Danish Government Promotes Unwanted Pregnancies, Tourism
Here's another one for the apology pile: the Danish government is apparently very, very sorry for creating one of the most bizarre tourism campaigns ever. VisitDenmark, which promotes tourism, created a fake website for a pretty young mom who got drunk one night, had sex with a stranger, ended up with a baby, then made an internet video to find the father. The story was purely a hoax—the young woman, an actor; the baby, not hers—and many people sucked in by the sad tale are now pissed off.
According to 9News, VisitDemark initially defended the stunt, calling it "a good and sweet story about a mature, responsible woman who lives in a free society and shoulders the responsibility of her actions."
There's that. But then there's also the message, "Come to Denmark, where you can impregnate beautiful women and disappear the next morning!" It's the Denmark-as-Vegas model, but "What happens here stays here" was already taken.
Naturally, there's already a parody video (and, actually, it's pretty funny).
Denmark sorry for 'one-night stand' hoax [9News via Brandfreak]
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Just to give folks some additional info, Denmark is the same country that gave us such wholesome things such as Dolph The Fascist Hippo and Wulffmorgenthaler.
Something like this is par for Denmark, believe me.
Hmm, I probably should have checked here before I booked that ticket to Denmark.
Looking at the parody though, "show you my falafel" is now my favorite line and euphemism.
"Come to Denmark, where you can impregnate beautiful women and disappear the next morning!"
Juarez, Mexico has been using this slogan for years to lure the Ft. Bliss soldiers over for some R&R.
@calquist: Err... did Darkwing Duck have a huge room filled with gold coins that he could dive into and swim in? Yeah, didn't think so.
:)
I like this one better
This is too retarded. I guess those Danes really DO drink way more than anyone else; holy crap this is actually embarrassing.
Why is this in English? For that matter, why is the Swedish guy's video in English?
Think about if someone really posted videos like this online, and it comes back to bite the kid in the ass later. "hey August, I saw your mom's youtube video last night... she's a whore dude, and you are totally a bastard!"
I wonder how many comments have "Luke, I am your father" reference.
@H3ion: Because most countries are bi-lingual, the local/native tongue and English, therefore most people outside on the US under the age of 40 are fluent in English.
if this were a real video, this woman would have a greater chance of finding the "father" by speaking English than if she spoke Danish.
@Rachacha: My experience says otherwise (maybe in England you'd be right) but even so, wouldn't it depend on the nationality of the putative father? When we have lost child alerts in this country, they're in English, even if the child is Vietnamese.
Actually, the Swedish takeoff is funny. And he's speaking English.
Because it's on the intewebs, it must be true. Dumb asses.
@dohtem: No, but Darkwing Duck is the "Terror that flaps in the night."
Plus, he reminds me a bit of Batman, so he's got that going for him, as well.
Count me in on the Darkwing Duck side. Ducktales was good, but Darkwing's better.
I was in Iceland in the late 1990's and learned of weekend tour packages sold primarily to rich NYC dot-commies hoping to score a beautiful Nordic goddess for an evening or three. More than a few Icelanders were surprised that I, an American, was there primarily to ice climb.
Much to be discussed. Anyway it seems that Scandinavians are not really warm to non Scandinavians and sort of have this were the best and smartest humans in the world attitude. This video is a liitle suprising to me.
@H3ion:
If you're trying to attract tourists from different countries, I think it would make sense to do an ad in English. Lord knows we can't be bothered to learn any other languages.
I think they forgot the part where they were supposed to encourage people to visit Denmark. This campaign makes no effing sense!
Damn, some guys have all the luck. Get ditched by your friends, randomly meet some scandinavian goddess on your pitiful way home, then tag her within hours.
@nnj: Not all of them are like that. The ones that aren't are probably the ones that made this ad happen. The only person of that sort I've dealt with was this kid in school my senior year who acted like he was the coolest thing alive. It ended with me learning that an old Japanese cellphone makes a good blunt weapon against a Norwegian whose ego I just bruised (yes, I did get suspended; no, I don't regret it one bit; in fact, with all the crap he pulled on me I wish I hit a bit harder). Fittingly enough, he said during end-of-year college planning presentations that he's not going to college.
@dmuth: The Wikipedia article on Dolph is recommended. He's the Danish version of Eric Cartman, apparently.
I thought this was a great idea for a commercial, and someone needs to apply some industrial-strength panty unbuncher to the people who didn't see the humor in it.
"[...]story about a mature, responsible woman who lives in a free society and shoulders the responsibility of her actions."
Haha like that is going to fly ANYWHERE. Having observed three countries, and heard about a few more, I can safely say that humans as a species LOVE to talk about being "mature and responsible" but hate having to actually do it.
/goes back to watching Duck Tales while wolfing down a Royale with Cheese.