Let the Games Begin: WhySoSerious.com Delivers on Halloween
CHICAGO – WhySoSerious.com just revealed its face-lift for the new “The Dark Knight” viral marketing campaign. It’s asking enthusiasts to roam the U.S. in the pursuit of clues. The current main page is below.
11:44 p.m. update: Here is a linked list of cities:
Minneapolis1, Denver1, Cleveland1, Phoenix1, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis2, Austin1, Boston1, Columbus1, Columbus2, San Francisco1, New York1, Raleigh1, Atlanta1, Las Vegas, Minneapolis3, Phoenix2, Atlanta2, Albuquerque, Chicago1, San Francisco2, Boston2, San Francisco3, Austin2, Denver2, Raleigh2, New York2, D.C., Portland, Cleveland2, Miami1, Detroit, Seattle1, Chicago2, Miami2, Atlanta, Seattle2, Miami3
11:56 p.m. update: Since this game is designed for daylight and it’s currently night, you can use the new Google Maps street-view function in select cities (including Chicago) to see daylight imagery.
By the way, press your computer’s “Tab” button at WhySoSerious.com. Notice the white outlines. That’s your ordered list.
8:45 a.m. update on 10/31/07: This link shows a compilation of all the images of all the city clues.
11:40 a.m. update on 10/31/07: WhySoSerious.com has changed again. The main page now displays the letters people have been uncovering from locations across the U.S.
The site gives credit by displaying the names of the people who first submitted the correct photo letters. When a letter was missing, clicking on the hint allowed you to submit a name and photo.
2:58 p.m. update on 10/31/07: Adding together all the city letters, the answer has clearly emerged to reveal this statement: “The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules.”
3:38 p.m. update on 10/31/07: The WhySoSerious.com game is complete. Submitting the last letter from Albuquerque revealed a new Web site and a new challenge. Welcome to Rory’s Death Kiss.
I’ve typed out the next challenge:
Round up a crew, your friends, family and even your foes (as many clowns as you can find) and make yourselves look as pretty as me.
Put on a show in front of the most famous landmark in your city, but don’t get arrested. You’re no use to me behind bars. Send me a picture and I’ll see if you have what it takes.
The completed WhySoSerious.com main page looks like so:
When you click on a picture underneath the letters backdrop (look toward the lower right of the backdrop), the letters burn away.
A new photo is then revealed.
When you click that photo, the Web site Rory’s Death Kiss is revealed for the first time with the new challenge.
In Chicago, Millenium Park at the bean is currently the location of choice. Once organized, HollywoodChicago.com will publish your photos. To create a collection, send them here.
11:54 a.m. update on 11/1/07: Here is a helpful link to an archive of the various “The Dark Knight” viral Web sites.
 | By ADAM FENDELMAN |
New WhySoSerious.com Page at /steprightup Unveils Final ‘The Dark Knight’ Challenge
Following our Dec. 3 post about a new WhySoSerious.com challenge at www.whysoserious.com/steprightup, the countdown has come to an end and the final challenge has been unveiled.
Various toys are visible all with a physical address in various U.S. cities pinned on them. By instruction, you must travel to these locations. You can’t call them.
The instructions ask you to go on location under the name “Robin Banks” (also known as “Robbing Banks”) with one prize awarded per location on a first-come, first-served basis.
The locations are all bakery stores. The prizes are all bakery delights with an attached phone number. As the bears disappear with each new discovery, the mallet hits harder.
Thanks go to Paul for these descriptions. As the bears disappear, more appear. It becomes evident that the number of bears equals the number of lights. Cakes are awarded at locations.
The note reads:
Wow. You really took the cake! Now put the icing on it. Call (phone number) immediately from this phone and this phone only. Do not give this phone number to anyone else.
Let’s hope your fellow goons come through as well as you. Once all the layers are in place, you’ll all get your just desserts. I’m a man of my word.
3:32 p.m. update: I just received from a reader new photos of the Chicago cake from Halsted Street.
