• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

'This Man': (Odd Website About Dreaming: Viral Marketing / Hoax?)

mrpoultice

Fen-dwelling Slodger
Joined
Jan 28, 2003
Messages
374
Ok, I have been forwarded the link to this site, and I am posting it here with a few cautionary notes below.

thisman.jpg


EVER DREAM THIS MAN?
The aim of this website is:
- to help those who have seen this man in their dreams and to foster communication among them;
- to understand who this man is and why he appears in an apparently pattern-less array of situations in the dreams of such diverse human subjects.


Now I know nothing about this, (and no, I have not dreamt of this paticular character) It could be straight up, it could be a very off the wall modern art project, a hoax or (more likely) a piece of viral advertising.

I did check out who owned the domain name, and it's registered in Italy, to someone who runs/works in a marketing company called Guerriglia Marketing which sets my cynical bells-a-ringing. Edit: Sepcially as they claim to have staged a fake UFO landing/scare in 2001 (see case studies at bottom of website)

I leave it here for your opinion.

Mr P
 
Last edited by a moderator:
"I have never had homosexual relationships or even fantasies. But I dream about having sexing with this man all the time. I must admit he has a lot of imagination and he pleases me. Sometimes when I wake up I discover I have had a nocturnal emission."

:rofl:
 
escargot1 said:
"I have never had homosexual relationships or even fantasies. But I dream about having sexing with this man all the time. I must admit he has a lot of imagination and he pleases me. Sometimes when I wake up I discover I have had a nocturnal emission."

:rofl:

Honest darling I can explain, it was the guy in my dreams. Course I still love you!!

Truthfully how could you substantiate a claim that this man was in your dreams? He was in mine last night wearing a tutu and dancing the Fandango. Prove me wrong!!
It seems those who started the claim were all psychiatric patients. (DING! DING! DING! DING! Alarm bells!!).

I'm reminded of that experiment where in students "created" a ghost, named him, gave him a history etc and then they started to manifest him. If we've learnt one thing from Derren is that an image can be subconsciously placed in the mind, now we have his face will we dream of him?

mooks out
 
my thoughts...

I'm reminded of that experiment where in students "created" a ghost, named him, gave him a history etc and then they started to manifest him. If we've learnt one thing from Derren is that an image can be subconsciously placed in the mind, now we have his face will we dream of him?

My thoughts exactly, I wondered if it isn't a clever viral advert / lead up to something, then maybe the purpose of the gig is to see how many people they can convince, they have dreamed of him.
 
It's a very nondescript face, aside from the shape of the face and the hairline, there's not really any features at all.

Makes it easier to mismatch i guess. :?
 
BlackRiverFalls said:
It's a very nondescript face, aside from the shape of the face and the hairline, there's not really any features at all.

Makes it easier to mismatch i guess. :?

He scared the living crap out of me, I did not like that picture at all not one teeny tiny bit. :(
 
Whats probably heppening is that they are trying to implant the image and the idea that people are going to dream about it, pesky psycology students I expect.
 
Stick a cap on that guy and he looks like a human version of Parker from Thunderbirds! :shock:

mooks out
 
Moooksta said:
Stick a cap on that guy and he looks like a human version of Parker from Thunderbirds! :shock:

posh female voice -
Parker, take off my coat.
Parker, take off my dress.
Parker, take off my bra.
Parker, take off my knickers.


And don't let me catch you wearing them again!

OK, I'm going. :roll:
 
looks like Art to me :roll:

EDIT: It might be a thing a bit like 'Bob Dobbs', the official icon of the Church of the Subgenius. I used to see stencils of him all over the place when I lived in Brighton and it took an occultist friend to explain the meaning of it. Perhaps the creator of this face is trying to get it into the international consciousness, for one reason or the other? They seem to be putting it on posters around the world, and the image is much more striking than the text.

I'm still betting 'artist', trying to exploit the viral/worldwide nature of the internet to make themselves famous.

I wonder if anyone here sees it in their neighbourhood?

EDIT EDIT: Article with the person who owns the website - might explain a thing or two.l
 
thisman.org (are you dreaming about this man)

hey just thought i'd make sure this is known before a thread about it crops up. thisman.org is a site doing its rounds on forums like this feel free to visit it.

after checking out the artist of the good drawings on the portraits page alarm bells started going off when he said he could talk about the picture (not he didn't want to he couldn't) so I checked the domain name and the owner has an email with a marketing company http://www.guerrigliamarketing.it/ well in fact the owner of the site is the director of the company Andrea Natella (see http://whois.domaintools.com/thisman.org ) they specialise in marking through video virals and hoax websites etc

basically I have yet to work out what they are trying to sell but it is all fake

thought i'd get that out there before it shows up on this site (which it likely will the speed its spreadin round the net)

oh and sorry if this is in the wrong section to post about this can a mod move it if it is in the wrong place.
 
