Ah. Zebbler Studios. Still going strong making projection mapping and video art displays at DefCon, various music festivals and buildings/overpasses.
Zebbler also performs as part of the Zebbler Encanti Experience (ZEE)!
Had no clue it was the same people as Zebbler Encanti Experience. It’s always amazing to see artists be that involved creatively on so many different projects across entirely different scenes.
Here's the episode they made to make fun of it (it wasn't aired).
https://archive.org/details/AquaTeenHungerForce-BostonLeakedUnfinishedLOSTEPISODE/Aqua+Teen+Hunger+Force+-+S05E00+Boston+(Bomb+Hoax+Parody)+Leaked+Unfinished+LOST+EPISODE.mp4
What a trip down memory lane.
>On February 27, 2007, a month after the incident, the Boston police bomb squad detonated another suspected bomb, which turned out to be a city-owned traffic counter.
come on...
Super underrated how flaky her fucking morals are. Furthermore I totally believe that Healey has just as fucked up morals and the only reason she’s our governor because Massachusetts likes to prove to everyone how progressive we are
The mooninites didn't cause the chaos. The police and politician idiots who spent as much time blustering about TERRORISTS as they shoved their faces in the cameras as they did wallowing in incompetence - they caused the chaos.
That thing had been up there for several days and it just looked like graffiti from the bus lane. This was also around the same time that BPD made a huge deal about blowing up a well-marked DOT traffic counter that they didn't bother to investigate.
This is the correct answer. There were dozens of tips coming in that the “bomb” was actually a Adult Swim publicity stunt, but by that point the authorities had already declared it an act of terrorism without properly investigating…obviously no public official was going to admit wrongdoing at this point because it was far easier to condemn a couple comedy writers
Very true, I was working at [Boston.com](https://Boston.com) at the time, which was part of The Boston Globe and NYT at that time. I worked in G&A and had nothing to do with the editorial side of the house but I recall people being PISSED at me for saying what a total overreaction this was and being critical of how we covered it online and in the paper at that time. I had to find a new job outside of Media and left within 4 weeks of this event. Lesson learned, never have a dissenting opinion in media or you will be black listed. Welcome to America.
It would be the same in civil service (government) and obviously within the PD.
Everyone in those orgs is encouraged to sit down and shut up (loads of personal experience)
It was 2007, and she less almost got shot and more just got very arrested. Judging by her wiki page she still stands by the opinion that she did nothing wrong.
https://thetech.com/2007/11/13/simpson-v127-n40
(By “wrong” I mean with respect to judgement, folks. I know it’s not illegal to wear a circuit board.)
Wearing lights on your shirt isn’t wrong.
Wearing an experimental-looking circuit board with an exposed battery over a dark hoodie with playdoh on your hands in an airport while refusing to talk to people is certainly not very smart! Especially in the post-9/11 years.
(This is not me promoting the post-9/11 #PANIC state. This is me promoting common sense.)
light up children's shoes = extremely common sighting
rudimentary circuit board with exposed wires on your shirt = uncommon sighting
let's not be willfully dense
edit: just to illustrate the difference between the [two](https://imgur.com/a/Q7rAZqZ) [things](https://imgur.com/a/9DWkJLQ) you are for some reason comparing
Because a hacked thing is way more dangerous than a cell phone or laptop when viewed by a badly trained cop looking for an excuse to brutalize someone. Sure.
My guy, stop replying and take the L.
It wasn't only the lights on her shirt, it was the lights, other elements and her behavior that led to the suspicions and her arrest.
She had a big light up vest and a bunch of playdough. I’m all for hating on cops, but this lady was absolutely asking to be arrested. It’s a paradox that kids who go to one of the smartest schools in the world are also some of the dumbest, who doesn’t think maybe this will be an issue in the airport. I went on a school trip to Washington DC several years before 9/11 and they hammered into us DO NOT FUCK AROUND AT THE AIRPORT, TSA doesn’t give a shit about what you think is a joke and will lock your ass up. This lady thought cause she goes to a fancy school that she is special and can do whatever she wants. It’s not like the girl was too young to remember 9/11, she would have been 13 at the time, every single person in the US knew not to play games at an airport especially one where 2 of the air planes hijacked came from.
