Twitter has posted a seriously awful/hilarious recruiting video to YouTube, which the company says was the product of last week’s “Hack Week.” During this time, employees were able to take time away from their day-to-day work to collaborate on new ideas. Although it was only posted on Friday, the video has already seen over 400,000 views at the time of writing. Why so viral? Because it’s parodying the entire genre of startup recruiting videos by purposefully being bad. Really, really bad. So bad it’s funny. Or at least that’s the hope.
The video has everything: amateurish effects, cheesy music, stilted speech, bad acting, poor production quality, and sayings like: “Man this is a sweet job. But working at Twitter isn’t just a sweet job, it’s a way of life – a way of life that’s like a sweet job.”
Yeah, you pretty much have to watch this one.
Credit/blame for the video goes to Ian Padgham and Twitter video producer Jeremy Briggs, and it even features a cameo from Dick Costolo, Twitter CEO. (As well as a version of him as a drawing with talking lips.)
The inspiration for the video clearly comes from Saturday Night Live’s “Laser Cats” skits, a series of digital shorts that feature Andy Samberg and Bill Hader pitching a similarly disinterested Lorne Michaels their low-budget movies involving cats with lasers strapped to their heads.
Swap in Costolo for Michaels, and you end up with this:
While you’re watching, look for the Easter egg among the list of available jobs that scrolls by too fast to see. I won’t spoil it for you, but that particular job sounds seriously awesome.
Hat tip: AdWeek