Mutation of a Disque? (Snikt!)

The blind, searing panic before the storm

This is gonna be a quick post—I still have a ton of work to do before heading to FanExpo this afternoon, to begin Op Drop’s biggest operation yet: the dropping of 100 disques over the course of three days and 270, 000 square feet, in the midst of over 50,000 comic, sci-fi, anime and gaming fans. Hopefully, I’ll be able to convert at least a few of these people into Lili fans, as well…

(I think the Stormtrooper is a pretty good candidate. They're joiners, y'know...)

Meanwhile, at the Hall of Justice...

Anyway, earlier this week, Ben from Operation LTNY, dropped by to leave a comment on Tuesday’s post, and made a point I’ve actually been struggling with since the very earliest stages of Op Drop:

“Hi there, Ben from LTNY here. I really like what you're doing! But I can think of one problem. At least speaking for myself, I'd never put a strange found disc inside my computer. Despite saying no viruses or spyware, how can know? It's like having unprotected sex. That's one reason LTNY has stuck to audio CDs. Those either just play or don't, they won't break your stereo.”

Hmm...I’ve talked before about my rationale for making the Op Drop disques “Alizée Fan Starter Kits” (containing mp3s, AVI clips and a few desktop wallpaper images) as opposed to just a straight-ahead music-only CD. With mp3 players being so prevalent now, and viral videos like ‘J’en Ai Marre!’ appearing to play a pretty big part in winning over so many of the existing North American fans—on top of the whole ‘language barrier’ issue posed by the fact that Alizée sings almost exclusively in French—it just seemed like a no-brainer to go the multimedia route. As I’ve said before, you don’t go to war and leave your most effective weapons at home!

Also, looking at it from a logical standpoint…while I’m certainly no hacker, I tend to think that propagating a computer virus via random CDs dropped in public places, masquerading as fan promotion for a semi-obscure French pop singer would be awfully inefficient, mais non? Isn’t your average hacker a lot smarter and more resourceful than that? And, um, also prone to not wanting to leave the house?

I know, I know…who am I to talk? I’m spending my weekend at Nerd Prom, after all.)

But while it appears that logic and reason are on my side in this, the fact remains that we’re living in a pretty illogical and unreasonable age right now, in a culture that’s sadly wracked with paranoia and suspicion. I could go on at length about the root causes for it, and the disastrous effect they’ll still be having on our society a generation or two from now, but it wouldn’t change anything. As things stand right now, it only seems to be common sense to somebody like Ben—who, from my limited dealings with him, I gather to be a very rational and intelligent individual—to err on the side of caution, and not put an Op Drop disque in his computer and explore its contents.

…which is kind of counterproductive, given that the whole aim of Op Drop is to get rational and intelligent individuals to do exactly that, and discover Alizée in the process.

You see my dilemma.

This was one of the big reasons behind the push to upgrade the disques from the sad, obviously home-made Mark I Prototypes to the slicker and more polished Mark II’s—not only will a more professional-looking disque naturally be more attractive, but hopefully a recipient will be more willing to take a chance on trusting it if it doesn’t look like it was made by the Unabomber.

As an experiment, though, I’m also going to take a page from LTNY’s playbook, and change gears a little bit: of the 100 disques that I plan to distribute at FanExpo this weekend, 40 of them are going to be brand-new Mark III ‘music only’ disques, playable in a standard CD player. They’ll feature the exact same track list as the Mark II’s, but be stripped of the videos and wallpapers, and have different packaging that invites the listener to learn more about Alizée here at Op Drop. We’ll see which of the two disques garners the greater response this weekend, and adjust our future direction accordingly.

OK, so that wasn’t short at all! And I’m still horribly behind, blargh!

Anyway, stay tuned to Op Drop all weekend for updates from FanExpo. Remember, if you’re an Alizée fan in the Toronto area for the weekend, and you’d like to lend a hand, drop me a note either here in the comments below, in the ShoutBox to the left, or email me at disquedrop@gmail.com!