Bitchery reader Jenna forwarded me this link to The Happy Endings Foundation, which appears to be a site devoted to fostering child-lit books with Only Happy Endings. “Sad Books are Bad Books” is their motto – and of course only reading their choice of material isn’t the line at which they stop. Oh, no, they want unhappy books – like The Series of Unfortunate Events books – eradicated, as per their list of aims on the site.
I’ll own it: I was totally taken in. The poor font! The ridiculously preachy list of goals includes their aim to put a smile on my face while rewriting literature to suit their own purpose —and of course to eradicate books they don’t agree with! And for SWEET CHRIST’S SAKE A FREAKING GERBIL CAM? How could it not be real?! This is too stupid to be fake, thought I. Jenna, too, thought it was real (sorry to out you there, Jenna) and her reaction was a face plant on the keyboard (ow).
Then she sent me an apology because it seems the whole site is made up – by the PR team behind the Unfortunate Events books. Courtesy of Inky Girl, it seems it was all a ploy to attract attention to the Lemony Snicket series – and boy howdy damn did it work. According to Inky Girl, the story was picked up by a number of UK newspapers and the head of the organization, a Claire Hughes, was on BBC Radio 2 as well. So a lot of people were taken in.
So was it in poor taste? To quote Inky Girl:
After I swallowed my pride and marveled at the clever marketing scheme, however, there was still a bad taste in my mouth. I’m willing to laugh at a joke as much at the next person, but this was different. This was about literary censorship as well as children’s lit, both subjects I care a great deal about, as do many others in the writing and publishing industry….
It would have been different if the scenario was clearly so over-the-top as to be completely silly and unbelievable. Sadly, we live in a society where book bans and burnings are not completely out of the question, and people like Clare Hughes DO exist.
Which is probably why respected news sources like the BBC were taken in, and this in turn helped convince others that it was a legitimate story. I can’t help but think that using the issue of censorship and book banning as a publicity stunt is in poor taste.
What’s your take – is mocking book banning as a way to promote a book in poor taste, considering it made fools of those who took the site at face value and sprang to publicly decry banning books and censorship? Or is any PR good PR?
I think spoofing the book banners is every bit as amusing as spoofing publishing houses like Trixy Loin. It allows us to laugh at situations that otherwise might make us weep.
http://www.pabbis.com/
Tell me of you folks think this site is funny. This one is real and responsible for a great deal of venom and book banning directed at public libraries and public schools.
Now tell me if you think a publicity campaign for an already extremely popular series based on exactly this type of group is in poor taste.
I think my dignity will survive this, SB Sarah.
I was discussing this yesterday with some friends in my livejournal, and one said she didn’t think children should read anything depressing. Small children, no, I don’t think they need to be exposed to it too early; but older children, young teens, I think they need fiction that reflects reality. As I told my friend, when I was 11 or 12 my favorite novel was Jane Eyre, and horrible things happen to Jane, but in the end she triumphs and I’ve always found comfort in that.
So, sad books are bad books? No. Sad books are necessary books, to give readers tools to deal with problems in their own lives at the very least.
*gets down from the soapbox*
When the Lemony Snicket books were first published, I was worried that my daughter wouldn’t be able to handle the bad things that happen to the kids. Kids can handle more than we think. She didn’t have a single nightmare.
As for the spoof site, my only concern is that they used real books for their recommended reading list. Doesn’t that make it look like they are making fun of the happy books, too?
I thought it would be funnier and better publicity if it were a little more over the top, but I didn’t think it was at all in poor taste. The recommended books list is actually a subtle—too subtle—tip as to what’s actually going on. The books are not especially “happy” books. The ones I know on the list are good books, kind of complicated, and more challenging, morally, than they’re often given credit for. (Treasure Island!—in which the “good guys” are really quite nasty and rapacious, and you know Stevenson knew it, too—and the “happy ending” is mostly getting out of it alive).
So, anyway, I liked the site, but I thought it would have been better sharpened and exaggerated a little.
I’m less bothered by the idea of satirizing a group through exaggeration (it’s been done before: see Landover Baptist Church and Ladies Against Women) than I am about such satire being turned into just another form of viral marketing.
I must admit that bit out ‘if they own the DVD just hide where they won’t find it for a while’ made me giggle.
I can has hepi n ding?
My spaminator word few 51.
Few people understand the depth of my neurosis.
I think it would have been funnier / in better taste if the campaign was more over the top and if Claire Hughes hadn’t mentioned the book burning.
