RSS 2.0 FeedAn Incredible Overreaction
by Doug MataconisThere’s been much discussion over yesterday’s security scare in Boston that turned out to be a marketing campaign:
A guerrilla marketing campaign for a cartoon show about a box of french fries and his milkshake pal set off a scare that nearly shut down Boston’s commercial district yesterday, as bomb squads closed highways and two bridges in search of what turned out to be magnetic-light versions of the cartoon characters.
Turner Broadcasting, parent company of the Cartoon Network, said the small electronic circuit boards, which hang from girders and bridges, are part of a 10-city marketing campaign for the animated late-night television show “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.” Such guerrilla ad campaigns seek to place products in unexpected corners and count on those who spot the characters to “get” the gag.
But much of Boston was not in on this joke. The packages were discovered near the New England Medical Center, two bridges and a tunnel. Attorney General Martha Coakley said Peter Berdovsky, 27, of Arlington, Mass., and Sean Stevens, 28, of Charlestown, Mass., had each been arrested on a felony charge of placing a hoax device and a charge of disorderly conduct.
We regret that they were mistakenly thought to pose any danger,” said an e-mail message released by Turner spokeswoman Shirley Powell. “They have been in place for two or three weeks in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco and Philadelphia.”
he light boxes portrayed “mooninites,” essentially juvenile delinquents from another galaxy making an obscene gesture.
And the grave threat that was terrorizing Boston ? Here it is:
One can argue over the wisdom of Comedy Central’s marketing campaign. After all, if they’ve been in place in nine other cities for two weeks and nobody’s noticed them until now, it doesn’t appear that it’s been all that successful. What is unclear is why the Boston Police Department reacted the way that they did:
Boston and Massachusetts officials were not amused. A train passenger spied the first magnetic object, which looked like circuit boards with protruding wires, attached to a girder under Interstate 93 in the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston. A police bomb squad responded and blew up the device, leading to the shutdown of a railway station and the highway. For a while, the Coast Guard blocked off a section of the Charles River.
I am deeply dismayed to learn that many of the devices are a part of a marketing campaign by Turner Broadcasting,” Massachusetts Gov. Deval L. Patrick said in a statement, vowing to consult with Coakley.
Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino told the AP he was ready to sue.
It is outrageous, in a post-9/11 world, that a company would use this type of marketing scheme,” Menino said. “I am prepared to take any and all legal action against Turner Broadcasting and its affiliates for any and all expenses incurred during the response to today’s incidents.”
No, what’s outrageous is that, five years after 9/11, law enforcement officials apparently can’t tell the difference between a bomb and a cartoon character.
[...] At The Liberty Papers [...]
Pingback by An Incredible Overreaction — February 1, 2007 @ 11:32 amThe “overreaction” is actually a predictable reaction… the public are being trained to be docile members of the coming police state… The People’s Republic of Massachusetts just leads the way…
Comment by MaineGuy — February 1, 2007 @ 12:04 pmI can almost understand the panic. Almost is the active term here. Blind panic is never a good thing, and freaking out over a cartoon entity is just shy of ridiculous. What’s next, freaking out over a box of French fries???
Comment by Frylock — February 1, 2007 @ 1:00 pmthis is horribly aginst our rights to make them take down the signs
Comment by noah — February 1, 2007 @ 1:14 pmFrylock said, “I can almost understand the panic. Almost is the active term here. Blind panic is never a good thing, and freaking out over a cartoon entity is just shy of ridiculous. What’s next, freaking out over a box of French fries???”
Well, they are “French” fries… not FREEDOM fries, so yes, they are suseptable to bomb squad tactics. LOL
I guess kids should now worry about their Light Brights being blown up too. Don’t you love America?
Comment by Brian — February 1, 2007 @ 1:18 pmIf you see a blinking cartoon character, that’s one thing. But say you can see it from an angle that wasn’t intended. If you see some kind of electronic package attached to a bridge girder, what do you think? Yes, it’s a post 9-11 world, and so who ever places such a device must be very careful to avoid the confusion.
Sorry, MaineGuy, but “the public are being trained to be docile members of the coming police state…”? Nah. Sounds like just the opposite. You had a very undocile member of society see something very odd attached to a bridge. It’s only in hindsight that such a thing, proven to be harmless, seems silly. The public officials did the right thing on the ground. All the post-incident publicity, well, that’s a mixture of press sensationalism and bureaucratic indignation. People are people. Let get on with solving real problems.
Comment by Paul Henry S — February 1, 2007 @ 1:22 pmIs everyone or just me. I walk into the laundry. I saw a towel on the ground and I freaked out. a brown towel! For god sake!
I think is the media, now we live in this age of fear. It slowly creeping into our mind.
Comment by JoeJoe — February 1, 2007 @ 1:25 pmIt seems ridiculous until you read this: “A train passenger spied the first magnetic object, which looked like circuit boards with protruding wires, attached to a girder under Interstate 93 in the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston.” and as Turner has already stated, that is what they look like OFF.
