Did Boston Overreact?

[Anthony G]

I'm sure most of you have heard about this by now, what's your thoughts?

 

Excerpts:

BOSTON - In nine cities across the country, blinking electronic signs displaying a profane, boxy-looking cartoon character caused barely a stir.

 

But in Boston, the signs — some with protruding wires — sent a wave of panic across the city, bringing out bomb squads and prompting officials to shut down highways, bridges and part of the Charles River.

 

Young Bostonians familiar with the unconventional marketing tactics used by many companies tended to see the city’s reaction as unmitigated hysteria.

 

Tracy O’Connor, 34, a retail manager, called the police response “silly and insane,” contrasting it with that in other cities where no one reported concerns about the devices — an advertising gimmick for the Cartoon Network show “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.”

 

“We’re the laughingstock,” she said.

Full story:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16931200/?GT1=9033

[Angry the Clown]

Wasn’t there an incident last summer (in LA?) where the bomb squad had to detonate a device that caused alarm that simply turned out to be a promotional gimmick for Mission Impossible III? It’s all rather amusing to me really – particularly this incident as yesterday it meant the BBC had to show a clip from Aqua Teen – but it’s probably a reactionary response from the authorities that many places will no doubt have to get used to with regards to this sort of thing. If anything it might get marketing divisions of companies to inform local authorities of any kind of unique ad campaign in future if only to save embarrassment and wasting public resources I suppose.

 

“In this day and age, whenever anything remotely suspicious shows up, people get concerned — and that’s good,” King County sheriff’s Sgt. John Urquhart said.

 

Yes, being suspicious of everything and everyone is BRILLIANT. Go forth...

[Orpheus]

Did Boston overreact? Absolutely.

 

Oh, I forgot this is the post 9/11 world. Oh, wait, it always will be.....

[JoeyN]

To show you how idiotic they were. It was all over the net that this was a promotional thing for the last two weeks. Overreacting is a understatement

[Anthony G]

Officials found 38 blinking electronic signs on bridges, a subway station, a hospital, Fenway Park and other high-profile spots in and around the city.

 

In New York, officers went to the various locations and found only two of the devices — both attached to a highway overpass. Police said it did not appear any landmarks such as the subway, Empire State Building or Brooklyn Bridge were targeted.

 

In defense of Boston, there did appear to be more caution placed where the signs were distributed. It was an older demographic that were alarmed and phoned in. Who's to say a similar situation might not have happened in New York if they were placed in the subways, bridges and tunnels.

[foogledricks]

"Boston" didn't overreact. Many many people were involved with the "reaction." I've personally never heard of that show. So it has no meaning to me. So to say that symbolically it was obviously a marketing campaign is unfair, because its untrue. You have to throw that out the window. Instead you have to judge whether reacting to mysterious electronic objects placed in numbers around a major city is something that should be assumed is a threat until proven otherwise.

 

Next time I think, from a PR perspective, they try to identify the objects more quickly to contain not only the potential threat, but the cost and PR embarrassment. Live and learn. But no, in this instance, at this point in time, "Boston" didn't overreact.

 

Doesn't mean I don't think it is funny. It's just easy for people not involved to say that Boston officials are stupid. They are not. At least in this case they are not.

[JoeyN]

Yeah, because a bomber wants to bring attention to the device by having it have bright lights, and a charector giving the finger. The things have been in more then just Boston, and not one incident happened

[Peter O]

Yes.

 

I can't say more without becoming too political and getting all fired up

[JTello]

I don't think the city over-reacted. I think the city reacted properly to an unknown threat, as the have been trained to since 9/11.

 

I think the mistakes were made after the first response. The comments by the political and power establishment have been embarrassing. The word that keeps coming up that really irks me is "hoax." The word hoax implys intent. Did Turner intend to fool anyone about anything? No. Their judgment may be debatable, but I don't think anyone could argue that Turners people intended to cause anyone worry. If so, they failed miserably, because only Boston reacted.

 

On the two guys who were arrested for putting up the signs, I think the officials did the right thing by making the arrests and bringing them in, as to clear up the true intent. But the idea of bringing them to court and charging them is ludicrous. They did a job for a reasonably reputable company, and did the job with no intent of harming anyone. They are only guilty of bad hair dos. (Psst, white hippie looking dude with dreads is so 1990's, cut dat shit man!)

[shine5555]

The SAD thing is.... I read the promo was up for 3 weeks in Boston all-ready, and even longer in other major cities. I think the officials in Boston where/are embarrassed.

 

Also Turner folks called the city once they heard about the incident

[ChrisBardon]

I'm a little torn on this one. On one hand, there are people whose job it is to see anything as a threat and treat it as such, and it's good to have those people around. What's sad though is that the general public is so afraid of the unknown that the first conslusion that they jump to is that this is something out to get them. Why can't it just be a weird piece of art?

[Whooter]

The terrorists have won.

[weremichael]

"Boston" didn't overreact...in this instance, at this point in time, "Boston" didn't overreact.

