A viral campaign was launched by Fall Out Boy on August 18th, 2008 to promote what is now known to be the band’s fourth studio album Folie a Deux. The campaign started when the website for Decaydance Records was supposedly “hacked” by an organization called “Citizens For Our Betterment”. A posted link led to the organization’s website which was decorated in the colors of the American flag. Links on the page were met with dead ends, requiring specific IP addresses to access their destinations. A post counter was displayed on the page with the number 59,994. Wentz left clues on his personal blog that the 60,000th would reveal something big. The Decaydance site returned back to normal the following day. On August 19th, Ashlee Simpson was seen carrying a pamphlet for the organization, raising suspicion and sparking many rumors online. New posts appeared on the Citizens For Our Betterment web page everyday, many referring to November 4th, the same day as the 2008 presidential election. Also, Wentz posted more clues on his blog. More and more links were opened to the public, as well. On August 24th, one such link led to a page saying “FOB - The Return - November Four” in large Stencil font, causing many to believe that Fall Out Boy would release their new album on November 4th. Others theorized that this was another one of Wentz’s attempts to raise political awareness, as he did by previously holding a rally for democratic candidate Barack Obama. Finally, on August 25th, 2008, the website was changed to display an image of a voting booth featuring ballots with the names of several Decaydance artists. By clicking on each individual ballot, there is an audio clip from the respective artist reciting passages from past posts on the Citizens For Our Betterment website. A mixtape was also made available for download called “Welcome To The New Administration” that included songs from several past and future songs from Decaydance bands, and an interlude by Ludacris announced that the album would be released on November 4th. |
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