When the person called the phone number, a lady answered from Rent-a-Clown to thank the caller. She said she knew who the caller was. The caller then received a text from the Joker saying:
“Good work, clown! Keep this phone charged and with you at all times. Don’t call me. I will call you … eventually.”
Credit for these photos goes to VLKERS54. The person also told me: “I had to fight another kid for it (only verbally).”
4:58 p.m. update: Alas, the last cake was located and the day was won. With all the lights lit up and clicking on the top, the following page was revealed.
Upon clicking the right card, the following was revealed.
Free tickets are awarded. These look like this:
Upon clicking the left card, the prize of the day was revealed: a new poster.
A high-resolution, 100-megabyte version can be downloaded here.
New WhySoSerious.com Page Emerges For ‘The Dark Knight’ Viral Marketing: /mausoleum
At 4 p.m. on Tuesday, a new code emerged from WhySoSerious.com and the viral folks at “The Dark Knight”. I received this code via e-mail from humanresources@whysoserious.com:
If you’ve finished my quiz, then it’s time for the next step in the interview process – something to test your aptitude. Spaces count:
* Eighth
* Sixth
* Eighth
* Ninth
* Ninth
* Second
* Fourth
* Second
* Third
Next, the URL http://www.whysoserious.com/mausoleum was discovered from the end of the WhySoSerious.com personality profile. The letters “M-A-U-S-O-L-E-U-M” can be found in your final grade.
I have outlined the letters in blue and created the image below.
Next, we must crack the code on a “precinct 12 evidence vault”.
First, we click on the dial and it zooms in so we can turn it and submit our guesses using the lever.
Once you zoom into the vault dial, a note with a clue is revealed by clicking it in the upper-left corner of your screen.
In the note, there are blood-stained letters. When added together, they spell “T-I-M-E | F-O-R | T-A-F-F-Y”. According to The Gotham Times, Johnny “Taffyface” Linata died at 7:38 a.m.
I have created a zoomed-in image and outlined in blue on page one of the newspaper where this was learned.
The text reads: “The butcher’s bill started at 7:38 a.m. when Maroni lieutenant Johnny ‘Taffyface’ Linata was killed by a…”
Answer: Change your computer’s system clock to 7:38 a.m. The safe will automatically open. Then, the following note is revealed.
When you click the new note, the following montage is revealed.
From there, we learn about another new site – the Gotham Unified School District – at GothamUSD.net.
Stay tuned “in a few days” for “another little job”. In other news, yet another new site surfaced today: GothamCab.com.
Also, AcmeSecuritySystems.com just surfaced and is related.
New WhySoSerious.com Page Emerges For ‘The Dark Knight’: /outoftime
While the rest of us were sleeping, Paul over at “The Dark Knight” Movie Chronicles sent us the full details of what’s happened next with “The Dark Knight” in viral land.
As we turn the corner into the cold and bitter December, the night was once again a flurry of “The Dark Knight” viral puzzles.
Given the combined map of Gotham from all the viral Web sites and using a connect-the-dots method, a message stating “Out of Time” was spelled out across the map.
This led to the new WhySoSerious.com page, which is located at www.whysoserious.com/outoftime. The Joker revealed this message:
“My kind of clown! You’re obviously center-ring material unlike some poor goons who can’t complete one simple task. Watch the funny papers in a few days for your final step in the process.”
The name on the tag is Alder Frederick. The date of death is Nov. 30 caused by asphyxia.
An e-mail address was also discovered at that spewed out some interesting responses to queries about document LC6551. As a result, a GPD login form was discovered using the name BreitupKarl and the password 21485.Logging in and doing a file search for LC6551 yeilds the document LC6551, which is titled “Upswing in Extortions & Chechen Gang Activity”. Here are some of the e-mail responses:
Glenn wrote: “With all due respect like I’ve told your friends, I just can’t discuss LC6551 or IA8214299 for that matter. I don’t know who’s leaking these, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m just not at liberty to discuss sensitive information.”
“[Karl Breitup] will meet someone at Betty’s Pie Shop tomorrow. I can give you more information, but you will need to cooperate with me for that.”
