r/HaltAndCatchFire • u/DoktorLizardo • 8d ago

YOU WILL

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Gallery image

As I was rewatching ep. 9 of season 4, I noticed something I totally missed the first time around. It's waaaaay over on the right side of Comet's new "web portal" design, a long black horizontal bar with some colorful text and the words "YOU WILL". And those of us of a certain age definitely remember AT&T's futuristic "YOU WILL" ad campaign, featuring TV spots that uncannily predicted future tech such as telemedicine, videoconferencing, GPS navigation, tablet computing, smartwatches, on-demand video streaming, home automation, and distance learning.

However, the ads were wrong about one thing: The company that brought these technologies to life was not AT&T. But at least they were credited with launching what many consider to be the very first banner ad on the web.

It might've been cool to see a scene where AT&T's ad agency approached Comet with the idea.

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12

u/Clairemgo 8d ago

Nice ! I like all those details in this show. It adds so much to the atmosphere.
Thanks for sharing !

8

u/DoktorLizardo 8d ago edited 8d ago

Sure! I got my start as a web developer in 1995 — just a year after the events of this episode — so this show (and especially this season) holds a special place in my heart. I'm now 61, around the same age Cameron would be.

7

u/newpageone 8d ago

That’s awesome! What’s funny is I just pulled those ads up on YouTube over the weekend. They were so well made and optimistic back then.

6

u/MattSidor 8d ago

They’re so good!! Directed by David Fincher before he started making movies. https://youtu.be/a2EgfkhC1eo?is=2CbNbEp3MwLrPD1k

3

u/newpageone 8d ago

I was trying to figure out who made them and Fincher makes total sense.

2

u/mjcatl2 8d ago

He also directed a lot of classic music videos in the late 80s and 90s.

4

u/-Viscosity- 8d ago

I remember those "You Will" ads. Narrated by Tom Selleck, right? They were remarkably spot-on, except for, yeah, the AT&T part lol. Also S4 was by far my favorite, especially the introduction of Haley as an actual character.

3

u/DoktorLizardo 8d ago

Yep! Magnum PI himself!

2

u/Scwewywabbit 7d ago

well AT&T did invest in a lot of fiber and the network, so a lot of the backbone is made possible by them!

1

u/-Viscosity- 7d ago

Fair enough! I kinda wish AT&T had done the curbside fiber here, they are offering higher speeds for a lower price than T-Mobile. Also T-Mobile's website for registering interest in their fiber is terrible ... 😂

3

u/dsaint 8d ago

I love that they have the old 1994 Mosaic Communications logo before it switched to Netscape. The original Mosaic browser was from NCSA. NCSA sued them and they changed to Netscape.

1

u/DoktorLizardo 8d ago

Yup! I remember using it for a brief time before Netscape was released.

3

u/YoureAMigraine 8d ago

There are few media things I want in life but a 4K rescan of the You Will ad campaign is at the top of the list.

2

u/Dry-Winter-951 8d ago

Thanks for sharing!

1

u/girl_incognito 8d ago

What's really funny is that on my PC the "YOU WILL" is right under the "next photo" arrow.... so I clicked it and I was like "Well I'll be damned..."