On the morning of January 31, 2007, the Boston Police Department and the Boston Fire Department mistakenly identified battery-powered LED placards depicting the Mooninites, characters from the Adult Swim animated television series Aqua Teen Hunger Force, as improvised explosive devices (IEDs), leading to a massive panic.
I remember how excited I was at the beginning, until they shrunk it down. I tried making sense of what was happening by standing real close to the Tv. But like most ATHF content, it was as nonsense without sound as it was with. The Neal Peart solo was pretty cool though!
I remember this happening in Atlanta. After maybe 2 weeks, no one cared. The whole of Atlanta received this marketing and was just like “Oh, well that’s weird.” I absolutely do not recall or believe the idea that a city (no matter where) was “turned upside down” - because they weren’t. It took almost no time of investigation to determine this was just marketing from Adult Swim. Cool your jets, man.
It was a big deal in the media, but I think their point was maybe that it wasn’t a big deal to the locals and the city was definitely not “turned upside down”?
I remember that. I never watched that show so I had no idea what the reference was, but if I had seen it in person, I would have just thought it was viral marketing. What’s so scary about it?
I did see it and knew what it referenced. There was nothing scary at all about it, it was clearly an LED sign. I couldn’t believe how massive an over reaction there was to it by the police. Terrorists tend not to put bright LEDs on their weapons as an advertisement.
As members of the media attempted to ask them how they felt about causing a panic, the pair refused to answer any questions not related to “haircuts of the ’70s.”
And as I remember, someone asked them more or less, what type of haircuts do you think you guys will be getting in prison? And whoever was going to answer the question genuinely hesitated and looked worried.
That was a very dark time for the country, we've definitely not recovered from it and it allowed a lot of Christian nationalism and budding-fascism to metastasize into the danger it is today.
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