To access the second-referenced document, you need a login with higher authority. This is Glenn Barhyte’s account. The name is BarhyteGlenn and the password is tevredenheid.
This word is satisfaction in Dutch given via the clues for his favorite song by the Rolling Stones in combination with the file stating he lived in Utrecht for nine years, according to The Gotham Times.
IA8214299 is a clearance request that discusses the surveillance of Betty’s House of Pies: six officers, no uniforms, a listening van and equipment for recording.
Further details of this stakeout can be found in a memo. Using Glenn’s login details, a live feed will be played here at 3 p.m. on Saturday.
New WhySoSerious.com Page: /steprightup; ‘The Dark Knight’ Prologue Revealed
Moments ago, I received via e-mail from humanresources@whysoserious.com a new WhySoSerious.com message and code for “The Dark Knight” viral marketing.
Heads up, clown! Tomorrow means that there’s one last shifty step left in the interview process: Arwoeufgryo
By moving each letter one to the right on a QWERTY keyboard, the word “steprightup” is spelled.
This led to a new WhySoSerious.com page at the URL www.whysoserious.com/steprightup with a countdown to 12 p.m. EST on Dec. 4 along with a stuffed monkey with an exposed stomach.
If you set your system clock to noon on Tuesday (as was the answer to the /mausoleum riddle), the countdown changes to zero and nothing happens.
In other news, Wizard revealed the first six minutes of “The Dark Knight” from a screening shown in New York City. Warning: Spoilers follow.
Kicking off with a sweeping shot of downtown Gotham, the camera zooms in above a few buildings before focusing in on a single, traditional skyscraper covered in windows.
Suddenly, one window in the skyscraper explodes outward [and exposes] two criminals inside.
Donning clown masks and standing with a rifle, the two criminals shoot a grappling hook across a busy street below to the next building: the Gotham National Bank.
The two then slide across using a zip line.
On the street below, a man stands [with] his face unseen as the shot creeps up from behind [and] a clown mask slung in his grip. A van suddenly screeches up before he climbs inside and the van hauls off again.
Inside, there are now three men all wearing clown masks. They begin negatively discussing their boss and how he’s sitting out the heist.
“The guy thinks he can sit out and get a cut?,” laughs one man. “Must be why they call him the Joker!”
Back on the bank’s roof, the two men we first saw now shimmy into the bank’s security wiring while also discussing the boss.
“Why do you think they call him Joker?,” asks one. “I hear it’s [because] he wears make-up,” answers the other. “Like war paint.”
Suddenly – below – the three men blast into the bank. [They demand] money and [command] everybody to the floor.
Back on the roof, the two criminals intercept the outgoing emergency alarm set off by an employee. After they cancel its signal, one of the men shoots the other and heads inside for the vault.
Back inside, the clown gunmen hand all the hostages live grenades. “We wouldn’t want your hands free, would we?,” asks one with a laugh.
Continue reading the prologue description here.
What Do ‘The Dark Knight’ Fans Look Like as the Joker?
The viral marketing power of “The Dark Knight” has been throttled into overdrive this week as buzz-building site WhySoSerious.com has influenced fans across the U.S. to play along and dress up as the Joker.
At the conclusion of this week’s WhySoSerious.com challenge, which had enthusiasts roaming the streets of their cities to snap photos based on clues, a new viral marketing site was born: Rory’s Death Kiss.
As a reminder, Rory is the name of director Chris Nolan’s son and he has been using “Rory’s First Kiss” as the working title for the film.
RorysDeathKiss.com is asking people to dress up like the Joker and organize at the “most famous landmark in your city” (without getting arrested).
In the meantime, the Joker is either emerging as one of the most popular Halloween costumes or this specialized niche just can’t wait to replicate his evil ways.
I’ve cropped and am publishing below some of the best Joker costumes submitted to me and posted on various threads.
Teddy Moore in Chicago.
Name used with permission.
For fun, here’s someone dressed up as Poison Ivy.
