Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Anonymous' Video on Washington Post's Most Viral of 2008

From http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/artsandliving/style/2008/bestofweb/gallery.html:
Tom Cruise and Anonymous

Way back in January, before he made nice with Matt Lauer, Tom Cruise was still Creepy Tom -- a state of being exemplified nowhere better than this leaked Scientology promo video. Cruise rambles, he cackles, he avoids proper nouns and he proclaims himself an "the only one who can really help" at car accident scenes.

It was classic unhinged celebrity voyeurism, but the story got really interesting when a group calling itself "Anonymous" posted a response video, in which it vowed to bring down the Church of Scientology. The two minutes of eerie digital voice-over eventually led to real-life protests in more than 100 cities.

1 comment:

Thoughtful said...

The really telling thing about the mega-creepy Tom Cruise video was that it was edited by Miscavige himself. He has been talking about Tom Cruise winning the IAS Freedom Medal since 2003 and even before that. He considered it the most important Freedom Medal ever awarded, so instead of the usual 12-14 minute IAS Winner Video (which are loaded with lies and false statistics), he wanted to do something far better. Not just blow it out of the park, but make a video that would resonate down through the ages. This is the result. A video that redefines the word, “crap.”

Miscavige micro-manages (and usually destroys) everything he touches, not the least of which is every aspect of speech, video and film production. By 2007, there were already hundreds of pages of Confidential “COB Traffic” transcripts, transcripts of David Miscavige ranting and raving about how this particular video was to be scripted, shot and edited, how it had to out-do all previous IAS Medal Winner videos. He held dozens of meetings screaming at the Sea Org members who had the unfortunate job of creating this monstrosity for Miscavige.

I mean, the core belief of Scientology is ARC (Affinity, Reality and Communication = Understanding). So why is this video so unreal?

As a parallel example, for years Miscavige has insisted on the same announcer do all the VOs for all his event videos. You can hear this guy at the start of the Tom Cruise video. Miscavige won't use anyone else. And even the guy who does the VOs (a Scientologist) doesn't understand the kind of voice he's doing. He said once, "I don't even know what voice it is. It's just the one Miscavige has coached me into doing.”

In reality, one only need to think back to the AM radio of the 1960s. There's the same hyped up voice. Not real, mind you. Not reality, mind you. AM radio DJ. That's Miscavige gettin' it done the way only he sees fit. Breathing unreality into everything he touches.

The Tom Cruise video is pure Miscavige. Who would create such trash? A mind fried... fried by a lifetime of committing financial irregularities. Stealing from Scientologists and stealing from Sea Org members. A lifetime of forcing Sea Org women to get abortions or "else." A lifetime of squandering LRH's money, breaking up marriages and families.