Lifestyle marketing is weird. I found this on Pitchfork today, nestled down in a flashy sidebar ad namedropping the Hold Steady, cute indie girl and almost imperceptible Target logo in tow. I clicked it, entering a cushy flash portal complete with fake desk and fake desk items. The eye candy settled and confusion set in: what is it? film trailer? tv show? …target? It seemed to want me to play these web videos (the podcast interview with the director calls them “webisodes”), so I did, and woah. It’s way creepy, like one of those super product placement heavy teen movies, but reversed. This time it’s more like “film placement” or something: the mock-casually arrayed back-to-school catalog and Bloc Party cell phone (it turns into a Target logo if you mouse over it!!!!) are the real stars here.

As for the story itself, it seems to revolve around our Seth-Cohen-lite indie rock hero and PCU-lite wacky friends trying to find a band to play some show at their college or something. I didn’t watch far enough but it’s looking like members of the bands Bloc Party, 22-20s (who is this?), British Sea Power, and the Hold Steady (again!) will be making appearances.

So here it is, indie rock in 2005: a culture placement in a Target movie. Damn.