Will’s latest post on Madden’s clever YouTube banner ad (see below) got me thinking about the theoretical framework behind these types of campaigns. In the comments section I linked to a preceding example, in which the game footage for Nintendo’s Wario Land: Shake It literally destroys the YouTube interface.
Googling for similar ad work, I encountered the phrase, “breaking the fourth wall of the internet” several times. It’s a nice, buzz-worthy concept, for sure. But is it really accurate?
For the uninitiated, the term fourth wall originates from the theater (a proscenium theater, to be precise), where the character’s world is confined to the stage’s three “walls.” The fourth wall – a boundary between the fictional world of the stage and the front-facing audience – is broken when an actor breaches the narrative and directly addresses the crowd. A classic example: Matthew Broderick’s lovable camera banter in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
This definition might not hold for the 21st century. When it comes to video games and internet content, we need something more broad. After talking it over with my associates, we came up with the following:
The fourth wall is broken when any particular media acknowledges the act of viewership.
Under our revised (and patented) definition, EA and Nintendo’s work would fit the bill for fourth wall breakage. For another example, superior to Madden’s in my opinion, check out the banner ad for stop-motion masterpiece Coraline below.
