Do you ever get the feeling you’re being tricked? That stomach-lurching sensation that comes when you’ve been played for a fool? Well, you better get used to it, because you’re going to be feeling it a lot more often. In the contemporary digital era, trickery is the name of the game. The internet is already awash with deepfake porn and AI-generated art, and now a new kind of content chicanery has emerged: Fake user-generated content (UGC).
You may not have heard this term before, but mark my words, you’ve seen some of it. Last October, there was the story about a TMZ reporter who, after seeing ASAP Rocky on a jog, decided to run after him. She chased him in her flip-flops, and then resorted to running barefoot, while asking questions about his forthcoming new album. At the end of the video, Rocky conveniently recommended that she cop some kicks from his Puma x F1 collection.
Then there was Charli XCX’s viral Instagram post about a supposed list of “marketing ideas” she’d sent by her record label, which included “Charli leaks a sex tape” and “Charli gets caught shoplifting”. Just days later, the popstar appeared to have been filmed by a fan – one with over 28k followers on X – driving in a convertible with the roof down, blasting her new single.
Can we 100% confirm that these seemingly spontaneous incidents were actually carefully considered marketing ploys? No. But does everything smell intensely fishy at the moment? Yes.
Why Are Puppets Everywhere Right Now?
Other examples of UGC soon reveal themselves to be fake. In January, Michael Cera was in the news headlines after he was pictured carrying plastic bags chock-full of CeraVe skincare lotion through the streets of New York. “Why is Michael Cera carrying that much lotion,” asked one Twitter user, posting the paparazzi-style photo to around 18,000 followers. The next day, influencer Haley Kalil posted a video on TikTok of a casual visit to her local pharmacy, where she witnessed Cera signing bottles of lotion – apparently unexpectedly. “Guys run to this pharmacy in BK, I just saw MICHAEL CERA signing bottles!!” she captioned her post. “I’m a #ceravepartner, and I’m asking @CeraVe what is going ON.”
Of course, what was going on was marketing, and the whole thing culminated in a halftime ad at the Super Bowl. The viral marketing partnership was heralded by some fans as “the best Super Bowl commercial in years.”
To some degree, all marketing is a game of smoke and mirrors. The entire point is to make people pay attention to what the advertisers want them to. And the CeraVe commercial did a great job of making a splash, while distracting consumers from the calls for boycott that its parent company, L’Oréal, is currently facing because of its ongoing investments in Israel.