Viral Marketing Leads to Mock Gunfight Posted by XanTium | March 10 16:34 EST | News Category: Xbox360

From canada.com: [QUOTE] Several Ottawa high school students have been suspended for re-enacting an Xbox commercial that involves a mock gun fight[video] -- the latest in a series of attempts around the world to mimic the segment that, according to media analysts, amounts to free "viral advertising" for Microsoft Corp. The latest incident took place on Tuesday in the cafeteria at South Carleton High School when a crowd of students shot finger guns at one another and feigned death by either falling or slumping to the ground. "If you really want to get something rolling, what better way is there than telling young (people) they can't do it or see it," said David Spencer, an analyst at the University of Western Ontario. "If the establishment likes it, it has to be bad. If the establishment thinks it's bad, it has to be good. "What's interesting about the whole story is who released it? Did the advertising agency do it ... did Microsoft do it?" Following the Ottawa incident, six students were given one-day suspensions, according to some participants. But some students who were suspended say they did nothing wrong. Alex Dorward, 17, said he participated in Tuesday's flash mob because he just "wanted to have some fun." "Our school spirit is terrible. No one does anything as a group, no one supports any teams," he said. "As far as we know, a flash mob is not breaking any school rules. People can point fingers and people can fall backwards." [/QUOTE] Full Story: canada.com Video of the South Carleton High School 'Flash Mob': video.canada.com

video links dont work

Reminds me of why I hated high school. If these kids were in college the only thing that would of happened is they would have gotten a round of applause.

Same here.

Wow, this sucks. I remember a few years back someone around where I live (Eastern Pennsylvania) was suspended for pointing a chicken finger at someone and saying "bang." I think the kid was around 10 or maybe less.
Wow.


I want to see this video!

try now.

Another great Xmas present from XantaClause.
They're great, thanks.

it was cool

while the advertising is good.. there is no reason to suspend these kids... nobody was hurt and there was no real threat to anyone.. WTF?? these type of incidents just piss me off.
I understand some situations in wake of the past 10 years of high school history.. but are these people serious?
what's next? kids get suspended for being in a drama club and fake sword fighting? (although I would like to see that happen because drama students are weird, it's still not right)

Absolutely ridiculous, I remember playing pretend gun games during recess in grade school. Of course it was just with our fingers. Anyways how are high school students getting suspended for this? This is even at lunchtime! I can understand if this was done in the classroom then it could have been an issue because it was a “disruption”. But this was done on the students free time. No harm was done. Fucking ridiculous.

omg this reminds me of the time i drove through a target parking lot and saw this lady and held my friends steering wheel lock up like a gun as we drove by and i said BANG BANG!!! and the lady freaked out and yelled for her kid to run into the store and get help. We drove off and were in a neighborhood near by and we just heard so many cops, we drove back by target on the way home and so many cops were there....
all that over yelling bang bang with something that clearly was not a gun...

this is the only way to show that the system does not work.....
mess with it.....try walking down the street and keep saying "BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG" to anyone you see, or try it in a mall (dont try it unless you want problems, or you can run fast)....see how fast the COPS will get you....what a joke......FREEDOM??, my ass....

HAHA.

I would love to do something like this in my University Lectures it will be a dam site more interesting, reckon they would allow it, or kick me of even though we pay £3000 a year tuition fees?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0HNFLoMiM0

I just need to get the costumes

well i can tell you why the high schools are like that. it was the knee-jerk reaction after the columbine shooting. ive been out of highschool 7? years now, and i remember a kid saying "if the school blew up that would be funny" well someone overheard him that had nothing better to do than tell adminstration......the kid was suspended a week.

Why didn't anyone tell me about this beforehand? I would have been there in a second. Well, maybe not.

South Carleton is not the sort of school you want to visit. I few wrestling tournements have been held there and that school is pretty run down. However, the kid who said that they have no school spirit can speak for himself. A lot of their school supports their sports and they have regular provincial championship teams.

Yeah don't go doing that again man, finger guns are one thing but once you step in to using something that could be seen as a gun (through the tinted windows of your friend's car for example) you might as well be carrying a gun. If you walk in to a bank holding a water pistol and pretending it's a gun you the guards would be in their right to shoot you through the head...

thing was it didnt look like a gun at all, it was a bright red pipe with nothing else on it and the windows were down and i was leaning out the window slightly, After i said bang band i even held the pipe side ways and waved it back and forth so she could see it was a joke, but she still freaked lol

Still, that's a pretty bad idea.

