Perhaps some explanation is necessary. Filmmaker James Gunn, of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, DC’s The Suicide Squad, and upcoming HBO Max series Peacemaker, took to Twitter yesterday to report on some strange goings on in his Instagram direct messages. Unless Gunn went through the trouble of fabricating these messages as some kind of weird and wholly unnecessary publicity stunt for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (and to be clear: he definitely does not have the time for that), a dedicated Instagram user has been messaging him the exact same message multiple times per week for more than two years, without fail. The message reads: “So will u put a FERRET in GOTG3? (I KNOW YOU SAW THIS) 😊 I’m from STL too, do it for the HOMIES !” Is it possible that this message is some kind of secret code? If you remove all punctuation and the “3” from it, you are left with 23 letters. According to highly proficient online anagram algorithms, 22 of those letters can be rearranged into 40 different word combinations. “Aiguillettes uptorn frow” has some promise but it’s probably not what we’re looking for. The only logical conclusion to draw is that this commenter really just wants to see a ferret in a movie. If so, quibble about the spelling or grammar all you want, but this is a fundamentally perfect argument for putting a ferret in Guardians of the Galaxy 3. First of all, “FERRET” is in all caps so you know Gunn won’t miss it. In fact, the message immediately acknowledges that there’s no way Gunn missed it “(I KNOW YOU SAW THIS)” and Gunn confirmed as much by posting this to his followers. Then there’s the appeal to Gunn’s hometown, which is a masterstroke. If someone slid into my DMs, said they were from Northeast Ohio, and then added “do it for the HOMIES !” I would photoshop a ferret into any film they asked. In this 23-letter message alone, the argument appeals to three of the six most common persuasion techniques: Authority (capitalized words), Commitment and Consistency (sending it several times a week), and Liking (“do it for the HOMIES !). Gunn doesn’t say if the messages compel him to actually include a ferret in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. I guess we won’t find out until the film is released on May 5, 2023. In conclusion:
