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Is 2012 the end of the world?
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The movie 2012 by Sony Pictures is set to debut on November 13, 2009. In the movie, there are a series of catastrophes involving earthquakes, tsunamis and meteor showers.
In bookstores everywhere, there are almost 200 different titles relating to different aspects of 2012 and much fervent activity on the internet talking about 2012 and what it means. This is creating an underlying fear causing many people in the United States to lose sleep, become depressed, and is even beginning to affect school children.
At Cornell University, Ann Martin, who runs the "Curious? Ask an Astronomer" Web site, says people are scared. "It's too bad that we're getting e-mails from fourth-graders who are saying that they're too young to die," Martin said. "We had a mother of two young children who was afraid she wouldn't live to see them grow up."
All of this viral fear has even prompted NASA to come out with a statement to say that the world will not end in 2012. Discovery News published a related article on October 12, 2009 from the Mayan perspective and also published the NASA statement on October 22, 2009. The “Ask an Astrobiologist” website has published a Q and A regarding commonly asked questions.
So what exactly is going on here?
Let’s begin by saying that much of the recent viral fear is propelled by Sony Pictures marketing, which has set up an interlinked family of Web sites and Facebook and MySpace pages to infuse a sense of reality to its fictional work discussed in the movie. The lead character in the film, played by actor John Cusack is an author character who, in the movie, has written a book about a murder, conspiracy and disaster aboard the space shuttle Atlantis, which, coincidentally, is poised for launch on a space station construction mission the weekend the movie debuts. The fictional book in the movie is named "Farewell, Atlantis," It has a Web site, a Facebook page to follow "author appearances," fans and friends, a fake publisher with a fake Web site, and a fake press release.
All of the fake sights are part of a new marketing phenomenon called "flogs". The 2012 "flogs" are all accompanied by endorsements from the real son of the late Carl Sagan, just to mix it up a bit. There's also a fake institute that presumably dispenses "real" science supporting the movie's claims, as well as a fake news website that distributes fake press releases about a fake aerospace company winning government contracts. All of these can be accessed by clicking on “The Experience” menu item on the movie website. They even have a game and iPhone Apps available.
This is, in reality, a marketer’s dream of using all the available “social networking” tools to create viral marketing and hype about the movie. “Viral Marketing” is the current holy grail of the advertising and marketing world. It certainly brings to mind memories of Orson Well’s “The War of the Worlds” radio show that aired near Halloween, October 30, 1938. It began as a series of simulated news bulletins that quickly had listeners actually thinking that there was an invasion by Martians.
Hype or not, this reaction begs the question “Why”? Why are so many thinking that this is possible? Why are there so many theories regarding 2012? Why is this invading our consciousness not only as Americans, but as a planet?
Let’s explore these issues as 2012 Examiner looks at different theories and ideas, from history, science, religion, metaphysics, quantum physics, astronomy and astrology to name just a few sources. Our goal will be to seek answers to what 2012 means to you and to Planet Earth. I encourage you to participate by offering your theories, thoughts and ideas. After all, we're all in this together!
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