Craigslist might be best for making a couple bucks off that one-wheeled leopard-print bicycle your ex left behind, and it’s just that kind of random human curio that makes the classified site the inspiration for—and theme of—this new interactive music video created by 72andSunny’s in-house creative school 72U.
Set to the song “Catch a Break” by the group Superhuman Happiness (founded by Stuart Bogie, who’s played with the likes of Arcade Fire), the project’s website is designed to look like Craigslist, with sparse blue links. When clicked, they lead to various pop-ups—150 in total—emulating the kinds of posts found on the real Craigslist.
The point, according to the agency, is to capture the human experience, and illustrate how “all of your life—heartbreak, happiness and surplus appliances—can be contained in a message board like Craigslist.”
That might be a a stretch, but the fake ads at least do a pretty good job of capturing the often-weird spirit of the iconic site (if not the heights of glory and depths of shame found in its finest, most insane postings). The ads range from emo, to desperate, to pseudo-philosophical, to touching, to ridiculous, to name just a few.
Perhaps best (that is to say, most true to Craigslist form) is the legal category—one post, titled “Free Divorce Advice,” wonders “Where are all the almost single ladies at?” Another, titled “You pay I counsel,” reads, sic, “I just got paralegal very professional master certificate from university. I sue to make you feel so good. Forget about about wife, husband, car, work. Why worry? Relax time. It’s gonna be good. You pay in form of gold watch, expensive jewelry, deli meats, credit card, or traveler check. No American Express. NO AMERICAN EXPRESS.”
72U’s seven-person team created the website with a budget of less than $1,000, and the video will launch in a not-at-all-spammy way with 275 real Craigslist posts in 11 categories in 25 cities. Whether it fits the song, we’ll leave to you—the “Haiku” link pops up parts of the lyrics, pieced together after the jump.
And if you don’t have the patience to play with the interactive site (coded for Google Chrome), there’s a static demo version of the video below, which includes the obligatory strange geek salute: a GIF of a man humping a robot before they both explode under the header “When will humans be able to love machines?”—posted, naturally, in the biotech and science section.
LYRICS:
Landlord’s knocking, you know you ain’t catching a break today
You’ve grown tired of the bottle and you wish you could fake today
Your weak heart beats fast and you want to wait today
You replay the past trying to get it straight today
Let the water wash away
So you’ll leave right away
If you can’t catch a break
Look up all of a sudden they’re pulling the bait away
Because they love to collect while they always hate to pay
Osama can’t be the only one who prays
Drawing lines between our between our minds and yesterday
We need you right away
If you can take a break
La La La la [etc.]
Don’t you run away
You might catch a break
When you’re cast away
From your holiday
Keep your heart at bay
You might catch a break
You won’t run away
When you catch a break
