Yesterday we reported that Emma Watson’s UN speech, in which she launched her HeForShe campaign, was met with the creation of a website titled ‘EmmaYouAreNext.com,’ which claimed that it would release nude photos of the actress after a countdown timer on the site had run out.
This website claimed to be linked with 4chan (though, as we reported, we searched through the image board and couldn’t find evidence of this), but now it has been revealed that it’s all part of a viral marketing scheme orchestrated by Rantic Marketing, who have made EmmaYouAreNext redirect to their company website and replaced its homepage with the message “#SHUTDOWN4CHAN.”
You may remember Rantic Marketing from a piece we posted a while back regarding the rumor that the PC version of Grand Theft Auto V had been canceled. The rumors were circulated by FoxWeekly, who said that it had held an interview with the chairman of Rantic, who were labeling themselves as GTA developer Rockstar’s “marketing company.” As we noted in that piece, there was no evidence to suggest Rantic had any affiliation with Rockstar.
Now it has been revealed that Rantic has been at it again, with the site being revealed to be a hoax by a botnetter, leading Rantic to call it quits and admit that they were behind the whole thing. It transpires that Rantic is also closely linked with the aforementioned FoxWeekly, who were reportedly the first to “break” the story of “4chan’s” criminal venture.
Rantic seemingly orchestrated the hoax in order to boost web traffic to its site, with its site now featuring a message to Barack Obama. It reads:
DEAR BARACK OBAMA,
We have been hired by celebrity publicists to bring this disgusting issue to attention. The recent 4chan celebrity nude leaks in the past 2 months have been an invasion of privacy and is also clear indication that the internet NEEDS to be censored. Every Facebook like, share & Twitter mention will count as a social signature — and will be one step closer to shutting down www.4chan.org.
Sincerely,
Rantic.com
The marketing company has also taken to Twitter to voice its “concern,” tweeting: “Shut down 4chan prevent suicides and violence towards women, Support the cause,End the problem!”
We never thought we’d say this, but we sincerely hope 4chan retaliates.
Photo: Getty Images