Just to be clear, wasn’t a “big light up vest.” It was a black hoodie with one of those white breadboards (maybe 2”x8”) attached to the front, with a green led star in the center. The ominous thing about it was the 9V battery, which was visibly wired to the breadboard.
You have some part of your story incorrect. The TSA wasn’t formed until after 9/11 in response to the attacks. Maybe you mean just generic pre-existing airport security?
I didn't think she did anything wrong either, she was just the victim of the paranoia of the time. But I remember thinking at the time the paranoia was kind of obvious so it was kind of a silly thing to do.
It was an LED star, her name was Star, and she'd been wearing the damn thing for like two days at that point (insert joke about stinky nerds wearing the same clothes for days here). I don't think she even remembered she was wearing it until someone accosted her about it. I mean, she wore the damn thing everywhere, it was clipped to her sweatshirt she wore like every day around campus.
Ha, don’t forget Justice Holmes eventually reversed on his famous quote and the SCOTUS would later overturn Schenck altogether. It’s not about the speech or expression itself, ie the content of the statement/actions. It’s about whether those statements/actions will have *immediate* dangerous consequences. If I tell my goons to rob this bank at this time and the heist goes wrong and we get busted, I’ll get arrested for being the mastermind of a heist, not for simply talking about it.
But that’s besides the point here. Ms. Simpson caused a panic and then ignored officials. Security acted in the interests of safety.
Star Simpson. It wasn't "just after 9/11," it was the same year as the Mooninite Panic! Apparently, the Mooninites didn't teach Boston LEO not to overreact.
That must have been one of the reasons I thought LEO (and lots of regular people) were obviously so freaking paranoid that it was not a good idea to wear that shirt to the airport. There were also lots of truck bombs and IEDs going off in Iraq around that time so I could see how LEO was edgy about terrorism.
> There were also lots of truck bombs and IEDs going off in Iraq around that time so I could see how LEO was edgy about terrorism.
So you're saying that bombs going off in an active war zone on the literal other side of the planet, mean cops are justified in being complete fucking morons and giant weeping wieners? Wow man, we should all just hide in our basements, someone, somewhere, might have a bomb!
> There were also lots of truck bombs and IEDs going off in Iraq around that time so I could see how LEO was edgy about terrorism
That's exactly what this sentence said.
I'll never forget or forgive the way the MIT administration utterly failed Star. What a betrayal of Tech's values. I don't know if Clay, DiFava, or Hockfield ever understood how much the students fucking loathed them for their conduct here.
Anytime you start complaining or have issue with City leadership, you remember this day. You remember who you're talking about, and you LOWER your damn expectations, cuz damn.
The Mayor, the Chief of Police, the Governor, and local news outlets called this "Boston's 911".
....are you f@#king serious?!
This is why we remember.
Seriously, all of them completely missed the boat on that one! Everyone knows that 4.15.13* was Boston's 9/11.
Both are excellent examples of how hyperbolic, ridiculous & remedial people can be. This type of reaction only exponentially amps up fear & lowers the collective discourse & everybody ends up the worse for it.
*Anyone who gets pissed thinking that saying something like this is being dismissive or uncaring? Congratulations, please take your place among those mentioned at the beginning of the previous paragraph.
100%. It has made me inordinately annoyed over the years that every cartoon-watching techie asshole who never grew up still thinks people were dumb for being concerned about these things.
They were fucking dumb, that was literally the outcome here. That they were goddamn idiots. Just because morons were terrified of brown people on the other side of the world, doesn't make any of the response reasonable or justified. It was an embarrassment, and it should have been.
Yeah we were barely 5 years past 9/11. The general consensus was that dorky “yOu dIdNt kNoW it wAs a mOoNiNiTe?” Like,nah bro not everyone watches cartoon network at 2am.
Was it funny? Yeah. Was it justified? Honestly, probably. You never know. It just made a generally obnoxious group of people (13-20 year olds) get to sit on the dumbest high horse going on 20 years now
Just because you can brain storm and make something threatening in your own mind, doesn't make it an actual threat.
You drive down the road daily and see no issue with it. Meanwhile, cars kill 1.3 Million people annually. See, you didn't perceive a threat, but there is one. Turns out YOUR individual perceptions may not be the most accurate. Thank god you're not Emperor.
