#crashgate

These "landing the plane" comments keep being said over and over; meanwhile, Jane/El can fly and she's compared to Superman, who is mistaken for a plane. But if she were a plane, they'd be calling it a kamikaze. It's a business term, devoid of love, which is a slightly odd thing for a creative to keep calling their creation in fan interviews, but they're producers too.

Remember that thing about "repeating a lie often enough it becomes the truth"? This is a message they want you to accept. The take-off was creating the false narrative, cruising at an altitude was repeating it across platforms exploiting the illusionary truth effect, and landing the plane is when the public stops questioning why the phrase is being repeated. They accept it as normal, truth, or common place.

You only successfully land the "plane" when your target audience has acted on the new belief you gave them. In business, it's having a consumer buy your product.

I'm thinking about the planes we saw landing in the show—the airport arrival, Alaska arrival, Russia crash. The first being the hard launch of byler.

The plane to Alaska was when conspiracy theorist Murray clocked byler ("experiment sexually" "what could go wrong?").

Joyce and Murray become prisoners on a plane to be sold while Yuri doesn't care if he's a sell out (of his morals) advertising his illegal peanut butter. Then they crash.

Yuri (ironic) mentions the KGB, who exploit the illusory truth effect, and they're who the "fragile cargo" would be sold to. Fragile as in weakened minds, cargo as in the characters are packaged goods, and the KGB as in brands—like JIF.

Originally named Big Top (🎪), "JIF" is how you say the animated images file called gif, which is a popular meme format. They're a powerful tool for propaganda, loops which repeat over and over with disarming pop-culture humor—a god send to IP/brands when fans do the work for them, mass producing their property on the social media market.

There's more plane imagery beyond this. Perhaps the most relevant one is in the Rink-O-Mania scene where Jane is side-by-side with a crashed plane (as the ironic Wipeout record played right before).

Other interesting factoids:

In advertising, a "flighting" plan is running a high speed campaign followed by periods of inactivity—a successful flighting plan is the result of a captive audience, using their fandom or lingering interest so advertisers save on spending but increase longevity. This ad strategy is used for shows who have off seasons, or YEARS in between like Stranger Things did.

The perfect "runway" was to create "byler" and hold off on Will's coming out so a dedicated fan group, like shippers, would keep advertising for them, keep the conversation going, get some GA involved over debates on forums. This is why they wouldn't have Mike reject Will after all, leaving their story open-ended. It's because Netflix planned their biggest flighting plan yet—conformitygate.

Moreover, flyers (leaflets) are OG propaganda tools, easier to distribute in the air, and they were dropped from planes using cluster bombs to neutralize or disseminate disinformation during the World Wars. Twitter/X is the modern equivalent. Then, visual planes are the dimensions of a campaign, like billboards. Yeah, linguistics are crazy.

I know this has been a controversial court case on here but I actually think this is a good outcome, especially in terms of holding people like Bernie accountable for his actions and decisions- and for running his mouth to the media years later.

WTF IS HAPPENING THEY BROUGHT BACK PALPATINE

Did you see about it?

Felipe Massa’s $80M-plus F1 ‘Crashgate’ lawsuit heads to court this week: What to know - The Athletic https://share.google/m6HyNgEwYPLg1yMm2

I wonder if that's why MG is so careful in her intentions with her brother and his wife 🤔

Hi anons 🫶🏻

Thanks both for bringing up this super interesting fact.

Long long talk.. so Let’s try to sum it up:

What is Crashgate?

1. Context

The 2008 Formula 1 season was one of the most dramatic and controversial in modern history. The title fight came down to Felipe Massa (Ferrari) and a super young Sir Lewis (unnameable Team) separated by only a handful of points.

Everything changed in September 2008 at the Singapore Grand Prix, when Nelson Piquet Jr. Aka Jr— then driving for Renault F1 Team, now Alpine — deliberately crashed under team orders to help his teammate - hello 👋🏻 Fernando Alonso - win the race.

This later became known as Crashgate, one of the sport’s biggest scandals. Renault was sanctioned, and team principal Flavio Briatore was initially banned (guess who’s back ? ).

