President Shoe Attack Meme… Commercialized!
Posted on by Jason Li
Background
- The clip is entitled “President Attacked by Shoe, Leads to War” (总统被扔鞋引发血战) in reference to the event last year when a journalist attacked US President Bush by throwing a shoe at him.
- It was produced by 胡戈 (Hu Ge), the man behind the original egao film, the “Bloody Case That Started from a Steam Bun” (see ESWN’s coverage of it here).
Spoiler alert (read this only after you have watched it):
- The ending, in case it’s not clear, reveals that the clip is an ad for Alibaba, “the world largest online B2B marketplace” — brilliant ad: It’s entertaining, directly related to the product and they contracted an internet-famous artist Hu Ge to create it.
Footnotes:
- My friend Paul Saffo predicted the president-shoe meme would be a hit back in December 2008 here.
- I encountered the video first on Punk Planning.
- See the director (胡戈)’s blog where you can download the clip here.