Making a better you.
Spectacular Organic is an apparent health-food company that began advertising itself on YouTube in the June of 2016, posting TV-Spots and promotion for their special product, GM Juice. Along with the videos was a website note and a company Twitter account. Viewers were promised that the company would help make them a better them.
Digging around under the surface, however, quickly revealed that a lot was very strange about the company and its product, from strips of hidden Morse-Code found in certain videos, to the discovery of a former employee on the run.
See the channel here
, and the twitter here.
Tropes found in this ARG:
- Alternate Reality Game: Viewers were given secret messages hidden in Morse-Code, had to track down an ex-employee, and even talk to the company directly through email.
- Character Name Alias: Members of Spectacular Organic's upper hierarchy included people who, if they existed at all, were using fake names taken from characters in other media: Clive Nicoli, Martin Brundle, and Terry Huston.
- Cult: Spectacular Organic is, in fact, run by a cult with unknown motivations. They appear to worship scarab beetles, and want to initiate viewers into their rank through their videos.
- Cult Defector: Doug Horry, the players' main lead, was a former member of Spectacular Organic, who has since been "excommunicated". He left the company after getting too curious about the weird nature of it all, and went on the run afterwards, knowing they were still keeping tabs on him.
- Entry Point: The titular (fictional) company publishes ads for their GM Juice and TV-Sports on Youtube, Twitter, and its website. Seemingly, a real company. However, the aforementioned ads have so many details off that they invite digging and, therefore, the discovery of hidden clues.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Naturally, the hidden Morse-Code messages in certain videos aren't too easy to find, all occurring for single frames.
- Shout-Out: The design of the Spectacular Organic logo is very similar to the logo of Spectacular Optical, from the film Video Drome.
