BoJack Horseman: The Transmedia Experience
A collaboration with designers Sarah Clayton and Caden Gaviria.
Cats, Dogs, Dolphins, and Debaucherists… take a break from the Hollywoo drama and join us for BoJack Horseman: The Transmedia Experience! To build hype for the main VR experience, we will plan to first release the GirlCroosh Fan Blog several weeks prior to the first pop-up announcement. Phases 2, 3, and 4 will coincide as parts of the same pop-up VR experience.
Phase 1: GirlCroosh Fan Blog
This fictional website from BoJack Horseman can be a way for fans to parody their own ridiculous articles, quizzes and products from the show. GirlCroosh is parodying the media website BuzzFeed and other sugary-sweet media companies that use quizzes, celebrity interviews, and other eye-catching gimmicks to draw users to their site. In addition to fan-made content, GirlCroosh will act as paratext for the VR experience and BoJack merchandise with customized ads based on user preferences. Diane Nguyen will also have her own weekly opinion piece on the site, creating a stark different between filler content.
GirlCroosh taps into fan performance, allowing fans to make accounts and post content to the website. The site is also both immersive for the users, drawing fans into the consumer-focused city BoJack grows to hate. With an online shop built into the website, visitors can buy BoJack merchandise like custom t-shirts or BoJack Daniels, tapping into the extractability of the BoJack Horseman series.
Phase 2: Virtual Reality Pop-Up Experience
At a touring pop-up location, fans don VR goggles and explore a choose-your-own-adventure BoJack Horseman experience that gives a new level of insight into the subconscious of the show’s central character. The player, experiencing “Hollywoo” as BoJack on an average day, explores classic series locations, interacts with fan-favorite characters, and is faced with a series of darkly hilarious choices that reflect BoJack’s inimitable perspective on life. It also focuses on immersion into BoJack’s interior and exterior worlds. Never before scenes from key locations, like Princess Carolyn’s apartment and the planetarium will appear to further build on the series’ rich locations. Long-running jokes as well as new ones (with at least a few taking jabs at the virtual reality fad) emerge throughout the experience before the adventure comes to a poignant close. This makes use of BoJack’s drillability, as it’s an informationally dense show with a litany of long-running jokes, recurring characters, and deep emotional connection through somber relatability. The possibility of multiple endings will encourage fans to keep coming back to play the game with different choices.
Looking for more? The pop-up will also feature a themed bar with curated drinks and exclusive merchandise from the series. Announced the day before or the day of, the pop-up would attract only the most attentive fans and their friends who are engaged in the BoJack media universe.
Phase 3: BoJack Horseman x Jack Daniel’s
BoJack Daniel’s is the proposed partner beverage to go along with the BoJack Horseman VR experience and be released in selected bars. BoJack Horseman’s struggle with alcoholism is given a serious treatment, but his constant quips about drinking undeniably make whiskey a staple on the show.
The extension of a partner whiskey — the cleverly titled BoJack Daniel’s — allows for extractability and performance. Fans can take home a piece of the VR experience turning the virtual into reality. The specificity makes the item a novelty. Consider the buzz surrounding this BoJack para-drink if only a select few hundred were ever released.
Each bottle of BoJack Daniel’s has a removable label which reveals the beautifully crafted glass underneath. The label itself includes episode numbers matched with key quotes printed on the inside, reliving times when BoJack was remorseful about his actions and grew as a character. On the bottom of the label will be a contact for Alcoholics Anonymous and other resources for those who may be struggling with alcoholism as a tribute to BoJack’s character and the seriousness of the final episodes of the show.
Furthermore, BoJack Daniel’s welcomes fan performance. Ordering a glass of BoJack Daniel’s in one of a few secret LA bars automatically creates a sense of exclusivity. Fans are additionally encouraged to submit pictures of themselves drinking BoJack Daniel’s (responsibly)to get the chance of being featured on the brand’s Instagram page, inviting further performance. The small number of fans that can ever be featured is an exclusive group driving further engagement in the hopes of “making the Instagram story.”
Due to the limited amount of BoJack Daniel’s, fans must piece together clues about the secret locations where the drink is being offered. One such place, is the pop-up VR locations which encourages fans to subscribe to the notion of “just-in-time” fandom. In order to understand where the next pop up will be or which bars offer BoJack Daniel’s, fans become hunters and gatherers as they postulate about clues hidden in the BoJack Horseman universe to form a new understanding of the fandom.
Phase 4: There’s More?
Here’s a sneak peek at some of our exclusive merchandise from the VR experience! Hope to see you there!
