusho just happens to mention "Godzilla" purely by coincidence is pretty strange coming from a group of people who have been looking into to far more inane and obviously not clues. These pages were put in the packaging purposely. If I learned one thing about marketing in my media studies courses it's that nothing that has to do with advertising or marketing, no matter how odd or irrelevent it may seem, is done by accident. Whoever packed those shirts had to have known exactly what they were sending out to customers. What if you were Japanese and got a shirt wrapped in a Japanese newspaper with articles all about a serial child rapist? You think a huge company is going to risk sending something like that out. I'm not even saying that the paper will contain any useful clues but at the very least it is a little nod to us follwing this thing. As I said before, they know the only people ordering these shirts are involved in this little game. And I believe it is an actual newspaper, but from Hawaii, why is that? Maybe because the local papers from SC or Japan have no reference to Godzilla in them. Do you really think they would use a Japanese paper from Hawaii for no particular reason?

PostPosted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 1:00 pm
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worngmike
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Joined: 23 Jul 2007
Posts: 99

 		tina i feel for you ireally do, i'm in the same sorta position, i don't know anything about arg's, i just sucked into this cos of the trailer and being curious. (not saying you don't know anything about them though)
and yeah i truly beleive things are being overlooked. JJ even says on his site about the other pages that have been set up havent been found. he did also say that slusho wasn't finished but i think it now is, there maybe a small addition but nothing major. he even links to unfiction and to me that say there IS a game here we just havent found the real start of it yet.
i'm a do-er not a thinker so this is tough for me but i want to know more and find out more.
the clues are in the slusho site, the donkey and monkey for me seem to shout something but i don't know what. (maybe its just the word KEY in there)
the news paper added to the mail is intentional but why? other than trying to make it look like it has come from japan, maybe that is just a nod to his insperation for the idea.
yeah there is too much looking too deep and i think it is closer to the surface of the slusho site than we ahve looked, we have gone past it. these other sites need to be found

and yeah growler i totally agree, i work in advertising and everything put in is for a reason, it's not just that will do, it's thought through wether criptic or not.

i dunno there is something there staring us in the face and we are missing it.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 1:26 pm
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1-18-08.livejournal.com
Boot

Joined: 25 Jul 2007
Posts: 53

 		I'm pretty sure it's from California, not Hawaii. All of the advertisements on the pages I was sent have addresses and phone numbers in CA.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 1:56 pm
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human
Boot

Joined: 10 Aug 2007
Posts: 31

 		Re: human...
GrOwLeR wrote:
And I believe it is an actual newspaper, but from Hawaii, why is that? Maybe because the local papers from SC or Japan have no reference to Godzilla in them.


Local papers from Japan have no reference to Godzilla in them? Pay attention, because I'll only say this once: Godzilla is Hideki's nickname in the Japanese press. OK? You have no fucking idea what you're talking about here.

Quote:
Do you really think they would use a Japanese paper from Hawaii for no particular reason?


False dichotomy. No one said it was 'no particular reason'. Just because we don't agree that it's reason that you say it is, doesn't mean that we're saying there's no reason.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 3:47 pm
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GrOwLeR
Boot

Joined: 08 Aug 2007
Posts: 47

 		Re: human...
human wrote:
GrOwLeR wrote:
And I believe it is an actual newspaper, but from Hawaii, why is that? Maybe because the local papers from SC or Japan have no reference to Godzilla in them.


Local papers from Japan have no reference to Godzilla in them? Pay attention, because I'll only say this once: Godzilla is Hideki's nickname in the Japanese press. OK? You have no fucking idea what you're talking about here.

Quote:
Do you really think they would use a Japanese paper from Hawaii for no particular reason?


False dichotomy. No one said it was 'no particular reason'. Just because we don't agree that it's reason that you say it is, doesn't mean that we're saying there's no reason.


Man sorry to do this this but you obviously didn't get the point of either of my posts due to your severe brain damage!!! I know that Godzilla is Hidecki's nickname!!! But does every Japanese newspaper mention him everyday? Not likely. And did I ever say that I even had the faintest idea of what the reason was for Slusho sending out these particular pages? No I did not. So before you go letting your fingers spazz out typing all the bullshit bouncing around inside your thick skull, try actually reading and understanding what you are about to criticize!