So it wasn’t turned on. Instead of being a lit up character, it was a circuit board with wires hanging off, stuck on a girder. What would you think? Post-911 or not?
-tim
Comment by tim — February 1, 2007 @ 1:28 pmSo it wasn’t turned on. Instead of being a lit up character, it was a circuit board with wires hanging off, stuck on a girder. What would you think? Post-911 or not?
I’d think we can investigate it responsibly, without creating a huge scare and subsequently blaming the people who placed it there. It’s good that someone investigated; it’s absurd and kinda scary that the response to it being harmless was to arrest the people who put it there for making us worry.
Comment by Reverend Jack — February 1, 2007 @ 1:32 pmCompanies are doing advertising stunts every day all over the country, this is no different. These are not “hoax devices”, they are poor advertising. Just charge the 2 guys with littering and be done with it. Just because the Boston Government looks like fools, does not make this a felony.
Comment by Charles — February 1, 2007 @ 1:37 pmThese ‘advertisers’ are engaging in campaigns not unlike that of guerrilla warfare, utilizing irregular and ‘risque’ (if not ‘risky’) tactics emphasizing the two of the most effective elements to provoke reaction from unsuspecting targets: fear and the unknown.
When a graffitti artist paints a ‘cryptic’ message on a subway wall, what does it mean? The ambiguity and vagueness make the sign seem all the more ominous and threatening … but it draws attention and creates a disturbance.
It’s a form of terrorism, and by any other name, call it commotion, disorder, ruckus, annoyance, or bother, the outcome is still the same:
DISRUPTION, the unwanted and unwelcome break of normal progress and activity resulting from violence or the perceived threat of violence.
On a side note:
Comment by B. B. Wolffe — February 1, 2007 @ 1:40 pmDid you know that besides being an animated film made up of humorous drawings, a cartoon can also refer to a prelimenary drawing or sketch of a work later to be carried out in greater detail?
Just a thought to ponder.
This hearkens back to the devilish plot by a bunch of schoolchildren to blow up a city by way of construction paper and crayon boxes mimicking Super Mario Brothers boxes.
Why is it that the only thing that we are asked to do in this “Post 9/11 World” is to be paranoid of one another while the real points of vulnerability, (cargo transport crates, airlines, chemical plants, etc) are left underfunded and forgotten? Why does every subway tell me to look out for suspicious people, and Grand Central Terminal is shut down because some moron left an item of luggage in front of Krispy Kreme, but actual education and practical steps to curb terrorism are not spoken of?
Is it possibly because of the fact that if terrorists really wanted to cause trouble, they’d just do low budget, easily executed suicide bombings throughout the city, like they do in Iraq daily and have been doing in London and Israel and Ireland for years? Our security is an illusion. Always has been, always will be. All it takes is a bunch of people with enough black powder, or model rocket fuel, or fertilizer and fuel oil or whatever… Those things are just as easy to obtain, and easier to use than some hopped-up Hollywood microcircutry C4 explosive or whatever the heck the Boston Police thought it was…
Please, for the love of all that is good and holy… wake up America.
Comment by Justice Angelicus — February 1, 2007 @ 1:41 pmhow in the world does THAT look like a bomb threat? ANYTHING blinking w/ lights can potentially be a bomb threat then. what happened to common sense?
none of the other cities even noticed. boston is retarded.
Comment by kris — February 1, 2007 @ 1:46 pmYet another win for the extremists. With the mere mention of wires and switches panic reigns and critical thinking is abandoned. And then to arrest people because you over-reacted, inconvenienced the salarymen and wasted money? What terrorist plants a bomb and then wires a blinking display to draw attention to his handiwork? Even if not actively lit up this would be a pretty lame strike attempt. I assume the people of Boston are either hyper-vigilant or really, really slow. Al-Qaeda can now scrap their plans for the Mickey Mouse-shaped dirty bombs… the Bostonians have seen through the disguise!
Comment by E. Nasretep — February 1, 2007 @ 1:49 pmI am so sick of hearing about the post 9-11 world. 9-11 changes nothing. There are bad people in the world. Sometimes they are successful in hurting other people. That is no justification for shifting towards a police state. It’s a light-bright cartoon character. Someone saw it and reported it. Ok. No harm done there. When the police investigated, however, any reasonable individual would be able to tell that it was a harmless advertisement. IEDs don’t have lights on them pointing them out to observers. They are designed to blow up, not attract attention. These cops are morons. The mayor of Boston, is apparently a moron, and anyone unable to distinguish between a threat and an advertisement needs to go drown themselves in a bathtub to ensure their stupidity is not passed on to the next generation.
Damn, Americans get dumber every day.
Comment by WTF? — February 1, 2007 @ 1:51 pmStop living in fear America!
