Fake Freak Out Rage Ads Are All The Rage

Freak out videos are big. People love to laugh at the misfortune of others, plus we can all relate with the one guy who just has too much one day and finally snaps. It could be one of us, if we were mentally unbalanced. Fortunately for society, most of us are at least partially balanced, so we keep that terrible rage bottled up deep inside, buried in our special place, where it can do no harm except for the gradual eating away of our soul and joy of living.

Yes, well, the videos: This unfortunate nutcase in the hotel lobby is a fictional character as you may have guessed from the website displayed at the end. That website, www.donthaveameltdown.com, is actually a front for Cisco’s Unified Communications Create Adaptive Workspaces service. You sold me, Cisco, hook it up in my living room. Wait, it costs how much?

Moving on, check out these past freak out viral video ads:


and

This one had me fooled, if only because there is no obvious theme or product placement or anything, it’s just a got going nuts, convincingly. But it turns out it was just viral marketing from Timur Bekmambetov, director of the film Wanted starring Angelina Jolie. After weeks of speculation on the internet, Bekmambetov revealed the stunt on his personal blog, where he apparently laughed at the gullibility of the West. Har har, we’re not the society that fell for 75 years of socialism. Good one, pinko, how’d that work out for you?

Really though, it’s a hell of a video.

This is probably the best thing to come from the people at WSJParody.com. I know some people who think it’s funny, they’re the kind of people that can help me gauge if something is actually funny or not. If they like it, it’s not funny. I mean really, if you have to include the word “parody” in your name, it’s just not going places.

Either way, high marks for the fake Murdoch freak out video. A+ on that.

And, finally, the big one, the original, the Bad Day At The Office. They all draw inspiration from this guy. The poor overweight pudge who just had enough with his Windows 3.1 crashing all the time:

This one is still a mystery, maybe it’s real, maybe its staged, who knows. That’s why it’s legendary. Thank you, fat cubicle freak out guy.