PostPosted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 4:18 pm
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human
Boot

Joined: 10 Aug 2007
Posts: 31
worngmike wrote:
JJ even says on his site about the other pages that have been set up havent been found


Where is JJ's site? I didnt realize he was handing out clues.

Quote:
i'm a do-er not a thinker so this is tough for me but i want to know more and find out more.


Err, I think we're all 'do-er's. But you can't know what to do if you don't think first. Laughing

PostPosted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 4:38 pm
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argossol
Greenhorn

Joined: 30 Jul 2007
Posts: 8

 		The address on the top of the paper is a real estate agency out of Hawaii. The site is webTV amateur at best, but that seems to be in line with the others listed on the page. And the whois info states that the most recent of the sites was created early last year.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 4:42 pm
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argossol
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Joined: 30 Jul 2007
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 		The only thing that really struck my interest is the photo of the girl in the room with the mural (peacocks, etc). In the lower right corner is a painting on a black panel of what looks like a baboon, but bears a striking resemblance to classic chimera paintings, sans the snake tail.

Edit: The center top panel looks kind of weird - spider-ish.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 4:43 pm
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human
Boot

Joined: 10 Aug 2007
Posts: 31

 		Re: human...
GrOwLeR wrote:
Man sorry to do this this but you obviously didn't get the point of either of my posts due to your severe brain damage!!! I know that Godzilla is Hidecki's nickname!!! But does every Japanese newspaper mention him everyday? Not likely.

And did I ever say that I even had the faintest idea of what the reason was for Slusho sending out these particular pages? No I did not.


Irrelevant. You claimed that we said there was 'no reason' for the Japanese pages. I never said that. No one did.

Quote:
So before you go letting your fingers spazz out typing all the bullshit bouncing around inside your thick skull, try actually reading and understanding what you are about to criticize!


As for the rest of your rhetorical offal, I'll let your non-sequitur ad hominem speak for itself.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 4:44 pm
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argossol
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Joined: 30 Jul 2007
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 		Just my two cents here - I have this nagging feeling that this whole deal is being overthought to the nth degree. JJ's M.O. is usually this - take a bunch of stuff from popular culture, and write a story around it - eg, LOST is based on Watchmen, psychological theory and psuedoscience.

I'm thinking Occam's Razor should apply here - all things being equal, the simplest explanation is the best one.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised to see the clues are all Batman logic - eg - the paper is printed in ink, ink comes from octopii, octopii are from the sea, the letter c is the first letter in cheese, cheese causes constipation, constipation is like having a rock in you, you break rocks with hammers, hammer in latin is malleus...hmm...malleus malificarium, the book of the inquisition, and because the attack is from the east, the monster must be from spain, therefore, the monster is...THE SPANISH INQUISITION!

And no one expects the Spanish Inquisition.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 4:53 pm
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worngmike
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Joined: 23 Jul 2007
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 		jj has a page on myspace, seems pretty legit, no real clues but basically saying what he has already said
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=215217473&blogID=293814359&Mytoken=951B1F40-52CE-4909-AA913FD8D63356E551421692

PostPosted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 4:56 pm
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elvis cocho
Decorated


Joined: 25 Jul 2007
Posts: 237
Location: San Diego,CA
argossol wrote:
Just my two cents here - I have this nagging feeling that this whole deal is being overthought to the nth degree. JJ's M.O. is usually this - take a bunch of stuff from popular culture, and write a story around it - eg, LOST is based on Watchmen, psychological theory and psuedoscience.

I'm thinking Occam's Razor should apply here - all things being equal, the simplest explanation is the best one.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised to see the clues are all Batman logic - eg - the paper is printed in ink, ink comes from octopii, octopii are from the sea, the letter c is the first letter in cheese, cheese causes constipation, constipation is like having a rock in you, you break rocks with hammers, hammer in latin is malleus...hmm...malleus malificarium, the book of the inquisition, and because the attack is from the east, the monster must be from spain, therefore, the monster is...THE SPANISH INQUISITION!

And no one expects the Spanish Inquisition.


Worshippy of course who would Laughing
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 4:57 pm
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