The Otherside: Boston freaks over "Lite-Brites"

Boston got scared yesterday by a guerilla marketing campaign that used blinking light boxes to promote Turner Broadcasting’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

The boxes, which popped up all over the city (and several others across the U.S.) caused a post 9/11 panic. The AP reported that the city temporarily shut down major roads, bridges, tunnels and the mass transit system. Bomb experts were called in to remove the devices and at least two people have been arrested for placing the boxes, so far.

Meanwhile, the blogosphere started laughing.

Badmama’s Girlcreeture wrote “Regardless of one’s pop culture knowledge, not being able to tell the difference between homemade Light Bright, even better, homemade Light Bright flipping the bird and a bomb (dey go boom!) is pretty um, what’s the word… oh yeah.”

  It was difficult to find a blog, even one written by a Bostonian, that felt any sympathy for those that panicked and the outraged officials. The resounding consensus was that everyone… over reacted.

“This entire thing was very funny and wonderful up until the point that freelance artists hired to do an advertising campaign started being arrested. Then, it just became disgusting. There’s no other way to say this: the City of Boston had a panic attack over something that was just obviously innocuous and meant in good fun. The ‘potential explosives’ the Bomb Squad scrambled around the city to blow up were essentially Lite-Brites,” Joel Brownlee wrote on a Wired blog.

The Meat Brain at Thinking Meat agreed: “The denizens of Boston — no, make that the citizenry of the entire state of Massachussetts — should be afraid, very afraid. Their city and state are being run by complete incompetents who can easily be thrown into a panic by blinking lights”

The Angel of O’Lore blamed the media. “Why all the hysteria? Because the media has taught us to fear the unknown. If it looks like technology, but isn't recognizable, someone is clearly out to get us. What kind of mentality is that? It's depressing, and just a little scary, that the entire city is in an uproar over a marketing campaign.”

One commenter there, however, thought the idea behind the campaign was clouded in a little too much subterfuge: “The thing's pretty cute. But the device looks pretty weird, in my opinion. Perhaps the fact that it was an ad should've been made more blatant by big flashy-colored stickers or something. Arresting the guy is pretty ridiculous, though.”

Turner Broadcasting apologized for the confusion over its campaign, according to media reports. And the city says it was just being vigilant. No argument there (the last time I was in Boston there were police standing on every street corner).

But to some bloggers, that vigilance is a waste of time.

“Sure 9/11 happened and sure terrorists can attack us, but let me tell you this, if they are determined enough, there is little we can do to stop them,” wrote Trace at the blog duh.

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Justin McLachlan, News Correspondent

Justin's column, The Otherside, published once a week to Gather Essentials: News breaks original stories the mainstream media hasn't found yet and looks at the stories being talked about by real people like you. 

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