This Is So Not da Bomb

If you ask me, this whole bomb threat hoax story is a load of whooey.

Maybe it’s because I didn’t learn about the whole thing until 7pm last night, and only then it was because someone from out of town called me to ask about it, but it seems to me that the city is overreacting and, at least to me, it’s pretty ridiculous and kind of funny. This is a marketing effort that had been in place for two to three weeks in 10 cities — including New York — and yet here is where the officials missed the boat? Huh??

What I want to know is, what happened in the other cities? Did no one notice, or were the folks there smart enough to realize it was a silly guerrilla marketing campaign for the movie version of a TV show that’s popular with college kids? I mean, those things didn’t look like bombs. And I’ll bet that as soon as folks who knew what they were saw the Mooninites being taken down, they laughed. I mean, even online in the Blogosphere, by early afternoon people knew this was related to a Cartoon Network program. So why all the extended hullabaloo? Why are city and state officials seemingly out for blood? Is it just because they look like like idiots? Is this a major CYA campaign? No one likes to be made a fool of, no one likes to be stuck in traffic for a stupid reason, etc. I get that. But this just reeks of overreaction.

So what of these poor guys who have been arrested for putting the things up? They're just patsies in the whole thing. They were doing their jobs. Any young person in marketing or advertising hired to participate in something like this would have done the same thing. Give them a break. They're not responsible. They were just doing what they were paid to do. Hell, I don't even think the Cartoon Network deserves this much wrath. They apologized. That's enough for me.

So yeah, I just don’t get it. Yes, I understand how on edge people are post-9/11, but c’mon. Lighten up, people.

[And as a side note, I love the fact that you can buy t-shirts to commemorate this whole thing.]