 

Finally I'm back to disagreeing with you K-Fed. They did completely overreact. I think you need to meditate on the point brought up by Joey on the "bombs" having flashing lights. What a great ad campaign. "Guerrilla Advertisement" is such a great tactic.

 

Turner has to be laughing its way to the bank with the amount of people that will tune into the show now. They are getting off cheap for whatever amount of money they chose to pay Boston. By the way, you can buy one of the "bombs" on Ebay

 

JTello,

 

White guys with dreads are commonly referred to as "trustifarians" in the crunchy granola community and are typically despised even within the subculture. I did love the way the guys interacted with the press and the way they rolled into court with complete lack of respect for the charges against them. Lighten Up Boston.

 

Michael

[Jordan_E]

Locally, the news reported that not only did utility workers not call it in, but they took the ones they found back to their building and had it hanging up, they found it so funny.

[foogledricks]

Finally I'm back to disagreeing with you K-Fed. They did completely overreact. I think you need to meditate on the point brought up by Joey on the "bombs" having flashing lights. What a great ad campaign. "Guerrilla Advertisement" is such a great tactic.

By aligning yourself with Joey I now have even more confidence that you are wrong. You're asserting once again that for several reasons this was clearly not a threat. I appreciate you and Joey's expertise on assessing threatening situations, and as I said I find the whole thing in retrospect very funny (Jon Stewart must have had a field day, gotta youTube that), but I think level of overreaction in Boston officials is proportionate to the level of overreaction in the subsequent criticism here and elsewhere.

 

I do concede though that this is very embarrassing for the officials. AND that jailing anyone would in fact be an overreaction.

[secretvampire]

Total overreaction, hilariously so. The comments spewing from the city government officials were so over the top, I keep wondering if they saw the same things we did:

 

Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis called the stunt

"unconscionable," while Boston Mayor Thomas Menino called it

"outrageous" and the product of "corporate greed." Democratic Rep. Ed

Markey, a Boston-area congressman, added, "It would be hard to dream

up a more appalling publicity stunt."

[foogledricks]

I think everyone here is confused and talking about different things (1. the incident, 2. the aftermath). I agree that the quote above, and the whole aftermath is an overreaction. I think that the authorities reaction to the threat (the incident), at the time (of finding the mysterious objects), was not an overreaction. Agree or disagree with either of those two different things. Please place your opinions and arguments accordingly.

[Ron]

Democratic Rep. Ed

Markey, a Boston-area congressman, added, "It would be hard to dream

up a more appalling publicity stunt."

 

This guy has no imagination.

Right off the top of my head:

-the devices could have actually been bombs

-and they could have been placed on 9/11 memorials

-on 9/11

-by guys dressed up as bin laden

 

That's way more appalling.

 

btw, re: Boston... my opinion, investigating calls about mysterious devices with wires and shit... of course you would... everything that came after that = big overreaction, probably at this point fueled by their embarrassment.

[Josh]

Yes, they overreacted. I've seen these things all over NYC for weeks, and yes, they have been on bridges and subways. I've seen them so long that half of them are burnt out by now with dead batteries.

 

And NYC has actually dealt with real terror attacks in the past decade.

 

I also have a hard time believing that not a single person in the chain of command had heard of Aqua Teen. Are Bostonians that out of touch with late-night stoner TV? Hey Boston police dept and bomb squad: Get yourselves some employees under 50, k?

 

This image from Gizmodo sums up my feelings on this perfectly:

 

 

I mean, c'mon. What kind of paranoia and low-level fear must one have to just assume that it's a bomb? Because, you know, terrorists always give us stark visual warnings, such a light-bright Mooninites, before they attack. Is the fact that they haven't had an actual attack made them even more paranoid, sitting, waiting, looking for the first sign to bug out?

 

The Boston administration blew it on this one, in my opinion.

[secretvampire]

I mean, c'mon. What kind of paranoia and low-level fear must one have to just assume that it's a bomb? Because, you know, terrorists always give us stark visual warnings, such a light-bright Mooninites, before they attack.

But Josh! Wires and a battery! Scary!

[foogledricks]

What kind of paranoia and low-level fear must one have to just assume that it's a bomb?

This sentence pretty much sums up why I am annoyed here in this thread. I think this is the perspective that most the "they overreacted" crowd is jumping off from. I think it is a trivialization. I think it is unfair. And I think it is demeaning. And yet I am sexually aroused somehow.

[weremichael]

What I find annoying and trivializing is that government agencies "cry wolf" so many times that people become numb to any "real" threat or paranoid of everything. And if they're already paranoid, they should just get high and watch Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Problem Solved.

[Josh]

And if they're already paranoid, they should just get high and watch Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Problem Solved.

 

I do believe that if the entire world just got stoned and watched a couple ATHF episodes, we'd all get along.

[foogledricks]

You all just reminded me, whatever happened to the color security levels. Remember when that was changing colors every friggin day. Are they no longer changing, are we SAFE! Or did the administration figure out that the policy was ridiculous and just stopped.

[Josh]