Sacha Baron Cohen “newsjacking” the entire 2012 Oscars

Have a read of “How One Comic Genius NewsJacked the Entire 2012 Oscars” and see my comments below. By the way, I won’t repeat much of my discussion of the stunt which you can read and watch video clips here. [HT Chris Brogan]

The writer made some interesting points re the newsjacking in the Sacha Baron Cohen, Ryan Seacrest, and Kim Jong-il’s “ashes” incident although I wish he has supported his claims differently.

First of all, has the writer heard about Borat and watched any of Cohen’s marketing and PR stunts 6 years ago in 2006 when he promoted Borat? Oh no? Sacha didn’t just “become” PR Genius at Oscar, he was one long time ago just on different scale. In this case, his Hugo Oscar invite presented an opportunity and he took full advantage of it.

Are we (viewers, commentators, and even press) so forgetful that we all forget theSacha’s butt in Eminem’s face incident was totally a prearranged publicity stunt? I am not Sacha nor Seacrest so I may never know for sure, but if I were a betting man which I am not, I would bet a dollar that there were two comics on Oscar’s red carpet and their names are Sacha & Seacrest.

And for the record, how many times exactly did Sacha spill the ‘ashes’ of Kim Il Jung on Oscar night? Most people watched only one incident, the Seacrest one. I watched TWO separate incident, once in front of an empty red carpet (via AP live stream) and then the second time with Seacrest! In the first spill, the one most people didn’t see, Sacha had at least 3 male ‘Security Guards’ around him and one of the male ‘Security Guards’ actually handed him the urn of the ‘ashes’ of Kim Il Jung.

I want to reuse a line in my post “Fun with Sacha Baron Cohen, Ryan Seacrest, and Kim Jong-il’s “ashes””

It is troubling to see a world where so many people have opinions (including the “press”) and so few people care enough to find more facts to support or contradict their views.

Update: Here is my reply to an insightful comment under Chris Brogan‘s post (emphasis added),

“[…] good point in asking can it be newsjacking if the original “news” was planned in the first place. Oscar itself is an entertainment show, meant to be “entertaining”. As an aside, the sad part while I respect Billy Crystal, his Oscar opening number and jokes felt flat, dated, and boring. And Sacha’s stunt was more fun. Heck, even Angie’s Right Leg was a breath of fresh air!

May be it is a new human condition that we, through our time and energy spent in the social network, end up spending way too much time on something we can jump to conclusions and immediately share our “opinions”. Important news to our country (crime bill, election fraud, etc) take way more time to understand and read so ends up getting much less time and energy from us.”