August 25, 2004

Curious "Beekeepers"? All over North America today, hundreds, maybe even thousands of strangers gathered. They didn't just gather anywhere - they gathered around pay phones, lots of 'em. Guided only by a hijacked website, an expatriate's weblog, their own speculation, and a string of unexplained PDT times and GPS coordinates, they had learned enough to know that the phones were going to ring today, and that many of the unanswered ones will be ringing tomorrow, and the day after that as well. Why they're ringing - and why these people are picking up across the country - are questions that even they might have difficulty answering. For some, it's a game; for others, it's a way of life. What the hell is this all about?

The story of the fall and rise of ilovebees.com is far too complicated to explain here, but if you have a few free hours, you should investigate for yourself. Rumor has it that it may be (distantly?) related to the upcoming release of Halo 2, but the story's far from over, and nobody seems fully certain exactly what's going on at this point. It's the latest in a recent series of internet-driven game/puzzle/story experiences, often involving hundreds or thousands of people. These huge puzzle-game-stories - also known as Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) - have been around for at least four years, but the weird and wonderful I Love Bees enigma has taken it to a whole new level of multimedia interaction. If the story of ilovebees (or The Haunted Apiary, as it's also called) has gone this far, imagine what ARGs five years in the future will entail. via boingboing.

posted by Mfpb 2 21 20 years ago
  • Slashdot's angle. Speculation on the true nature of ilovebees. Some more links and information here and here.
  • I can't stop thinking of the scene in A Christmas Story where Ralph decodes the Lil Orphan Annie secret message only to find that it said: "DRINK MORE OVALTINE"
  • if it does turn out to be mere marketing, a lot of people are going to feel pretty fucking foolish
  • hmm... Do you remember another puzzle involving bees? The bee connection is obvious... and how could you have a worldwide "puzzle-game-story" without being aware of the work of Kit Williams?
  • Hummm. Love bees, too. (Except when he misspells things.) But, oh! You kid.
  • It's a little creepy. I was clicking on the "Goodies" links in the sidebar and this one with the voices in the background and some twisted text just gave me the shivers. Must bookmark, play along.
  • Sounds like a job for Harvard Symbologist Robert Langdon.
  • drivingmenuts: wasn't it "drink your ovaltine"?
  • also, "a crummy commercial?"
  • Sounds like a job for Harvard Symbologist Robert Langdon. (And a young, attractive "Internet Researcher" who helps him along the way, but inexplicably has never heard of smartmobs or viral marketing until Langdon spells it out for her.)
  • If it is for Halo 2, or some similar viral marketing ploy, I hope it has half the wondrous crafting of the Jeanine Salla mystery created for the slightly less than impressive movie AI. These guys kept me occupied for months on end. I loved it.
  • Brainwave and I went to the two sets of GPS coordinates this morning in Indianapolis. Nothing happened at the first one (there was no phone booth at the exact spot); the second one was at a phone booth, and the phone rang, but apparently we failed. Whatever. It was still fun, if only to see how many people were onto the same thing. (It was about ten people at the first one, twenty at the second one.) I was into the AI game when it was going on; I'm anxious to see how this game turns out.
  • Dammit, I've just spent the whole afternoon reading the blog and listening to the .wav files. Thanks a lot, Mfpb. Also, the walkaway_girl wav should go with the emergency wav. I'm not quite obsessive enough to start a blogger account in order to add my two cents.
  • I wish I could have been in California for this, especially since so many of the axon-wossits were in the Bay Area and would have been quite accessible for me. I'm such a geek. And I've never even played Halo.
  • Tracicle, same! Isn't this stuff strangely addictive? I was going to go to the Dallas axon at 5:07 but forgot. I saw some pictures today of what happened and it looked very, very geeky so maybe I'm kinda glad I didn't go. *still regrets it*
  • Tracy, how are you accessing the wavs?
  • They're working just fine for me by clicking on the links in the "Fun Stuff" section. Only the yellow ones are active links (or, in beekeeper lingo, "hot axons"). Does this technically count as flash-mobbing? I noticed a few people referring to it as such but I don't think it fits.
  • The wavs sound like part of a sci-fi radio play. Funny, because when I listened to the first one, I was in video-game-player mode and I thought, "What god-awful voice acting!" As a radio play the deliveries make perfect sense. Maybe that's why the voice acting in video games is often bad: the voice actors have experience in radio, a different medium from video games. Or they have no experience at all. I really want to hear the whole thing now. I'm hooked, despite the viral marketing.
  • This is a microsoft bid for publicity for Halo2. Way back in the days before the Microsoft buyout of Bungie, there was a little fansite called "the Core" . the core imploded spectacularly to become what is now known as Rampancy. That implosion looked a lot like this. (Albeit not as sophisticated) but it involved the concept of the site itself going, "rampant" (In the parlance of the Marathon universe, when an artificial intelligence goes rampant, it metasticizes and overruns it's limitations to take over all the other systems connected to it.) Tyson Greene, (or Ferrex as he was known back then) was the owner of the core. He now works for Bungie. There's a connection here, probably not as big a one as the Bungie faithful are hoping for, but definitely a connection.
  • if it does turn out to be mere marketing, a lot of people are going to feel pretty fucking foolish Whaddya mean "if"? Nobody spends this much time and effort creating interweb buzz (yes, pun intended) unless they want to sell something.
  • It's totally a marketing ploy, and everyone who's getting involved knows it (they have to: look at the comments on the ilovebees blog). Doesn't make it any less fun to watch and play along. I'd love to see more ARGs online. My terrible secret is that I love reading Agatha Christie mysteries.
  • Marple, or Poirot? I'm a Poirot man, myself. Grumpy little Belgian.
  • I have been following this for some time now. Quite fun to watch. Still I want to know how deeply this is all conected to the Marathon/Halo mythos, for which I'm a sucker even though I never played Marathon. The whole story, tracking back from Bungie's "Pathways Into Darkness" is deeply complex and engrosing. I wish they could tie everything together with Halo since, to this date, the Halo storyline seems pretty shallow and regular standing alone.
  • Have you read the Halo books, Zemat? Also, if you'd like to play Marathon, let me know. I've got a few copies from the action sacks laying around.
  • I do prefer Poirot, but I'll read either. He's so little, and dapper!
  • Hey surly, sorry for the hiatus. I got "The Fall of Reach" (amazing!) and I'm planning on getting "First Strike". I'm not so much interested on "The Flood". As for Marathon, thanks, but I don't own a Mac :(
  • Fall of Reach and First Strike good. The Flood, passable. And you don't need a Mac to play Marathon anymore...
  • Nice!