Viral Marketing for the Confusion

So, Tampax is sponsoring this website. Main character: teenaged boy who wakes up one day with a vagina and gets his period. Yes, I know that reads like a crazy manga plot.

There's video diaries, and a twitter feed. It's...really, really strange and a bit unnerving.

Is it misogynistic? Anti-feminist? Trans-phobic? None of those things? All of them, by turns? Is it actually...useful? Is it going to talk about TSS, given that a tampon company is sponsoring it? I can't tell.

Is it a brilliant piece of viral market research so that young teens will talk on the message board about getting their first period? Probably.

Is it interesting that they're providing a forum for young teens to talk on the message board about getting their first period at all? Definitely.

[Edit: Update from "Zack's" twitter stream: applied to a couple all girl colleges on the East Coast. will they let a neutered fox into their henhouse?

I think the most amazing thing about that is the word "neutered," when the whole point of the ad campaign is that he's getting his period. Yeah, getting your period is totally disconnected from the onset of sexual maturity. It's really just an excuse to buy tampons in fifteen different sizes. And then, the lovely man=predator, women=prey implication. The assumptions behind that two-line tweet/ad are fascinating/disturbing/actually pretty disappointingly normal.

Oh yeah. When this starts really hitting the blogs in 24 hours it's going to get...interesting.]

Edit: "Zack" isn't the only sensitive man trying to sell you feminine products.