And now we have the criminalization of geekiness. Two artists in Boston have been arrested -- arrested -- because their guerilla marketing scheme for a cartoon for adults was misinterpreted by some idiot -- by multiple corporate idiots -- as attempted terrorism.
What we have here is a failure to communicate. No, worse: we have a fundamental disconnect between disparate realms of the culture. Look, I’ve never even seen Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and still I would have recognized that the little electronic Lite-Brite thingie that panicked someone into calling the police, and panicked the police into locking down the city in order to detonate these things, was clearly just an alt-culture touchstone, or someone having a goof.
Is it me? Maybe not: the judge in the arraignment of Peter Berdovsky, 27, and Sean Stevens, 28 (note: they’re Xers), reduced their bail from $100,000 to $2,500, so perhaps already it is being recognized that this is a case of overexaggerated response on the part of the municipal authorities in Boston, not a matter of willful, concerted intent to do malice on the part of the artists.
The Washington Post is eternally clueless, though:
The light boxes portrayed "mooninites," essentially juvenile delinquents from another galaxy making an obscene gesture.
Because, you know, our moon is in “another galaxy.” Am I wrong? Does a quick Google not reveal that this character is supposed to be from our moon?
Holy shit! CNN is pixelating the image of the Lite Brite thingie that terrified the city of Boston, lest ATHF get any more free publicity out of this. Or else CNN is afraid that people will be offended to see a Lite Brite cartoon immigrant from the moon flipping the bird.
Check out AlterNet: it has video of the press conference Berdovsky and Stevens gave this afternoon, in which they accorded this issue precisely the kind of seriousness it deserves.
Oh, and P.S.: Advertising can certainly be evil, but still...
(Technorati tags: Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Boston terrorism scare)
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