Have You Met Ted?

‘Haaaaave u met Ted?’, ‘Suit up!’, ‘Awesome!’, ‘Challenge accepted!’, these quotes are Legen -wait for it – dary, true story. According to Barney Stinson there are 13 levels of Awesome, ranging from "Small Woodland Creature Waterskiing Awesomness" up to "Douchebag Skateboarder Hittling Himself in the Nuts Awesomness" and How I Met Your Mother is reaching 13th level. The question is why?

Who doesn’t love this show? It’s funny, it’s engrossing and for some people even addictive. Everyone wants to know who is the mother, what Barney’s doing for living, and where the hell the pineapple came from?  Creators are not helping us to solve mysteries. They give us little hints to make us feel like we know something but it’s just illusion. The true magic of this show is that it’s not just episodes, it’s made of hundreds little pieces that makes it extraordinary.

It is becoming common  for a fictional characters of a movie to have actual website or a Facebook account but in case of HIMYM it’s completely different level of this kind of marketing. The show regularly buys domain names and creates sites for inside jokes and upcoming events. There is over twenty tie-in websites. Carter Bays, the creator of the show said once "We always underestimate how many people are going to tune it. Every time we put Web site up, routinely, it will crash withing the first 15 minutes." But let's face it, these Websites are awesome.

• ·         http://www.itwasthebestnightever.com/ - Marshall singing about the best night ever after he and Lilly went out for a double date with Barney and Robin
• ·         www.tedmosbyisajerk.com – the site contains 20 minutes long song about Ted Mosby being a jerk. In this case Ted is in fact Barney .
• ·         http://www.puzzlesthebar.com/ - Website about bar that Ted and Barney opened in Ted’s apartment

We can’t forget about social media and its role in HIMYM being awesome. Barney has his own Twitter ( https://twitter.com/Broslife ), fan page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/BarneyStinson ) and his own blog (Barney's Blog).  Robins teen alter ego – Robin Sparkles and her hit “Let’s go to the mall” has over 1 milion views on YT.

There is also 4 book written by Barney Stinson. “Bro on the go”, “Bro code for parents: what to expect when you’re awesome” and two most popular:

• ·         “The Bro Code” – Set of rules that every bro should know.
  Poorly-planned-mediocre-social-media-practical-jokes before honesty.
  Bro always likes the new profile picture of another bro.
  No sex with your Bro's ex. (unless granted permission). 
• ·         “The Playbook: Suit up. Score chicks. Be awesome.” –The book that answers most fundamental of questions: “Why am I here... not banging chicks?”. Now u will. Barney’s 75 seduction techniques will do the job.

There is no doubt that Barney’s is a star of the show, he’s considered the show’s breakout character, but we can’t forget about goal of the entire show – to finally know who the mother is. We don’t know how she looks, we don’t know her name, even though she’s the sixth most important character in the whole series. For last eight years the creators of the show are teasing with us giving us bunch of hints who she is and mislead us. We saw her foot, we know about yellow umbrella, she already almost met Ted. We know when he will meet her and where, but do we? For last 8 seasons at least few times fans were completely sure that they are about to solve the mystery, but showrunners are smarter than audience.  Creators are teasing with us in a very sophisticated way, they’re building “Mother case” not only in episodes. The last 20 seconds of song on tedmosbyisajerk.com sound like gobbledygook, but when it’s played backwards it plays “Wendy the Waitress is the mother of the goat”. With Season 6 DVD set there is a special feature called “What we know about your mother” that lists 11 thing we know about her. We should meet her at the end of current season, but the past taught us that we can’t be 100% sure about anything.

Watching this show is addictive. People are waiting to see how and when Marshall will slap Barney. Let’s not forget that originally, only five slaps were able to be issued, but in exchange for not wearing a Ducky Tie we get 3 more. Creators played with us once more. www.TheSlapBetCountdown.com had the slap scheduled for April 19^th, 2013, now the countdown was change to November 18^th. We’ve been misled again. Fans don’t get the answers they’re looking for. The fact that viewers can’t predict what’s going to happened next makes them very impatient and inquisitive that makes them dig even deeper. We can find thousands websites about HIMYM where people are sure that they spot something that makes them closer to solve all mysteries. HIMYM fans noticed once a triangle symbol of roaming on Ted’s phone when he get text message from Robin and they start to ask ‘Where did he take this girl for a date? Canada?’. Trying to find subtle symbols and little hints drags people in.

There are much more examples of storytelling connected with How I Met Your Mother, however everything that creators did was a success. Carter Bays and his staff engage an audience to keep attention, build loyalty, let people be active participants not with but within story. Thanks for all this we can enjoy 9 seasons of grate show. HIMYM became symbol of current sitcoms and enter to the world of pop culture for good. Even here in Prague we can go to Suit Up! Party. HIMYM is just Legen – wait for it – dary!