I am SO PLEASED the "Eaten by an anaconda" thing turned into a giant Failburger.

[Glassunion]

40. Mission Accomplished!

Paul Rosolie is an activist who has devoted his entire adult life to saving the Amazon Forest. He has spent all of his resources trying to save the rain forests. This has been his mission from day one. His issue is that folks on the whole have the attention span of hamsters... Jumping from one thing to the next without thinking about the long term. Sure folks are all about saving one cute and cuddly or majestic rain forest creature or another, but they don't really think on the long term. Donating a few bucks to "save" the rain forest jaguar sounds good on its face, but has no real lasting effect. He sees folks donating money to save a particular animal, but what happens is the act is actually moving them to captivity or funding those already in captivity. This does not address their habitat. The reason these animals need saving in the first place is that their habitat is quickly disappearing. This effects not only the wildlife, but the natives as well. These animals deserve their habitat. The natives deserve their habitat.

He had spent months last year working on an awareness campaign to raise funds for protecting the rain forest. It did not work. So, he figured that he would cater to the lowest common denominator. Come up with something for the hamster brained folks that desire nothing more then to be entertained with shiny objects and loud noises. He had no intention of being "Eaten Alive", but he had every intention of getting people to tune in and have to put up with his "Save the Rain Forest" bullshit for an hour and forty five minutes before he puts on his armor and rolls around in the mud with a snake for 15 minutes.

This little stunt generated such a buzz. How many people signed the Change.org petition? Or how about the PETA one? How many discussion posts were there on discussion boards? How many folks tuned in? Would his message have reached anywhere near the number of people if it was just another one of those boring here is why we need to save the rain forest documentaries?

Bait and switch promotion is nothing new. Remember all of the outrage, protests, etc, at Columbia University hosting Iranian President Ahmadinejad?

So he stirred up some shit, got a lot of people to tune in, and got his message across with no harm to the snake. Hook, line, and sinker. Mission accomplished.