Warner Bros. Streisands The Leaked Trailer For Canceled Powerpuff Girls Show To The Moon
Whenever we talk about an instance of the Streisand Effect, the dot-connecting portion of our readership will often chime in, wondering aloud if the subject of the post was Streisanding on purpose. Whether for attention, to generate buzz, or some other nefarious end, how do we know someone isn’t using the effect for gain?
I don’t think that is going to be in question in the case of Warner Bros. trying to nuke every instance of the leaked trailer for a live-action Powerpuff Girls show from the internet. The show, you see, was canceled several years ago before it ever got released.
In case you missed it this morning, a trailer for the canceled 2023 live-action CW Powerpuff Girls show was leaked. The internet almost universally deemed it a dumpster fire and started clowning on it, and Warner Bros., which owns the rights to the superhero sisters, has been going to great lengths to scrub it from the internet. Why would you care that much about a leaked trailer for something you’ve already canceled? Probably because it’s terrible.
The original trailer was posted by Lost Media Busters, a YouTube account that posts footage related to scrapped game levels, unaired commercials, and other stuff that never properly saw the light of day. It immediately spread throughout social media, including X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, and elsewhere. On top of this, it was also published on the Internet Archive, which is used to save articles, webpages, and other media on the internet in the event they get deleted from live websites. At least, that’s the idea. Alongside hitting social media posts and the original YouTube upload, Warner Bros. has had the video taken down from the Internet Archive, which seems excessive considering the show isn’t even coming out anymore. You can’t claim it’s interrupting the flow of a marketing campaign if you weren’t going to put the show it’s promoting on TVs in the first place.
Now, I’ll say this: there is no valid dissenting opinion when it comes to this trailer. It’s hot garbage. I know, because I’ve seen it. Despite WB attempting to whack all of the moles using takedown notices, this thing is still out there. As are an absolute plethora of reaction videos that show stills, snippets, or the entire trailer within them.
Which is a very, very long way of saying that the trailer is still out there, despite WB attempting to disappear it. And now, because of that attempt to disappear the trailer, it is being turbocharged back into the public’s view once more as outlets begin covering what WB is doing. Exactly the opposite of what the company was attempting to achieve, in other words. And the media is certainly not going to play along with WB’s goal.
In the meantime, I guess I’ll keep adding new embeds to our original story about the trailer each time WB nukes whichever one I’ve got in there. You can’t wash away the horrible stink of bad television, Warner Bros.
If it was on the internet, it’s never truly gone, friends.