Creative Process: A Comedic Smear Campaign

What do you do for a friend that you have known for almost half your life on their birthday, and during a pandemic? You socially knock them down a peg or two at a distance. This was my process.

This project came together last-minute while joking around with a friend who was on a similar mission to my own. So, I started by writing a roughly 200-word blurb meant to resemble a rant attacking him and speaking directly to prospective readers in an attempt to convert them to my point of view. It’s hard not to take a crack at him; after all, everyone has that one friend who seems to stick around like a dried-out pen that works half the time (if you scribble really fast with it). So, he’s worthy of some banter.

After all, we share memories like talking shit about a friend in “dub”, drinking for six agonising hours while floating down a river for “fun” in college, hitting a deer while driving his car and paying his insurance deductible (a car he still owns ten years later), and then there are all the good days and nights in-between; so, what choice did I have other than writing a few fine words against him.

However, I decided to split the difference by lovingly writing, then designing an ad campaign that would attack the son of a gun and I invited others to share them across social media. When I messaged his girlfriend to ask if she would like to take part and publish a poster, she responded by volunteering to print the posters and place them all over the apartment.

By utilising social media and printed flyers, this campaign was able to push the message that “no, and why? And, not my Imprezda mint!” Although, the most effective tactic by far was direct contact, which I achieved by personally messaging his phone with a threat that said, “love you, bud”, along with the “Loser” poster, just to make sure he got the message.

The campaign did have one significant hurdle that we never overcame: our attempt at inducing “death by laughter”. It turned out to be unachievable, possibly based on bunk science, and as an outcome goal did not poll well. As our market research discovered, 95% of respondents did not list death by laughter as the desired outcome. Ironic death, on the other hand…

erm, ANYWAYS, moving on.

I should have mentioned this point sooner, but my website’s posters are not the original versions I created out of respect for my friend’s privacy. The name has been changed, and his headshot was replaced with a stock photo instead — You could call it the outlet mall version — same designer, but not quite the same.

This project’s idea was to be like political attack ads or awareness campaigns produced by political action groups. As this friend has been working in the world of politics and it only seemed fitting, he’d receive a public character assassination — or I guess, it’s more of a character pin poke, really.

Constrained by time, I decided to only use his professional headshot as the photograph for the entire series. Still, I would “doodle” on the posters allowing for each one to be unique. I did this to conserve time to complete the project rather than wasting time looking for multiple photos to use. I then split the copy into four parts that could stand alone as their own independent messages, for a total of four thoughts.

Thought One:

Joshua “Michael” Mitchel, he claims to be a friend to everyone, but would they friend him back if they knew the real Mitchel? If they knew Michael?

I initially used my friend’s middle name, but my concern was that it would come across as legitimately serious and be taken the wrong way. So, I reached out to a friend to brainstorm a purposefully silly alias name to call him. My friend’s suggestion of Siegfried made me think of Siegfried & Roy and the idea of someone having a pair of names as one alias felt like it could be left-field enough the joke wouldn’t be lost.

Thought Two:

Facebook asked many of us today to “help him have a great day” but should we? Have you ever looked at Joshua and thought: Why? It feels unnecessary. Why does he? And how tall? If I stretch-armstronged out a Victorian schoolboy is this what he would look like after? We’ve all had these thoughts, and you’re not alone.

The first thought and poster were bringing awareness of “Siegfried & Roy’’ to the viewer. In the second poster, I wanted to appeal to that viewer and introduce them to the Anti-Joshua Mitchel League of America or AJMLA that was tagged in the corner of the first poster as well as the other two.

Though the first poster and thought were closer to a traditional attack ad with only a slight joke made towards a made-up alias, the appeal would lean further into absurdity. To do this, I wanted the thoughts to be half or incomplete statements that were Clueless-esque or “ugh, as if’’ inspired, culminating in a one-line roast of my friend.

Thought Three:

When God created man, he made sure to make him from the Earth. His feet firmly on the ground. God did not make tree trunks McGee over here with his head in the clouds. This man looks down on all of us. He looks down on you, me, and the rest of the 97% in this country. He’s not better than the rest of us because he can find the exit in a crowd.

What is really the final “attack” I wanted the poster to be a judgement and call-out of who he was, and in his case, it was “tall”.

A biblical angle in criticism is a common trope and a perfect way to remark about my friend’s height. By using the Genesis story of Adam’s creation from the Earth by God it allowed me to condemn his height without it requiring a stretch to make my point. Effectively making a case for the belief that man was made from the Earth and should not have his head in the clouds. Then to ground the attack with a statistic and paint him as elitist, I used the percentage of Americans shorter than him along with the idea that he was literally looking down on everyone.

Thought Four:

Happy birthday, I guess — I’m not happy about it though. So, actually, I’m going to amend my previous statement. Birthday.

With the final poster, I wanted to bring the viewer in on the joke’s purpose; that the comedic attack ad campaign had been for his birthday, as a friendly roast. However, I wasn’t going to give up the tone of the previous three, just because I made the reveal. So on the last poster, I offered up the blunt insult of “loser” and begrudgingly said “happy birthday” — well, just birthday.

After completing the poster series over a few hours, I coordinated with his girlfriend to send the high-quality files for her to print and passed off the versions meant to be posted online. Around 7:00 pm, I made an announcement online about giving the gift that keeps on giving, a smear campaign. Then I sent my friend a text message and immediately received a phone call as he had begun reading each poster. Based on his laughter alone, I’d say it was a success — though now I am hoping no one else is expecting something similar on their birthday.

If you are one of those people, expect disappointment if you do.