Watch the Skies

by Range Blog Admin on 10/14/2008 at 12:05 pm in Commentary, Opinion Editorial, Social Media, Within Range

Today, while you may be watching the Dow Jones lash between rallies and Wiley E. Coyoteish plunges, I will be watching the sky, or at least glancing at various conspiracy websites and the Wikipedia entry for Blossom Goodchild. See, while you’re worried about the economy and who will be the the prime source for Late Night monologues, I’ve been preoccupied over a UFO.

Not just any UFO, mind you, but the one, according to Goodchild, appearing today on behalf of the Galactic Federation of Light. Not familiar with the GFOL? Well, keep reading.

Until a couple of weeks ago, Blossom Goodchild was just another psychic in contact with a garden-variety Native American spirit. Nothing that isn’t on every block of Santa Fe or Sedona. She had a nice, if somewhat overwhelming, website designed to put you in touch with her books and her in touch with your Paypal account. Again, no different than thousands of other metaphysical hucksters. But then she made a prediction that today, October 14th, the aforementioned UFO would be visible for three days above Alabama.

Obviously, the Galactic Federation of Light needs a better trip planner.

Now of course, I keep an open mind about these sort of things, and a mass-sighting of a flying saucer probably wouldn’t make the News any more dire or alarmed than it already is. So that’s kind of boring, but what interests me about this all this (ostensible) malarkey is the way Goodchild’s prediction has been disseminated. Apparently, she made this proclamation on August 1, 2008. Within weeks, one YouTube video featuring the transcript of her prophecy scrolled against a crappily rendered outer space scene turned into many, each with tens of thousands of views. I caught the wave around September 23rd (a few days after the first video was posted and was surprised to find that no Wikipedia entry existed, not even one copy/pasted from her own site. I thought this was pretty amateur; if you’re going to hawk your books with viral videos you didn’t even have to make, you might as well take charge of the press within your control. On October 1, a Wikipedia entry for her finally appeared, but it was no more than a “stub” mentioning that she used to be an actress and that she gained “notoriety” for her space alien bet.

“Notoriety” is not necessarily a good thing, but a Wikipedia nod is still a Wikipedia nod. Not surprisingly, that initial entry has since been expanded. It now presents a relatively objective treatise on how her prediction provides an opportunity to empirically evaluate the veracity of “channeling.”

If she were smart, she would have written her own article. Or maybe she’s more than smart–maybe she’s crafty. After all, what’s more believable, a hoax that is incessantly promoted by the perpetrator or a hoax that’s perpetuated by other people?

This is a little bit like what came up during the panel on Online Influentials and Social Media Sarah Holoubek moderated during our client summit a week and half ago. Brands obviously need to do their best to corral what users are saying, but they can’t be disingenous or artificial. By letting in some skeptics or disgruntled customers, you confirm your sincerity in the hearts (and wallets) or your loyalists. I suspect Blossom Goodchild is keenly aware of this. That UFO is probably a flight of fancy, but it’s also captured the imagination of hundreds of thousands of believers and skeptics alike. No matter what, she’s probably already seen some book sales, and tomorrow she’ll likely see some more, even if the purported celestial tourists fail to show up. By letting the masses speak for her, she doesn’t even have to be right to make some money. Now, obviously, if she is right, she’s going to be set for life from creating a quality product (read: verifiable message), but by not meddling with user input, she remains, at least until the day is over, a trusted messenger. Whether her message is real doesn’t matter right now, only that she hasn’t interfered with the user’s part in the conversation. Nowadays, that’s an increasingly imminent component of brand connection.