I just listened to the BBC radio interview, and it’s clear that the woman playing Claire Hughes was a bit taken aback at how her casual book burning comment (which was apparently meant as a “lighthearted throwaway” comment) got snatched up by UK newspapers as a headline…I suspect she did the interview as a sort of damage control.
But apart from all that (and apart from my own embarrassment at being taken in :-)), I wonder how the good/bad PR generated by this stunt will weigh in. It’s certainly gotten a lot of press online and offline!
But as a columnist at the Telegraph recently posted, spin can backfire (re: mainstream press who were taken in). “The Happy Endings campaign may have scored a few glorious column inches today, but it will have stored up a stack of animosity towards Lemony Snicket and Egmont Books for tomorrow: nobody likes to be made to look a fool.”
I might have thought it was funny. Might have. If Lemony Snicket’s books actually NEEDED marketing. Considering their popularity, the fact that it took ages for them to be sold in anything other than that cheap-looking, expensive hardback format, and that they, oh yeah, made the books into a freakin’ movie, I think it’s safe to say that they didn’t.
Totally off topic, but, have you listened to Tim Curry read The Series on audio? He is fucking brilliant. My kids love it. And I love Mr. Curry.
I think it is brilliant!
It gets people talking and makes fun of some rather rabid people on the internet.
Excellent!
I thought the story was real too. I feel like a dope.
“It would have been different if the scenario was clearly so over-the-top as to be completely silly and unbelievable.”
C’mon – the first thing on the page is the Gerbil Activist Webcam. Pretty much the definition of completely silly and unbelievable.
Made me laugh so it’s better than most marketing.
I think it’s the fugly design that gives it that air of authenticity. It’s like they imported their webmaster from 1995.
Needs moar Comic Sans, though. The happiest font on earth!
The pabbis site is interesting. I’m amazed that people have fits about language in books. Do they really think their little darlings don’t know those words already? If they are school age, or have school age siblings, they probably have.
Also, there seem to be a lot of objections to things in books that are historically accurate – for example, the account of a public hanging at the beginning of The Pillars of the Earth. Is it that people don’t know this is accurate? Or do they object to their children hearing about it? If so, when do they think their children should know about it? Never?
>>Also, there seem to be a lot of objections to things in books that are historically accurate – for example, the account of a public hanging at the beginning of The Pillars of the Earth. Is it that people don’t know this is accurate? Or do they object to their children hearing about it? If so, when do they think their children should know about it? Never?<<
Perhaps the parents are afraid that their kids will ask them questions about what is in the book. I will admit that I have become a bit prudish now that I have kids. One example is sharing musicals. Before my first child was born, I couldn’t wait until the day that I could share my love of movie musicals with her. Now that I am looking through parental eyes, all those seemingly innocent movies have situations in them that I don’t want to explain. My kids still haven’t seen Grease because one of the characters thinks she might be pregnant.
The difference between me and the book-banning parents is that I realize I have to get over my discomfort. I have a fairly innocent 14-year-old who just started high school six weeks ago; if I don’t start opening her eyes, she is going to learn things in a manner I definitely don’t approve of.
I don`t think it`s in poor taste at all. I think it`s hilarious. We all think the spoof sites about Harry Potter being evil are hilarious, don`t we? I think it`s important to notice that they weren`t REALLY trying to make fun of us—sure, it was funny no one caught on, but the real laugh is at idiots who write stuff like this. The real joke is on people who WOULD do book burnings.
At least, that`s what I think.
And how ridiculous do they have to get? Like soco said, a gerbil? I mean, come on. I may have been taken in too, but I think they did a great job of trying to make it obvious.
I think it’s a little edgier than they let on. The idea that a fake crusade to ban is used as a marketing campaign—an effective one, at that—can be seen as a direct slap in the face with a dead fish to the people who are serious about these kinds of censorship crusades. It highlights the hypocrisy. If book banner behavior gets books bought, then who’s the joke really on?
BTW, I saw “book banners” and first thought that the Smart Bitches were taking on the mantitty in advert form, ie, cover elements fashioned into ad banners for websites.
Oh, and my antispam word? plant23 – I’m thinking “Claire Hughes for five hundred, Alex.”
I think the site puts down censorship groups, by making them less scary and more mockable. I also think it’s very in line with other Lemony Snicket type things – like the cover for the “unauthorized autobiography” that reversed to reveal a cover for a story called “The Pony Party” in which, the copy promised, only happy things would happen.