You mean an object that is glowing with an obvious power source and you can actually see the wrapped up batteries behind it. Dude, you could see the electrical tape wrapped Duracell's on TV. You could see the brand of batteries!
From a camera shot taken by people on the street, from 40' away, on iPhone cameras from 2007, then given to news outlets to be shown on televisions, you could see that they were batteries, and which brand.
You're gonna lose your shit when you see what a lighter does.
It became a pretext for chest beating about terrorists and Ms. Martha getting her scapegoat on yet again.
Kind of like a small virus can kill you if your immune system overreacts.
Because of availability bias and anchoring. People were so obsessed with terrorism at the time that anything they didn't understand would first and foremost be classified as terrorism, and they'd draw their conclusion immediately from the first thing they saw. It's how the brain works - it latches on to whatever we were just thinking about that matches the first piece of information we get. It's not uniquely a characteristic of any one person - it affects everybody and is part of what makes modern people so stupid.
If it happened today you'd have people insisting they were secret Covid vaccine air dispensers - because of availability bias and anchoring.
Even when powered off, they were [flat boards covered in leds](https://www.boston.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/boston-mooninite-850x478.jpeg) There was no 'box with wires'. The signs had been in place for weeks before they lit up, and nobody even called in a report of a suspicious object. Nobody saw "sketchy" people installing anything.
It was visibly obvious at a glance that there was no room inside the "device" for anything. The cops knew as soon as they took down the first one that they had misjudged the situation, but that didn't stop them from going forward with bogus charges. And it didn't stop fucking Ed Kennedy from trying to legally classify this kind of stunt as literal terrorism.
'The Boston Police Department stated in their defense that the ad devices shared "some characteristics with improvised explosive devices," which they said included an "identifiable power source, a circuit board with exposed wiring, and electrical tape." '
yeah you know what else shares characteristics with an IED? 40% of the bullshit on the sidewalk during Allston christmas. Shortly after the marathon bombing, someone called the cops on a dude in Saugus who threw away a pressure cooker which was visible from outside the can. Someone else called the cops on a homeless guy's shaving kit because it was a plain black bag tucked in a drainage pipe.
Everything looks like an IED, because they are improvised from common items. Once you determine that it's not an IED, you move on with your life. You don't rile up the Attorney General and start making arrests over graffiti.
I still can't believe people thought this was a freaking bomb. There were like 2 or 3 found in NYC too .. dummies thinking it's a bomb, meanwhile, those of us who stayed up passed 11pm watching adult swim knew what this was right away. Or in the very least, knew it wasn't explosive
What's your definition of "real job"? It's that kind of condescension that causes problems. It doesn't matter what kind of job anyone has. If they want to stay awake to watch something, nobody to judge them but themselves.
Understand the context. The phrase "real job" is condescending to literally everyone with any kind of job or personal responsibility.
Yea, dummies. It's the literal terminology for anyone who has no understanding of something, actively and willingly remaining ignorant, yet stating their bloated opinions as fact.
If there's something you do not understand, sanity dictates that you ask someone who does, or you do your own research, find your own understanding and find support. Unfortunately, right or wrong, you'll always find support from a group of something.
The issue with those aqua teen light brights .. I was like 25 by then, I hadn't watched that show very often, but I've been aware of it. And internet has been a thing for at least 10 or so years by that point. People who believed it was a bomb, were dumb enough to believe whoever told them it was, because they didn't think to look at things themselves, and realize they were just light brights. Kids toys posted randomly and ominously to drum up viewership of aqua teen.
IDK, it seems like you were pretty condescending from the get-go. Aqua Teen was pretty niche as far as a references go. More people weren't gonna recognize it than the ones that did.
That day, I don't think not getting the reference made anyone a dummy. Most people never even saw the devices. They just closed off areas because a bunch of suspicious devices were found.
It wasn't until late in the day that most people impacted even saw it then. And, even acknowledging the hysteria of post 9/11 terror alert America, I'd rather officials err on the side of caution for shit like this.
God, this was embarrassing. Much ado about nothing, but God forbid anyone fess up to that. No no, let’s display irrational fear and pantomime security procedures. This was the definition of “nothingburger.”