The championship reached its climax at Interlagos, Massa’s home circuit, for the final Brazilian Grand Prix of the season. ( Good old times, real audience, real circuits from the beginning to the end)

Felipe won the race, and for a few minutes was mathematically world champion — until Lewis overtook Timo Glock in the final laps, finishing fifth and taking the title by one single point (Hamilton 98 pts – Massa 97).

2. The Legal Case

In 2024, Felipe Massa filed a lawsuit in the United Kingdom against the FIA, Formula One Management, and Bernie Ecclestone, claiming he was the victim of a “historic injustice.”

He is seeking around £60–64 million (≈ €70–90 million) in damages and formal recognition as the rightful 2008 world champion.

Ferrari has not joined the lawsuit.

This week, the first preliminary hearings are being held in London, where the court will decide whether the case proceeds to full discovery or is dismissed.

It’s also worth noting that, although Crashgate was proven and Renault was punished, the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix results were never annulled — meaning the FIA never reassigned championship points or declared Massa champion retroactively.

3. To Understand the Emotional Weight of the Crashgate

I can still remember it, but picture it: a Brazilian driver, in a Ferrari, winning the championship at Interlagos — the final race of the season.

He crosses the line first; the crowd erupts. For a few magical minutes, he’s world champion. Green-and-gold flags wave, fans scream, cry, sing. And then, silence.

And that same Brazilian driver, robbed of his crown in front of his people, was directly harmed in the standings by another Brazilian — Piquet Jr. — who, just a few races earlier in Singapore, had staged an accident.

And that’s not speculation — it’s his own confession.

4. My Point of View on the case

As a human and a tifosa, I completely empathize with Felipe — I remember 2008 vividly: Interlagos, his victory at home, Brasilians & Tifosi’s tears.

Even I would always love to take a title away from that team, I agree with Ferrari’s posture: from a sporting perspective once a championship has been won, celebrated, and recorded, you can’t truly rewrite it.

The sense of injustice is legitimate, the desire for vindication deeply human — but the outcome has already become part of history.

And honestly, if Alonso — the direct beneficiary of Crashgate — had won the title, then yes, this whole lawsuit would feel absolutely justified. I would have also declared war.☠️ But he didn’t.

It was won by a third party, Sir Lewis Hamilton, who at that time drove for my that team— the same Team that only a year earlier had been fined US $100 million (≈ €100 million) and excluded from the Constructors’ Championship for the Spygate, but that’s another story. Anyway That alone tells you what kind of chaotic era this was.

The result, however, remains etched in collective memory — with all its intensity and bitterness. So we need to accept it

5. Brazilian Coverage and Sentiment

Brazilian media are following the case closely, emphasizing its symbolic importance for national sport.

Public sentiment is overwhelmingly sympathetic toward Massa — he’s seen as the wronged hero, the driver who brought Ferrari glory and heartbreak at the same time.

The Piquet family, as always, remains a complex presence: carrying controversy because of Nelson Jr.’s primary role in the scandal.

There’s a massive bias against Junior in this whole affair. And I’ll go even further: in the Brazilian collective imagination, this story carries much more weight that Bolsonaro-Senior situation.

Because this feels transversal, like something that robbed everyone equally — ironically actually also Bolsonaro did according to justice, but the difference is that politics always leaves a side ready to defend you; in Crashgate, there isn’t one.

6. What does it mean for MV aka Blondie and our saga?

From a PR / Blondie perspective, this situation is a potential time-bomb.

If the case enters full discovery, it could explode into a major media storm, reopening long-buried wounds and reigniting Brazil’s most emotional chapter in F1 and it could happen during this year Gp week.

Because this isn’t just about sport — it’s an internal Brasilian drama between two of its own drivers, charged with national emotion. If the court moves forward, it’ll be a reputational earthquake.

That would mean for Blondie, surely a lot of questioning and for Mg & family a real big big problem for showing up their faces at the GP. More than Senior & Bolsonaro.

Liv 💫