IGN goes viral?

I was watching Prison Break this evening (great show that it is) and noticed something interesting. LJ, the son of the wrongly accused Lincoln Burrows is being chased by a couple mysterious (read: ) special agents. They’ve already killed his mother and step-dad and now their after him. In the melee that ensued at his parent’s house, he snapped a picture of one of the bad guys with the camera on his cell phone.

In today’s episode, he had the wherewithal to send the picture to someone, via email. He decided to send himself a copy of the picture. His email address? “LJ@ign.com“. Interesting.

Why is that interesting? Oh, I don’t know, maybe because Fox just purchased IGN and all its trimmings. Virals are everywhere. I’ll have to send LJ an email and find out how he’s doing.

Update: I decided to send an email to the ign.com address. Here’s the message I sent:

From: Tony Rice
To: lj@ign.com
Date: Oct 31, 2005 10:03 PM
Subject: Hi.

I’m glad your safe. I thought those guys had ya.

—
Tony
http://buttonmashing.com

Here’s the cryptic response I received:

From: LJ
To: tony.rice@gmail.com
Date: Oct 31, 2005 10:03 PM
Subject: Re: Hi.

Hey, how’s it going? I know what a long time it’s been since the last time I talked to you so I just wanted to write back and ask how’s your dad, your mom? I’m on a boat sailing but I’m, looking forward to being home and safe, back in a harbor.

Someone asked me the other day if I remembered what steady land felt like under my legs . I don’t, but I’m sure you do! There’s no need to worry, I’ll be back in the states soon. But I’m enjoying the time I have here in another part of the world. A few days ago we were off the coast of Costa Rica and you wouldn’t believe how many dolphins there were about, all over the water! For me, it was a life changing experience.

I hope things with you are good, and that your luck, as always is unchanged. Be sure to remember that I, and everyone else here thinks about your love, and you, every day!

L.J.

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That definitely looks viral to me because it makes abso-frickin-lutely no sense. I responded, so we’ll see what happens next.

Update 2: I replied to the cryptic message above with a “huh? That makes no sense” email but the response came back the same. I’m sure there’s hidden meaning in all this but I don’t have time to figure it out. I’m sure some enterprising “enthusiasts” (nerds) will make something out of it but not me. I’m not into the whole viral marketing/ARG kind of thing. It’s fun at first but gets way too confusing way too fast. I’ll watch it from the sidelines but won’t get too involved.