-D
Post 9-11 or not, the police did the correct thing. Their job is to serve and protect. If this advertisement was in fact a real bomb placed by a sociopath who enjoys the program ATHF and decided to put a picture of one of the characters on his bomb, we’d all be singing a different tune.
Comment by Greg — February 1, 2007 @ 1:55 pmThis campaign ended up just the way they wanted it. Adult Swim is receiving GOBS of press over this outlandish guerilla marketing campaign. Even the negative press will still put the cartoon in the mainstream media’s limelight for at least a couple of days. This, coupled with the fact that they intend on releasing a full-length feature film proves that their campaign couldn’t have been more successful.
Though I disagree with their strategies, this is just one example of where advertising is going to lead us in the near future. People may utilize scare tactics to capture people’s attentions.
The old adage: sex sells.
The new adage: terror sells? (pun intended)
Oh come on people, it’s so damn clear that these aren’t bombs
The entire idea behind any bomb is that it’s not to attract attention until after if goes off -that’s the whole point!
a simple check would have shown a lack of an explosive package that any trained professional would have identified as “safe”.
Perhaps it just goes to show the banal idioticy of not only the bozo on the train but also boston’s “finest” that they got to play with their anti terrorist toys that day.
now it’s a political issue where the officials are deflecting the blame upon the people that put the colorful and benign lights up…. dumb, dumb, dumb.
Comment by flip — February 1, 2007 @ 1:58 pmMaybe Turner, realizing that people weren’t taking notice of their campaign, contacted the Boston government and ASKED them to ‘over-react’. I know I wouldn’t have heard of this otherwise, and it certainly is getting them a lot of free press. It might even be worth it to pay the city’s expenses, as this is marketing you almost can’t buy.
Comment by Iced Taurus — February 1, 2007 @ 1:58 pmHey WTF,
This is a post 9/11 world because AMERICA got hit this time. Never mind that other countries have experienced terrorist acts, have suffered massive casualties and know what it is like to dodge missiles on the way to get groceries. This time AMERICA got hit and therefore the entire world has now shifted to a new era. It’s arrogant and counterproductive to only get concerned when it affects you. That’s like a rich guy getting cancer and then suddenly declaring that we have reached a new era in the realm of cancer. Why is it a new era? Because that guy never had cancer before.
Life is the same. The only places where the net probability of being killed by terrorist attack are significantly higher per capita are the places that we are occupying currently. Jets still fly, and sometimes, they’ll be hijacked. People are still angry, and some of those people will continue to express that anger through violent, destructive, murderous means. This is no different than the world has ever been… But it is nice of us here in America to decide that the party can start because we’ve arrived. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a party anyone really wanted to attend. And a lot of people were ready to go home before we arrived fashionably late.
Comment by Justice Angelicus — February 1, 2007 @ 2:03 pmVery good point Iced Taurus. Maybe TBN made the call to the police in Boston and reported it as a bomb. Who knows. The fact remains that all the money in the world couldn’t influence the mainstream media to blanket this story as they have done. Has anyone seen any coverage from Fox News on this topic? I’m curious to hear their spin.
Comment by Greg — February 1, 2007 @ 2:09 pm“what happened to common sense?”
Comment by B. B. Wolffe — February 1, 2007 @ 2:13 pmIndeed.
One must wonder:
What was the ‘intent’ of the advertisers?
Advertise, among other definitions, means ‘to warn’.
To ‘warn’ is to ‘alarm’.
Any bells going off yet?
Perhaps it’s time to wake up.
The intent to use the advertising market as the basis for a ‘stunt’ which distorts information, misleads the public, and by consequence systematically spreads and promotes fear and social unrest (all based on unsubstantiated ‘charges’, i.e. no bombs) kind of smacks of McCarthy era propaganda…
don’t you think?
no wmd’s
no bombs
no real threat to ‘AMERICANISM’
just a pegboard
with its ‘points of light’
switched off
: (
it’s all a game
to the ‘warriors’
but
nobody wins
Comment by B. B. Wolffe — February 1, 2007 @ 2:36 pmI agree that many of the officials in Boston overreacted and are oblivious to their own ignorance. However, placing electronic equipment on bridges is pretty stupid too. Not sure it is criminal, but it is stupid.
Comment by Ralph — February 1, 2007 @ 4:01 pmIf indeed there was no intent to do harm, once the Boston officials released to the press information regarding the ‘electronic devices’ and the perceived threat, why did the advertisement company allow the ‘scare’ to continue?
Comment by B. B. Wolffe — February 1, 2007 @ 4:13 pm“the police did the correct thing.”
I wonder what the bill came out to?
Enough goose chases warrants a request to increase their budget at a later date.
Comment by Myrtle — February 2, 2007 @ 7:47 am[...] suppose this kind of stupid overreaction is what we should expect from a city that keeps re-electing a murderous [...]
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