viral marketings?

Today on metafilter, there was a post with a link to a youtube video in which a dude catches an airborne pair of sunglasses with his face in a series of increasingly unlikely circumstances. I thought it was a cute video.

It might turn out that it's a viral marketing attempt by some sunglasses company or another. People get mad about all sorts of stuff, of course, but it's causing a bit of an uproar on the mefi side of things. Personally, I'm having trouble mustering up the righteous indignation.

Any thoughts about this? Is it okay for companies to use YouTube to post ads? Is it okay if they pretend to be independent users?

What if it's not obviously an advertisement? Is it alright to use nontraditional means of communication to build buzz about a product, in general? Which ones? What if I can't remember which brand of sunglasses it was and don't particularly want sunglasses anyway?

Are you upset that you get ads in your Facebook news feed?

Are there much bigger world problems that you wish I'd address instead of advertising?

Tha Hittin' Ponce Boyz ride again!

Graham cola_fan and I went running again, yay!

I present an RFC for the next big thing in hipsterism: Running Shoe Hipsters. The logical step following a bike with no gears shall be doing away with the rest of the bike.