True Blood Promo Site Generates Controversy

By The Woman In Black
May 29th, 2009

The line between advertising and editorial content got a bit more blurred recently when some confusion and controversy arose as a result of the gossip site Gawker's hosting of Bloodcopy, a fake blog set up by HBO to promote the upcoming second season of "True Blood".

Looking like a mirror image of Gawker.com, Bloodcopy.com sports all manner of vampire news, videos, contests, etc. It's supposedly being written by a vampire named Andrew Kasday from Bon Temps. There are even recipes incorporating Tru Blood, the synthetic blood the vamps on the show drink instead of sucking on their neighbors, and ads for Monster.com's Vamp-hire Program.

Trouble arose when Bloodcopy posted an announcement that it was "officially under the Gawker umbrella." Gawker's Managing Editor Gabriel Snyder responded with his own article entitled About That Vampire Blog Thing.

But now things are blowing over, and really, the main focus should be how clever HBO is being once again with its promotion for the series. Where else can you find a debate about the effect of vampires coming out of the closet on the economy? Sheer genius!

- Debi Moore