Already exposed here, I'm afraid:

(stu edit - link removed as threads merged)
 
Ever Dream This Man?

I came across this on the Daily Mail's website (18/10/09). I understand the concept of viral advertising but this has got me puzzled in that it seems pointless unless it's advanced build-up for some TV show or whatever.
http://thisman.org/
Either way, I guess virals & the net can be interesting in themselves?
(Edit) Okay, my dumbness, it's probably for FlashForward isn't it?! :oops:
 
Yet another new thread about this bloke / site merged into the existing one.

Still, I s'pose this means the viral bit seems to be working (or people can't be arsed to have a cursory look about on this site before posting new threads...)
 
Some terrific modern weirdness reported upon by Vice.com which I found rather fascinating:

According to the website devoted to him, "This Man," as he is regularly referred to, first appeared in New York in 2006, when a psychiatrist sketched the face of a man who had begun showing up in her dreams repeatedly, bearing intimate knowledge of her life, and found that several of her patients claimed to have been also visited by the same person.

Since then, as the image spread, people all across the world began to come forward claiming to have also seen him, to have had various sorts of relationships with him, to have been given strange advice. His presence seems both menacing and foreboding at the same time, unclear in purpose, but haunting to those in whom he does appear.

Source: http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/have-you-ever-dreamed-of-this-man-111
 
I read about This Man in a magazine recently, googled it, and found that it's a hoax.
 
Ah such is life. I'd assumed it was probably that common form of naturally emergent nonsense that wells up from the depths of the web - rather than a wilful hoax. Still, once a few websites attest to the validity of some made-up waffle, it can readily become endlessly circulating UL material anyway.
 
Maybe it will be self-fulfilling if the idea catches on? You never know what might show up in your dreams that you have seen during the day. Although being aware it was a hoax you would feel a bit used.
 
He's creepy
It's a wonderful idea. Somehow more horrifying than a person like Freddy Krueger, a clear monster, appearing in a nightmare. Who knows what are the motives of an ordinary-ish but slightly creepy looking person turning up in dreams by several people.
 
There's a Muriel Sharp novel - memento mori - where ordinary people get phonecalls reminding them they too will die.
 
Very nice little follow-up from Vice today now they realise they were hoaxed:
The truth behind "This Man" is that the original photofit – and the online database of supposed dreams people have had about him, thisman.org – is the brainchild of sociologist and marketer Andrea Natella. Andrea runs a company called Guerriglia Marketing, which – according to this Knowyourmeme post – specialises in "subversive hoaxes" and creates, in the grand European tradition of groups like the Situationists, "weird art projects exploring pornography, politics, advertising" and creepy dream dudes who don't exist. He's also the person we interviewed for a story about his own hoax.

Essentially, yes: what has happened here is we have walked up to the hoaxer, said, "Hiya, could you very immediately hoax us," and then they rubbed their little hoax-y hands with glee and said: yes. A goof has happened. We have goofed.

Thing is, This Man properly looks like the kind of dude you might see in a dream. You know: he's got a suede jacket on that smells distantly of cigarettes. His car is old and maroon. His voice is like a violin going backwards. He pats you on the back and you feel warm and nostalgic. You wake up with an erection you can't explain. Is it possible that seeing This Man can make you dream about This Man? Is the This Man story a self-fulfilling prophecy, priming people to dream what they've never dreamed before? Kind of like Inception but with memes? These are questions we cannot answer, because we don't dare talk to anyone about it in case we get hoaxed again.

Anyway: whoops.
 
I read in a psychology article some where that a high number of people have Woody Allen appear in their dreams.
Seems he represents their insecurities.
 
I do enjoy seeing celebs in my dreams, but I've never seen Woody Allen, and I like his films.
 
I read in a psychology article some where that a high number of people have Woody Allen appear in their dreams.
Seems he represents their insecurities.

I had a dream about Robbie Coltrane riding a kid's tricycle up and down the corridor outside my office at work. I don't think I want to know what it represents.
 
I thought this was a creepy pasta. Some of those are just so good they cross over into people passing it on as real. I would guess less intentional hoax and more story so good people thought it was real.
 
Back
Top