Fox Fails At Internet By Making Their Own Memes

Spoof movies suck. Well, modern spoof movies inspired by the humorless Scary Movies franchise suck, to be more precise. However, they're loved enough by the movie going audience to make them popular, as evidenced by A Haunted House ranking number two at last weekend’s box office. So it’s not really surprising to see 20^th Century Fox continuing the genre-specific spoofings that actually just spoofs any films released last year with the terribly convoluted title, 30 Nights of Paranormal Activity with the Devil Inside the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It’s nauseating to hear they’re still doing this, but at least Fox had the courtesy to hide this crusted dung in the direct-to-video sandbox market.

Despite demoting 30 Days of Blah Blah Blah to video release, Fox are offering exclusives internet memes to drum up awareness for the movie. There’s a big problem with this method. The memes were produced by Fox as a promotional tool; not by internet users wanting to have some fun. Internet memes work best when they’re created by people passionate about what they’re mocking or celebrating. Look at Futurama and all its fan-inspired memes, which were later acknowledged by the staff and Comedy Central’s advertising department. “Shut up and take my money!” or “Why not Zoidberg?” become trusty macro image responses by fans dedicate to the series; not by constant corporate advertisement. The only thing the Futurama writers had to do was write some pants-wetting comedy and the internet did the rest.

By making their own 30 Days of Something Something memes, Fox is admitting there won’t be a dedicated audience that will do the same for the film. So keep your exclusive memes, Fox. Let us be with our Grumpy Cats, Rage Comics, and Sad Frogs.