Update: Christopher’s blog has been back-dated to 8/13/09.
District 9 was released this weekend, and usually (with a few exception), that would mean the viral campaign would be over. That is apparently not the case here. Both the Multi-National United and MNUSpreadsLies Twitter and Facebook accounts are still updating so far on a daily basis.
As you may have noticed in our past coverage of films, most viral campaigns end almost exactly on the day the film is released, except for maybe one or two updates to thank people for participating or to promote the DVD (remember Cloverfield?). There’s no real value in continuing the campaign, especially since most viral campaigns are in real time, so to speak, so then the campaign would have then exist after the events of the film. Why ruin the plot of the film just to continue a viral campaign?
That’s a question we should ask Sony’s digital marketing division (Be aware there are spoilers from this moment on). It’s not that surprising that MultiNational United continues to update on Twitter and Facebook. Even after the events of the film, the company still exists, and they are still in charge of the aliens on Earth. Here are their tweets from the last two days (which are also on Facebook):
4.3.2. Non-humans are prohibited from traveling in groups larger than six, unless being transported by MNU personnel.
4.4.2. Private use of technology not originally engineered on Earth is strictly prohibited.
Again, this would be innocent enough except that Christopher’s Twitter and Facebook accounts have actually RESPONDED to Multi-National United’s updates. Here are the tweets (again, same on Facebook):
@MultiNationalU Is MNU officially announcing that we are their prisoners or that they own us?
@MultiNationalU MNU is stealing our technology by declaring it illegal!
Christopher has also updated his blog with a downloadable file of the Non-Human font. Pretty cool stuff.
Why is this a problem? Well, for those who have seen the film, you know that Christopher leaves on the mothership to go back to his home planet as fast as possible. Unless he has access to WiFi in that control ship, I doubt he has the ability, let alone the time, to go online.
Now, we could go into extreme speculation mode and try to come up for a reason for this apparent mistake. The obvious answer would be that maybe the viral wasn’t in real time like we thought. However, the Multi-National United homepage indicates that August 14th, 2009 (which they were counting down to) is the day they “began reverse engineering” the alien technology. Obviously, their limited work with the partly-transformed Wikus was the reason why this was able to happen, so this must be the date.
Another possible reason for Christopher’s accounts still updating is that maybe Wikus (or another non-human) has taken over, but doesn’t want to reveal themselves, since Christopher’s name has now become synonyoums with the cause. This in-world explanation seems a bit far fetched, and it reminds me of how Sony switched the blog from George to Christopher with no explanation. Who knows what Sony is really thinking.
In the District 9 viral campaign, non-humans (aliens) became stranded on Earth, so Multi-National United eventually became in charge of overseeing them. Christopher is a non-human who runs a blog protesting Multi-National United’s treatment of the non-humans.
We’ll continue to give you updates on the District 9 viral campaign until it finally comes to a halt. The film is in theaters now, and check out our District 9 page for more information.