On February 8th, a user named “Digestor2365″ uploaded a “Heroes” parody, entitled “Zeroes” onto YouTube. It’s been viewed a total of 153,589 times as of this post (although YouTube says this number, I’ve seen a number of 1.5 million through a variety of other sources, so, you pick the metric!), and it’s some really funny, engaging stuff. The video depicts citizens who has seemingly-ordinary powers, such as the ability to stick one’s fist in his/her mouth, the power to kick yourself in the head, and the focus to use “bendiness” for the good of the world.

However, in an interview with Variety, NBC marketing “maven” Vince Manze fesses up that the video wasn’t user-generated, but instead, was produced by NBC for a cost of $17,000. Says the article, “keeping the clip’s origins a secret was a means of building up its credibility with potential viewers.” As opposed to traditional 30 second ad spots that have recently made their way onto YouTube, the theory behind this was that they wanted people to watch the show “without cramming it down their throats.”

The result speaks for itself. However, TVSquad raises an interesting question: Was this “transparent” enough? To find the answer, one doesn’t have to look much further than the YouTube comments section: when one user points out that the spot was made by NBC, another quickly responded, saying simply, “who cares? It was great.”

My opinion: I love transparency and I sincerely believe it’s important when it comes down to issues and facts, but when we get into the realm of satire and harmless fun, perhaps it’s not as needed as the hype’s suggested.

Technorati Tags: Heroes, Zeroes, YouTube, NBC, Vince Manze