Jennifer Aniston Sex Tape?!?!?!?
In a video posted about a week ago as a promotion for Smart Water, Jennifer Aniston pretty much gives us a lesson on postmodernity, pastiche, and contemporary media’s endless self-referentiality.
By Dan Hoffman
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rc47LcvIxyI&w=622&h=497%5D
In a video posted about a week ago as a promotion for Smart Water, Jennifer Aniston pretty much gives us a lesson on postmodernity, pastiche, and contemporary media’s endless self-referentiality.
The actual video leaves something to be desired; it lacks the quality that many of the videos Anniston references have that make us think, WTF. Is that real? What’s going on? Rebecca Black, the Rainbow Man, or any other number of examples may or may not be deliberate attempts to “go viral,” but one thing they have in common seems to be the awareness that their creators never knew just how much they would blow up.
Anniston’s video is a just a pastiche of youtube memes – Keenan Cahill, the Double Rainbow guy, cute babies, puppies, etc. – used in a deliberate advertising campaign for Smart Water. Well, it worked: the video now has over eight million views. It’s yet another instance of the appropriation of culture for the interests of large corporations. BTW, the video is not actually called “Jennifer Aniston Sex Tape,” but in an extremely postmodern and self-reflexive gesture, the “computer guys” featured in the video say that’s what it should be called, and we all know that anything with the words “sex” and “Jennifer Aniston” will get some attention. 
