A guerrilla marketing team promoting Cartoon Network’s “Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” recently played a practical joke on many cities across the country. Boston apparently didn’t get the joke.
The marketing team put up crude looking electronic lightboards around the country that displayed images of the Mooninites, popular characters from the show, giving a choppy light-bulb bird finger. It seems like a simple enough idea, but toss a few individuals who are obviously detached from reality into the mix and you have a citywide scare.
According to CNN, authorities shut down two major bridges and stopped maritime traffic because of the possible terrorist threat that the signs posed. This might be the first warning signal that as a country, we are collectively losing our minds. That’s not to say that there isn’t a genuine terrorist threat out there, because there obviously is. But if all flashy lights become hypothetical bombs, then the terrorists have already won.
Assistant Attorney General John Grossman called the lightboards “bomb-like” devices. He also said that if the signs were explosive they could have damaged the transportation infrastructure of the city. That may be the case, but also hypothetically if the Empire State Building were a big bomb then it could possibly blow up America. Also, on my way to work yesterday I saw a sign in the widow of a bar that could have been a bomb. It may have flashed the word Budweiser, but you could tell whoever assembled it must be a craftsman of death.
Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for putting the signs up. Media outlets Fox News and MSNBC covered the press conference after the arrest, and proceeded to bash the two men for refusing to answer any questions seriously. Berdovsky and Stevens would only acknowledge questions about hairstyles of the 1970s. The accused handled the situation perfectly. They aren’t the ones who turned the situation into what into what it became. That apparently came from someone’s overactive imagination.
Turner Broadcasting has now issued an apology to the city of Boston for the inconvenience that the signs caused. An estimated $500,000 was spent to remove the signs, and the city is seeking recoup the money from Turner.
CNN reported that public safety officials were saying that a stunt like this is just inconceivable in a post 9/11 world. What’s actually inconceivable is that a bomb squad and a police force in major city were completely thrown off by what is basically a child’s toy. I’m no bomb expert, but I believe if I would have seen one of the lightboards on the street I would have instantly known it was a prank or just more marketing garbage.
Mass marketing is probably harming the overall intelligence of America, but a bomb squad isn’t likely to solve that problem. Then again, if we could send the Boston bomb squad to diffuse American Idol and half of the other garbage that comes on television, we’d probably instantly have smarter Americans who wouldn’t lose their minds over flashy lights.