-Erich

that is sooo gay...good thing my school isnt like that

BAN THESE EVIL VIDEO GAME ADVERTS!
First video games, now the adverts, what is next on this proverbial hot bed of violence. I can understand how it could be taken as insulting (what with gun crime in school from a while back) but still they should be offered a chance to defend themselves.
Bet Jack Thompson is dancing around right now over this.

What is your school like?

This... "thats so gay" term is getting really boring, everything becomes gay this days as an emigrant I must say US high schools are gay (at least one that I attended) Lets get back to video, well they had some fun and they were punished by suspension which in my country would be more like a prize

if this happened in the US, I could see some lawsuits rolling out against the school. Its not like they brought plastic or realistic looking guns into the school, they were just playing around.

You don't get suspended unless you've actually done something bad. We have "smoking areas" where people can go have a smoke if they want, anyone can go (i don't smoke often). You can swear all you want teachers cant do anything about it (that is out of class). Really it isn't that different from other high schools, except they don't suspend you for pointing your finger at someone and saying "bang!". I just realized something that school is called Carleton, mines without the "e" ha ha.

For my immigrant friend, i'm an immigrant too been here since in Canada since i was 10. I've gone to 6 different schools (15 including the ones i went before coming to Canada), and alot of those schools were gay except for a couple.




ps: when i said thats so gay i meant that their suspension for doing something like that was gay. I didn't mean anything about the video.

kids just wanting to have fun...the suspensions were only to prevent others from mimicking their actions and maybe taking it even further where someone could eventually get hurt. even though it was harmless, it was not the appropriate venue for that and thus the suspensions will hopefully make sure no one does anything because of their actions to get hurt in the future...

i am sure they don't care about 1 day suspensions...they had a good time...

I don't know how it is in America Number Two, but here in America we all live by a little saying. If it isn't an American flag, it's probably a bomb.


Really though, one day suspension is a vacation.

I don't see the problem. Creativity maybe?

well suspending as a preventative warning measure is ridiculous... we better start suspending kids who turn in their homework late in order to prevent it from escalating into a bigger problem..

these kids were obviously not going to take it too far, and if anyone does take it a step further, it's not a result of the 'gateway' given by these students.. this is like saying marijuana is a gateway drug, if that's true.. and high school is the gateway to marijuana, and middle school is the gateway to high school.. (i could take this anywhere from here, but it ends with us closing off people from communication between one another because without communication, there can be no plans to do 'bad things' so we should just suspend kids for talking)

edit: my point is, where do we draw the line? I think that drawing the line where it was, is way too early and it needs to be drawn where there is actually real potential for harm. These kids were not in any way harming anyone. If you were too scared to watch it, close your eyes. Learn to discern from acting on imagination and acting on real feelings..

First things first: I am an Ex-student of South Carleton HS (graduated last year). A- Yes, the school Spirit sucks B- It's a school located in the Outskirts of Ottawa, ON and its students are mostly all from the country (quite a few of them living on farms) C- There hasn't been any gun shootings at a school in that area as far as I know. So, Therefor I believe that this was quite an overreaction on the principals part. I never felt threatened by my well being there. There was a touch of bullying, but I only remember one fight in my whole four years there.

I totally agree with the school's decision. Accidents happen so quickly. You never know when one of those fingers might fire off.
Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to report a friend who dropped some ketchup on his shirt. He's sooo in trouble for having re-enacted a washing powder advertising.

Greetings, the actions taken by the school are in direct violation of the students right to express creativity, as an ex south carleton student i kno the schools spirt sucked but this was the first time a group of people were enthused to particpate in an activity but the administration that has only been there for just over one school year they do not kno how to deal with this type of creativity and they promptly removed and suspended the students involved, this would be like being suspended students for reherseing the life and tragedy of lady MacBeth scene where Macbeth gets killed off. Bickerton the principal is making another attempt to show that he is in control and he will use his power to get his way.

Those who know by my screen name know what im talking about.

Sincerly RoadRunnerX

If your going to create a disturbance or a disruptive scene, make sure its worth it.
I know I did. lol
...and I thought I was geek for rolling a d20

jeez man, leave it out, the kids are avin a laugh, its like dictatorship in skools, im pretty lucky, UK schools are rather lienent, ive done gun fights, ive made fireworks in chemistry, lobbing paper airplanes out the window and one hittin the head (principle) on hes arm, worst i got was told to pick them up

I'm going to Edit this as it was pointed out that only a portion of the schools population lives in the country. And only a few live on farms. The school itself though is located in a fairly small community and that was what I meant by it.

Schools are really getting out of hand with this zero tolerance policy bull.