All the conspiracy folk out there should love this one: a few nights ago, Stephen Colbert had Glenn Greenwald on to discuss the showdown between security firm HBGary and the Wikileaks-supporting internet ‘vigilante’ hacking group Anonymous which has been making news of late. Towards the end of the interview, keen-eyed viewers may have picked up a little ‘video glitch’ – and if they were interested enough, they may have investigated further and found this ‘subliminal’ one-frame overlay on top of Colbert’s face:
Yes that’s right – Colbert has a Guy Fawkes mask graphic over his face, a symbol intimately associated with ‘Anonymous’, derived from the Alan Moore comic series ‘V for Vendetta’. Here’s some video from the interview so you can see the subliminal insert (at around 4:22 into the video):
So, how did it come to be there? Just typical Colbert humour, coming as it does while Greenwald discusses the power of ‘Anonymous’? Given how quick it is, that humour would have to have been meant for later analysis by the geek audience, given that broadcast audiences wouldn’t have picked up on it at air-time. So perhaps some comedy mixed with a nice publicity stunt? Maybe Colbert was signaling his personal support for the group? Or, was Colbert punk’d, either by someone in post-production, or by an external hack?
Whatever the origin, good weekend fun!
Previously on TDG:
