Adventures in Channel Surfing, or How I Stumbled Upon Something Strange

Hello, dear reader, and welcome to my first blog post. Hopefully, it won't be my last. I started this blog because my friends have been telling me that I'd be good at this kind of thing. Well, I hope I can prove them right with this blog.

There is, however, another reason why I've decided to start this blog, and the reason for that was something strange that I found while channel surfing one day. More on that later. I have a Bell ExpressVu satellite dish, so one day, I was flipping through my many hundreds of channels. When I came to channel 570, MuchMusic, I stopped for a minute. I hadn't watched Much in years, and I wanted to see if anything had changed in the past few months. Unfortunately, I couldn't see any significant changes. A repeat of Much on Demand (MoD) was on at the time. I can't remember for the life of me what they were talking about, but it didn't really matter.

Anyway, so I'm watching MoD, when suddenly, my TV screen starts to go all wonky. I then see a short video of some guy in a cowboy hat, green goggles, a green mask, and a plaid cowboy shirt. My first thought was, "Hey, what's going on here? Is this person some kind of alien who's a fan of Brokeback Mountain or something?" My next thought was, "Hey, is Much or Bell ExpressVu's signal being tampered with?" The person in the video was saying something along the lines of "I did it again," or something like that. And then he held up a small piece of corrugated cardboard that had http://www.phreak615.com/ written on it in black marker. The video then promptly disappeared, and the program returned to normal. Being a Journalism student, my investigative spirit kicked in, and I decided to visit the site to see what this was all about.

I followed the link to the site, and I found a Blogger blog, much like this one. Sure enough, there was the picture of the "alien Brokeback Mountain fan" on the front page, and the name phreak615 at the top, like a headline in a newspaper (yay, another journalism reference :P). I looked at his postings, and found out that he was a disgruntled MuchMusic employee of some sort who was trying to interfere with their signal for whatever reason. Calling himself a "pop-culture activist," whatever that means, this person had some kind of big, bad plan for Much. He had video captures of his other hackings posted on his blog as well. "Strange," I thought. "What could this person possibly have against Much? Did they treat him badly or something?" Something was defintely afoot, and thus, Sherlock Holmes got out his magnifying glass and set to work, trying to figure out who this mysterious phreak615 person was, and what he was up to.

I proceeded to type phreak615 into Google, and one of the first results I found was a blog posting about the strange proceedings on a site called http://www.dabbler.ca/. Here, a person called Mad Morten (nice guy, by the way), had deconstructed the situation, and labelled it as a possible viral marketing attempt from MuchMusic. I had seen other viral marketing schemes done in the past, some of them involving radio stations changing formats, and leaving the new format a secret until a specific date and time. Other examples are done on TV or even the Internet as well. These viral or flash marketing campaigns, which is my name for them because something is flashed at you at warp speed, are designed to build hype about some kind of new product, movie, program, or something of the like, while giving the user as little information as possible. Remember the episode of The Simpsons where Homer and Bart are watching TV and all of a sudden, they hear a voice on TV saying "Gabbo, Gabbo Gabbo!" Yeah, that kind of thing.

Anyway, the posters on Mad Morten's blog at Dabbler.ca had all kinds of ideas what this whole thing could be about. Being a bit of a conspiracy theorist myself, I decided to throw my hat into the ring as well and give them some of my ideas. But I hesitated for a bit. I returned to phreak615's blog, and watched some of the YouTube videos he'd posted. Some of them he had made himself, and they were in the same vein as the interference I'd seen on Much. Videos from other users were posted too, and they were captures of the brief interferences that I had seen. Nobody seemed to know what was going on, so I decided to investigate this matter a bit further.

