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April 16, 2002

Send In the Clowns

Don't bother, they're here

Ian Shoales

"It's tough to be a clown in today's economy."
— "Send In the iKlowns," Katherine Mieszkowski, Salon.com, Jan. 10, 2002

When I read those words, I found myself thinking, "No wonder I'm broke!" But then I remembered, I'm not really a clown, but its equivalent — a content provider. I mean, if I were wearing a red nose, you'd tell me, wouldn't you?

Of course, the clown quoted insisted he wasn't a clown either, but instead a Klown — one of a group of pranksters called "iKlowns," a faux marketer for a fictitious company called Evil Klown Industries LLC. They were trying to crash the Macworld trade show in January 2002 to promote the iKlown Personal Digital Companion, which doesn't exist. They were turned away from the show because they didn't have a booth.

The article confused me. Clowns who weren't really clowns promoting a non-product for a company that wasn't really a company? And they would have made it into the trade show if they had only had a booth promoting the nonproduct for the noncompany? Sounds like the Internet economy to me! I thought that was defunct.

Elevating Dysfunction

At the clown-free Macworld the new iMac was unveiled to the "oohs" and "aahs" of an easily astonished media. Personally, I thought it looked like an outsized Swedish lamp, something you might buy at Ikea in a moment of weakness. But what do I know? They'll probably jump off the shelves.

Yes, the economy keeps plugging away in 2002. A group named Captivate Network Inc. plans to bring television to elevators, according to the Silicon Alley Daily. "The effort to reach customers in alternative venues, away from the ad-filled clutter of the traditional medium has led advertisers to ... the emerging medium of in-elevator advertising" ("Captivate the Audience," Jan. 10, 2002). This idea from hell first came to Captivate's founder, Michael DiFranza, when he noted the "dysfunctional behavior of elevator riders, to the point of being comical."

I'd never noticed that elevator rides led to dysfunctional behavior — unless standing quietly in a small room with strangers watching numbers light up on a wall qualifies as dysfunctional.

Even if it does, it's certainly not comical. Besides, one of the rules of riding in an elevator is that you don't make eye contact with your fellow passengers. It sounds to me that, by his very observation, this DiFranza character was violating a basic social taboo.

Containing Clowns

Then again, maybe elevator behaviors vary. I haven't done a lot of research on it. Maybe some elevators host sing-alongs and dance contests. There could be brief rounds of poker or blackjack, if the building is tall enough. Juggling, maybe. Archery competitions. Mud wrestling. Stand-up comedy. Fist fights. Domestic squabbles. Why not? I might not consider television viewing to be an elevator option, but then I'm just a lowly content provider, not a marketing genius.

Still, I remain puzzled by DiFranza's comment. Elevator behavior is "dysfunctional" to the "point of being comical." The behavior hasn't achieved being comical, you'll note, only arrived at the point of being comical. Unfunny and dysfunctional? What does that sound like to you? Frankly, it sounds like clowns to me.

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I have a suspicion that DiFranza found himself in an elevator with a bunch of clowns, pelting each other with cream pies, squirting each other with seltzer, pushing buttons at random, and it went downhill from there.

Of course, I can't prove that clowns were staging some kind of elaborate plot to convince this DiFranza person that what elevators really need are news briefs and commercials blaring at hapless passengers, but I really don't see any other explanation.

Ian Shoales lives in San Francisco, where clowns frighten him on a daily basis.