By Michael Levenson and Maria Cramer, Globe Staff | February 1, 2007
The episode exposed a wide generational gulf between government officials who reacted as if the ads might be bombs and 20-somethings raised on hip ads for Snapple, Apple, and Google who instantly recognized the images for what they were: a viral marketing campaign.
Among many in the young generation, reaction to the scare was smirking. "Repeat after me, authorities. L-E-D. Not I-E-D. Get it?" one 29-year-old blogger from Malden wrote on his website, contrasting light emitting diodes with improvised explosive device
Oh, har har har! You really had ol' Gramps goin' on that one for a minute, Sonny! Prolly would a' shit my pants if it weren't fer th' colostomy bag!
Now here's 10 bucks. Go buy yourself a real haircut.
One: I resent the implication that this continuing Massteria is some sort of generational thing, or if it were that you'd be on the right side of it by virtue of drinking Snapple. Two: Maybe, just maybe, you should consider whether "being hip to viral advertising" implies a certain superiority to your Neanderthal forebears or a degree of soul-sickness undreamed of a mere generation ago. Three: You know what's almost worse than a few thousand tea-shade wearin', wrong-house breakin'-into narcs repurposed for facilitating public panics every time a grocery bag full of wires turns up somewhere? It's the fucking hypocritical American public that five short years ago wanted Susan Sontag jailed for treason, that gave George W. Bush and the Republicans high marks on "fighting terror", and now, now doesn't like a war it didn't ask questions about in the first place because it turned to shit, and now wants to complain about overreaction to phony terrorist threats. And that goes double for anyone working for the mass-market media that hyped the war and every phony terror threat for five years. Overreaction? It's sitting in the Oval Office. Dudes.
9 comments:
Not quite new Coke,but really,REALLY
stupid
Okay - so you don't have to be under 30 to recognize teh stupid when you see it. But it's hard grasp how the entire security force of a major city, a state, and the federal government failed to recognize a cartoon character. The age gap explanation isn't airtight, but it's all we've got.
The thing is, if you're an anti-terror cop called out with guns drawn all the high-tech weaponry and bomb-detecting Republican campaign promises can buy to surround a lightboard that looks like a pixelated ATARI video game creature giving you the finger, how blind and/or tanked do you have to be to not feel utterly ridiculous?
No cop in the world, given an opportunity like the one yesterday, is ever gonna pull the screamer up on the sidewalk, get out, look at that thing and say, "It's okay, it's just a sign." Not when there's an opportunity to snarl traffic for several miles. Consider why somebody becomes a cop in the first place...
Like I said on Sadly,No, they shoulda blown 'em up, like in London. Now THAT would of been DRAMA!
If The Proper Authorities really took this long to figure out the battery-powered Lite Brite wasn't dangerous, I have a really hard time believing we're spending a gajillion dollars a year on Security Theater wisely. However, I do begin to realize why the Authorities may have thought Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction. A kid probably dropped an odd looking toy in the sand.
I don't by the generation gap thing for a second. But the insistence of the Boston officials on trying to label this a "hoax" or otherwise imply that anybody tried to set them up the bomb is just posturing designed to distract from their incompetence.
Err - "buy" (not "by").
doghouse - the Boston media has their haircuts so far up their asses on this one, it's incredible. I watched news out of Boston tonight (usually avoid it) - we're wringing our hands and clutching our pearls over the lack of respect the evil perps showed to all and sundry (got to agree w/ the perps on this one - media, Mayor Mumbles, the prosecutor - douchebags, all). The crowning glory was their online poll - featured during the newscast - on 'who is responsible for this mess?!?!'. Two choices - Turner or the kids. Hmmm, no mention of the city gummint? The local news haircuts - not involved??? I don't think they realize that a LOT of folks have figured this CF out...
Dognouse Riley writes: "No cop in the world, given an opportunity like the one yesterday, is ever gonna pull the screamer up on the sidewalk, get out, look at that thing and say, 'It's okay, it's just a sign.'"
Man, ain't that the truth. I was late for work one day back when the OJ trial was going on because a "suspicious package"-- i.e., a small cardboard box with the KFC logo on it-- was found at a bus stop near the courthouse. The LAPD bomb squad was duly called in, sealed off the street, and then blew up somebody's forgotten lunch, leaving shredded newsprint and chicken bones all over the sidewalk.
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