The under-12 demographic follows

the crack cocaine model in both

distribution and production:

It's a small profit center,

produced by illicit and

sometimes haphazard means, while

its principals find it laughably

easy to drain adults of their

income.

Crack doesn't require

sloganeering to sell, banking on

its addictive qualities and

socially inter-connected user

base (the crack house, much like a

Prodigy SIG, attracting

a dedicated group with a shared

interest).

Selling the youth demo takes a

more hands-on approach, as shown

by the fevered efforts of

statutory marketers such as Wow!

and Yahooligans!

One of the strange-but-truisms of

minor peddling is that using the

computer and other Fetish fodder

somehow empowers children - plug

in, log on, attend a good

college on full scholarship, and

get the hell out of the house.

But what kids want isn't

inscrutible Japanimation toys,

collectible card games, or

point-and-click cyberporn, cries

the marketing executive,

somewhat counterintuitively.

They just want to be heard!

Like Barney, the dinosaur now

training millions of

preschoolers for nonexistent

careers in vaudeville, the canny

marketer believes that giving

kids a voice pays dividends. If

that's true, batmanforever.com

must be breaking the bank for

its Pathfinder overseers.

Like many gangsta rappers - those

embittered outcast millionaires

- the young websurfers of

batmanforever.com have found

their voices through the

noblesse oblige of the Time

Warner empire.

batmanforever.com, left for dead

but left online, features HTML

message boards, the bastard

third cousin of Usenet. Topics

such as "Nicole Kidman is Chase

Meridian" were started by site

designer Grey Entertainment to

give visitors a chance to revel

in the synergistic

cross-promotional experience

that was Batman Forever.

The Bat-talk petered out quickly,

and a different kind of youth

speech petered in. Just as the

musically-disinclined rapper

relies on "found art" by

sampling cuts from other songs,

the verbally-disinclined

batmanforever.com user took

Pathfinder's digital castoff and

recycled it in his or her own

image.

Youth are voicing their concerns

on a variety of subjects that

only occasionally touch on

Batman Forever's role in their

lives: "dumb white nigger,"

"good anal sex with a hot 15

year old," "joel schumacher is

gay and i want your ass," and a

personal favorite, "IM A HOT

JEWISH SUPERMODEL." To quote an

Interactive Age puff piece on

the site, "unlike most

promotions on the Web, the site

features more than advertising

copy." Indeed.

Participation has a style that's

one part English as a Second

Language and two parts Dr. Dre.

Taking a view from 5,000 miles

up - to borrow from air-headed

marketspeak - and peering down

at the totality of the site,

it's hard not to find poetry in

its fragments.

As a purely visceral experience,

and exactly the kind of sin that

Lenny Bruce died for,

batmanforever.com is not a bad

student literary effort. One

year after the site's heralded

public debut, it's easy to see

why Point called it "Hollywood

blockbuster hype at its most

delicious."

Or, as Warner Brothers exec and

site mastermind Don Buckley told The

New York Times, "It's smart

business to stay in touch with

the technology. I know there's

something happening and it's

smart for us to tap into it

now."

What that something is remains to

be seen, but batmanforever.com's

Blue Chicken may provide a clue.

Like Batman himself - a hero as

homoerotic and Aryan as can be

found outside of Baywatch - Blue

Chicken knows Reich from wrong.

Batmanforever.com Web designer

Jeffrey Zeldman and his

co-conspirators have moved on to

new outre sites since the heady

summer of 1995. But they may be

the Peter Framptons of

hypertecture - their best days

as forgotten as the Web

maintenance responsibilities on

batmanforever.com.

Looking at their sad stabs at

interactivity today, it's hard

not to hear the melancholy

refrains of Frampton Comes Alive

II, an album perhaps better

titled Frampton Not Actually

Dead.

Then again, there's always Batman

and Robin. Coming Summer 1997.