Picture this: it’s 1a.m. You are sitting in bed, toddler curled between you and your husband, 3 day old baby nursing in your arms. You mindlessly check Facebook while deciding whether to try once again to place the baby in his bassinet and steal ten minutes of sleep before he cries.
A text appears.
I freeze. That feels like a rape threat. I look at the blinds to my left and weigh whether I want to see if there’s someone out there. I shake and try to gather the courage to look out the blinds behind me that lead to our backyard.
Someone has my number, my name….it’s entirely possible they have my address.
It’s a local number. I do reverse number lookup and the person attached to the number lives within five miles, around the corner from a Starbucks we frequent and the pediatrician where our baby had his first appointment just today.
Could this be someone in that office? The very thought chills me.
We moved here a year ago so the number of local people with my number is not too long. I scour my Facebook messages for any stranger who I contacted via text or phone: the woman who sold me her Ergo baby carrier, the mother interested in my jogging stroller, the guy who bought dog beds from us, the high schooler who babysat for us once….that’s about it.
I do reverse phone lookup on my number and it stills says I live in Los Angeles. So it can’t be random.
I am frozen. I am frozen like when your married mentor touches your ass during a hug. I am frozen like when a stranger loudly calls out like he’d like to do to you from across the street and follows it up with “Rude stuck up bitch” when you don’t answer or acknowledge.
Except this threat includes my family.
I wake up my husband and show him the text. He researches text phishing scams. I am one step away from calling the police. He is one step away from using our savings to buy a home security system. We both agree that I should not engage with this phone number at all.
After a good hour of investigating and fear, we decide not to worry unless they contact us again, at which point we will call the police and see what they can do. Even if it’s nothing, at least they are on alert.
We analyze the actual message. There had been a rash of high school cell phones stolen recently; could they be using them for pranks? But it sounds like a prank from an English major, almost poetic…..
I turn to Dan and say: “It could be the people from The Republic.”
He stops his research, thinks a moment (do I see a flash of anger?) and agrees.
“The people from The Republic” are a local Orlando immersive theatre company. I saw their first show and reviewed it for No Proscenium. Even though the review was not complimentary, I received a very nice email from them saying they were glad for the feedback and are taking everyone’s experiences into consideration for their next incarnation. I had been invited to their last run, but wasn’t able to attend.
Two days later, I received the invitation to their haunted house:
‘today we officially announce for immediate release…
catharsis: a new 30-minute immersive haunted house experience.
this wicked walkthrough experience is unlike anything florida has ever encountered.”
I reply:
Seems she knows just when to stop.
I tell you that one of your “characters” texts freaked me out to the point of considering calling the police, and you find it more important to stay in character than apologize? I had been discussing the situation with No Proscenium’s editor, asking ourselves if calling them out by name would do any good. Once I got their reply with absolutely no remorse or even consideration for sending a threatening text message at 1 a.m. that clearly caused me pain, I told him to use their name and mine.
I am really curious as to why they thought this was a good idea and why they didn’t seem to take my admission of fear seriously. One “I’m sorry” and I would have felt much better.
I applaud and encourage marketing campaigns that give the audience a feeling for the production or product they will experience. I used to teach that in my Los Angeles workshops. I often saw shows that never would have appealed to me via postcard because their marketing was unique: a homemade mix cd with the show info written onto the case; a pill bottle filled with Good N Plentys to market a show about addiction; you get the idea.
I understand that an immersive production may and should want to bring that feeling to their audience: the non proscenium, this-isn’t-a-show-but-could-be-real-feeling. Last spring, this same company sent me a cool package in the mail that gave very obscure hints about their summer production and a website where I could learn more. That was interesting. That was fun and engaging and clearly about their show. I kept those clues in my desk to remind myself to get tickets.
As you can see from the text screenshot above, there was no further information. Even if they had signed it “Selena,” that would have given me a clue that it wasn’t some anonymous burglar/rapist waiting outside my window until I received the message before terrorizing my family.
It is clear that at no point did anyone involved with this marketing think: “Hey, if I got this text from a random number with no name or anything attached, how would it make me feel?” No one stopped to consider that it might sound kind of rapey and threatening?
At first, I thought they should have asked me to opt into texts about their show (don’t even get me started about automatically opting people into your newsletters instead of getting their permission. That conversation should have died in 2010, but every week I find a newsletter in my inbox that I never asked to receive. Those are then filtered to go directly to trash). Then I remembered that with The Republic and the way it was set up, it’s entirely possible that I gave them permission to text me reminders about the show. Okay, there is some benefit of the doubt. I’m not sure they deserve it, but it’s there. It’s possible and I accept my responsibility if that is the case.
What they did send was not well thought out. It was not okay. I honestly felt violated and scared. I wonder how many other people who received that message felt the same way. They modified their message for the Orlando Weekly to a much tamer text. So again, good on them for trying something new and individually targeted for marketing; poor marks for execution in my case.
When I told my husband that is was them, he admitted that it made him angry. We were concerned for our family’s immediate safety and it turns out to be an amateurish sales message.
It certainly doesn’t give me reason to believe that I would enjoy or feel protected as an audience member in their haunted house.
Even if I had received the press release first, seen the name “Selena” and then received the text signed “Selena,” that would have been the least they could have done to ensure no one felt freaked.
Just a cursory glance at their website, and I see five different ways they could have used the same tactic, stayed in character, and not made me fear for my safety.
Within the evolving world of immersive experiences, augmented and virtual reality, there are many ethical questions to ask. Noah J. Nelson really delves into those questions with every experience he encounters and reviews at No Proscenium, even admitting the responsibility you carry as an audience member: “it’s spectacularly stupid to trust two strangers to drive you somewhere while you’re wearing a blindfold.” In the case of that experience, however, he knew he should expect the unexpected. He knew he was waiting to be approached by the production in order to experience a story where he opted into being a participant.
Because immersive theater is still emerging, and the whole point is that boundaries are crossed, it’s even more important for producers to understand that consent is required each step of the way. I’d consented to their contact; unfortunately, how they chose to use it crossed a personal safety line. Different wording or approach with the same tactic could have solved it. I would have stayed open to seeing their work, except their response and complete lack of caring about how I felt made it clear that it wouldn’t stop there. I love a good haunted house. I love a good fright, when I knowingly enter those spaces. I don’t expect those spaces to enter my private messages at 1 a.m.
When you abuse my trust and consent, when you enter my home (digitally with presumed threat of physically), then I cease to believe in your ability to artfully cross boundaries between artist and audience. Your emails then redirect to the trash folder.
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