I analyzed the videos for clues, like any good detective or investigative journalist would. Sure enough, I managed to find some. I was presented with two clues, phreak and 615. A deliberately misspelled word and a three-digit number. It turned out that the term "phreak" refers to someone who hacks into telecommunications systems. phreak615 was definitely doing this. But what did 615 mean? Hmm. And then it hit me. The number was a strategically chosen one, and so was the name. I deduced that 615 could be a possible reference to 6/15, or June 15th. As for phreak, well, I decided to go way out on a limb and guess that it might be part of the title of a new MuchMusic original program that might debut on that day. It sounded logical enough, but it was merely an allegation. However, being the nice guy that I am, I decided to share this hunch with others. And the best place to do it? Why, Dabbler.ca, of course.

Back to Dabbler I went, and I posted my allegations on the blog. The replies ranged from "You might have something there" to "That's a bit farfetched, isn't it?" It certainly was, but I thought it might have some validity to it. I then read phreak615's blog again, and I noticed that he was telling his responders that if they sent him short videos via YouTube, he'd "make them famous." And sure enough, he did. People actually sent him videos, and he used them in his "hacks." Interesting. That led me to another idea - what if MuchMusic is making a new show where people send in videos where they rant about n'importe quoi, as we say here in Quebec. Much PhreakOuts would be a potential title for this program, and this phreak615 character would be unmasked on June 15th and serve as the show's host. So I then went to back to phreak615's YouTube page and posted my allegations there. I posted similar comments on his videos. Hours later, I found that phreak615 had blocked me from posting on his YouTube profile page. This either meant that I had exposed the plan, or that he didn't like people playing guessing games. This was the beginning of what would become a fun little game of sorts, if you could call it that.

Fast forward a couple of days. I continue posting more new allegations and conspiracy theories on Dabbler.ca. Two YouTubers named Nick and Shannon find out about my conspiracy theories, and make an expose video. The re-state what I said, and they too agree that this is a big viral marketing hoax. Eventually, phreak615 finds out about what I've been saying, and begins to take action. He issues me a challenge, sending me to a clothing store called Influence U on Ste-Catherine St. here in Montreal. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything there, but phreak615 gave me the answer later on. One of the mannequins in their display window was wearing a green mask that doesn't cover the mouth - the exact same mask that phreak615 wears in his videos. Creative. I'm not sure how he managed to pull that one off, but it is rather interesting. Perhaps he has eyes and ears in Montreal.

As far as phreak615 is concerned, I'll say this much: I'm a guy with allegations, and he's a guy who likes to stir up trouble. This has resulted in a bit of a mental chess match between the two of us. Sparks have flown, but it's been fun, to say the least. I like a good mystery. In fact, when I was a kid, I loved mystery stories. I even watch CSI an Law and Order on and off because of that. You can't solve a mystery without taking a few shots in the dark first, but sometimes, those shots in the dark can lead you to something. That's what's happened here. I'm not saying any of my allegations are right. They could be totally wrong. But that is the risk you take when you make assumptions. So to you, phreak615, I say, bring on whatever you've got. I don't know if I'll ever figure out what it is you're trying to promote with your viral marketing campaign, which reeks of hoaxness (not a word, but I don't care), but it's a lot ot fun trying to. I know that these aren't really hacks that you're making, as if they were, they'd get you a massive fine - we're talking upwards of $100,000 here - and possible jail time (or both). The Max Headroom pirate from Chicago's WTTW 11 in 1987 seems to be your inspiration. But his hack was a legit one. This one, less so. But still, keep the fun coming.

As I told the Concordia Journalism program in my letter of intent, I enjoy being challenged. I like to think that there is a challenge waiting for me every day. The best part is completing the challenge, which just makes you feel like you've conquered something big. The challenge here is to use clues to figure out what's going to happen. I haven't figured it out yet, but maybe I will. Even if I don't, I'll be able to say that I had a good time trying. And that's it for this blog post. I like blogging now, so maybe I'll keep doing it. It really gives you a nice opportunity to say what's on your mind. Oh, and phreak615, you, sir, are a worthy adversary. I welcome any additional Montreal-area challenges that you may have for me.