"Let's Go! Arctic"

"Let's Go! Arctic"

Part of a series on Greenpeace. [View Related Entries]

Updated Aug 11, 2020 at 04:40AM EDT by Y F.

Added Jun 19, 2012 at 09:40PM EDT by Brad.

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About

Let's Go! Arctic is a mock advertising campaign created by Greenpeace and The Yes Men in June 2012. The hoax consisted of an elaborately staged gaffe at a fake event arranged on behalf of Shell Oil Company, a mock website purported as the company's social media hubsite and a fake press release alleging that Shell's lawyers are considering legal actions against the involved parties.

Origin

On June 7th, 2012, YouTuber kstr3l uploaded a video titled "#ShellFAIL: Private Arctic Launch Party Goes Wrong" depicting what is self-described as an "epic PR FAIL" during a private Shell Oil Company farewell party for the departure of its arctic rigs at the Space Needle in Seattle, Washington. The video allegedly shows an ill-timed malfunction of a model rig that was supposed to pour drinks but ends up leaking uncontrollably over an elderly woman, leading her to shriek amidst awkward silence.



Spread

The video was instantly picked up on the same day by news and topical blogs, as well as Occupy Movement-related accounts on Twitter. On the following day, Redditor loonytoad submitted a link to the YouTube video, which reached the frontpage of the site, and YouTuber DiogenesGivesBack uploaded a Dubstep of the original video.



By early morning on June 8th, the video had been watched more than 500,000 times, generated over 1,000 comments on YouTube and thousands of tweets containing the hashtag "#shellFAIL" or keywords "shell party" and "oil." As of June 20th, the video has gained more than 718,000 views.


shellfail OR shell oil party Search TweetS danced Search Search results 1-10 out of 3,282 tweets about shellfail OR shell oil party Create email Alert greenpeace be Greenpeace Belgium w--? The new Shell oil ad campaign is crazy: http://t.co/804jprlu #shellfa.l Latest Results 4 hours ago +Reply tRetweet ☆Favorite R63 Past 1 Hour 106 Past 16 Hour 3,282 Past 1 Day .680 Past 7 Day 7,683 Past 30 Day All Time STOP greenpeacenz Greenpeace NZ SHELL Angry Bergs? Really? http://t.co/QL98S2Se #shellfail #angrybergs #savetheartic 乡2 hours ago 4) Reply t Retweet ☆Favorite 22 ·350 350 350 dot oro That #ShellFail video keeps getting better (or worse?), check out Shell's plans for Arctic drilling: http://t.co/BBxa2KR3 #350ppm 边16 hours ago Reply Retweet ☆Favorite 24 8,173 Search boingboing Boing Boing The #ShellFail hoax was as deep as an offshore oil rig! @Gawker's @adrianchen digs to the bottom of it Everything Links Tweets Photos Videos Experts 16 hours ago Reply Retweet ☆Favorite-16 paulrobertlloyd Paul Lloyd A send-off for Shell's arctic rigs goes horribly wrong: http://t.co/xY8OaRGk Watch it before Shell inevitably has it removed. #shellfail 16 hours ago Renir tュRetweet Favorite 33

Hoax Revealed

On June 8th, the culture-jamming collective The Yes Men Matthew Martell uploaded a YouTube video titled "#ShellFAIL – Viral Campaigners Revealed," which explained YouTuber kstr3l's Shell FAIL video as part of a hoax staged by the Yes Men, Greenpeace and members of the Occupy movement to raise awareness of the arctic drilling. Greenpeace also published a blog post with a thorough documentation of its viral spread.



ArcticReady.com

That same day, a satire website purported as the global oil and gas company Shell's social media site was launched at Arcticready.com, a description of the campaign, as well as a custom caption generator and an image gallery. Clad with tongue-in-cheek descriptions advocating the oil companies' arctic drilling missions, the site allowed visitors to create, share and rate their own image macros centered around the theme of Shell's arctic drilling operations. On June 12th, the website introduced a flash-based parody game of Angry Birds titled "Angry Bergs"[12] in the Just for Kids page.


U.S. Homepage About ShelProjects and LocationsThe Arctic Shell in the Arctic UNITED STATES = Change Location Environment & Society Innovation Products & Services Delicate Climate Disruption of our Planet About Shell Projects & Locations The Arctic Shell in the Arctic: Arctic Ready The "Classic" Kulluk Let's Go! Arctic Let's Go! Social Just for Kids About Economic Benefits Offshore Oil and Gas Development For hundreds of years, explorers have battled the Arctic. Today, We're finally winning. We've all heard about global climate change and the challenges it brings, especially to the most vulnerable among us. Join Shell Arctic on Facebook For example, 300,000 people already perish each year from climate-change-related causes, mostly in the world's poorest areas, according to the foundation of former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. And evidence suggests that further disruption of our planet's delicate climate could well result in incredibly dire consequences We at Shell are as concerned about this as everyone else. But we also recognize that even the most vulnerable need ever-growing fossil fuel resources for their travel, leisure, scientific, and infrastructure expansion needs, and that all of us, no matter where we live, need to explore every alternative at our disposal in order to one day have the hope of achieving a balanced, sustainable approach to energy production-let alone to deal with the potential consequences of climate change. ollow us on twitter That's why we at Shell are committed to not only recognize the challenges that climate change brings, but to take advantage of its tremendous opportunities. And what's the biggest opportunity we've got today? The melting Arctic. Latest Articles Offshore 101 Shell Receives Final Incidental Harassment Authorizations On May 2, 2012, NMFS awarded Shell final IHA's for its planned 2012 exploration programs in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas

The overwhelming majority of the top-rated image submissions featured satirIcal or witty messages against the drilling operations in the Arctic. As of June 20th, more than 8,800 image macros have been submitted to the gallery.[1]


I'M SURE I CAN GO LIVE IN A PERFECTLY NICE ZOO SOMEWHERE. LET'S GO IN A FEW MILLENNIA, I'LL BE OIL TOO! LET'S GO. YOU CAN'T RUN YOUR SUV ON 'CUTE'. LET'S GO
TWO MORE AND THEN OUR WORK IS DONE LET'S GO BECAUSE F--- YOU, EARTH LET'S GO ICECAPS SHMICECAPS. LET'S GO

Fake Press Release

Later that day, The Yes Men published a fake press release ostensibly written on behalf of Shell saying that the company's lawyers are considering formal action against unknown activists who staged and filmed the event. The statement was initially reported as valid by numerous tech news blogs, but soon became clear that it was another layer of hoax staged by the groups.

Shell's Response

On January 12th, Dutch Royal Shell Inc. released a formal statement denying any involvement in the mock event at the Seattle Space Needle or issuing any legal threats.

“Recently groups that oppose Shell’s plans in offshore Alaska have posted a video that purports to show Shell employees at an event at the Seattle Space Needle. Shell did not host, nor participate in an event at the Space Needle and the video does not involve Shell or any of its employees. A fake press release claiming that Shell is considering legal action following the launch of the video was also distributed to the media. We continue to focus on a safe exploration season in 2012."

Search Interest

External References

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Top Comments

Myndnix
Myndnix

I find people like Greenpeace quite interesting, to say the least.
Instead of try to come up with better energy sources, ones that are more replenishable, they just endlessly bitch about the ones we already have.
If you're not going to help, just stay out of the way, you know?

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