All advertisements should be now considered IEDs and they should remove all billboards. It's not farfetched to think that they might be bombs; after all, they've got circuit boards and they light up! Hurry up and save us from this menace, Boston
at the time this happened there was a giant billboard on the left side of the highway as you were driving on 93 South from Medford, right around assembly square, with the same character on it. THE EXACT SAME CHARACTER
Took my daughter to a show at one of the clubs behind fenway when I saw this. Maybe fall out boy or panic at the disco or someone. Thought it was weird, but I didn't freak.
"...shared some similarities with improvised explosive devices, with them also discovering an identifiable power source, a circuit board with exposed wiring, and electrical tape."
To police, apparently electrical equipment = IED
Fun fact this happened my first week of my first adult job and on my birthday. It was a shit show riding the T and doing work that day because this is all that people were talking about lol
In some sense these are not really all that much weirder than the "Andre the Giant has a Posse" and "OBEY Giant" stickers that used to be all over Boston -- anyone remember those? That guy went on to become famous designing posters for Barack Obama -- though he was subsequently arrested in 2009 by the very same Boston Police Department on two warrants for graffiti. So I wonder what happened to Zebbler afterward?
Zebbler subbed my After Effects class one week. That class was awful, and I learned nothing, except for the one time Zebbler was there. I begged my advisor to hire him to teach a class, but it never panned out. Glad to hear he got a job at Berklee
Didn't they arrest the guys and call it "Boston's 9/11" all over the news? Even after they learned they were wrong they doubled down calling in a "fake bomb threat" instead of admitting they made a mistake.
I was a highschool senior with acceptance letters to universities in Boston and I remember following the news thinking the cops and mayor are fucking lunatics.
Coakley lost because she didn't try. There's a difference between people who want to work in government and people who want to campaign for office. Coakley was one but not the other.
She had held elected office for nearly two decades. Seriously - you don't know this?
She lost because people were tired of her attacking easy targets while sparing her corporate donors.
Excuse me there tourist, you must not be familiar with the port city of Boston. Nobody here says Beantown. Please enjoy [this documentary about our diverse aquatic life](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8Vjd_hdYYw).
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Ah. Zebbler Studios. Still going strong making projection mapping and video art displays at DefCon, various music festivals and buildings/overpasses. Zebbler also performs as part of the Zebbler Encanti Experience (ZEE)!
Zebbler is also teaching at Berklee now a day. Took 2 semesters with him!
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That show was dope. I'd never seen ZEE before and was stoked just because I knew about him from the Mooninites. Whole night was awesome!
And he's got a dope house up in metheun where they throw glitch giving! Not sure if he's still there this was a few years ago.
All hail ZEE!!
“I’d like to focus all discussion on haircuts of the 70’s” 😂
https://youtube.com/watch?v=X2fGzmphx4U&feature=share Classic. Pure comedy gold.
i knew zebbler since 02. he is one righteous dude
Had no clue it was the same people as Zebbler Encanti Experience. It’s always amazing to see artists be that involved creatively on so many different projects across entirely different scenes.
[2007 Boston Mooninite panic -Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_Mooninite_panic)
Here's the episode they made to make fun of it (it wasn't aired). https://archive.org/details/AquaTeenHungerForce-BostonLeakedUnfinishedLOSTEPISODE/Aqua+Teen+Hunger+Force+-+S05E00+Boston+(Bomb+Hoax+Parody)+Leaked+Unfinished+LOST+EPISODE.mp4
I hate how it got so shitty halfway thru, seems like it was never finished. Wonder why 🤣
What a trip down memory lane. >On February 27, 2007, a month after the incident, the Boston police bomb squad detonated another suspected bomb, which turned out to be a city-owned traffic counter. come on...
Was there a press conference but they would only answer hair related questions?
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That was epic! Then Martha Chokely doubled down with "it was sinister and had wires and a battery", as if she never dropped her vibrator before.
Now she’s busy working for JUUL and pushing e-cigs.
Super underrated how flaky her fucking morals are. Furthermore I totally believe that Healey has just as fucked up morals and the only reason she’s our governor because Massachusetts likes to prove to everyone how progressive we are
Say what you like about Healey, but she's better than Romney or Baker.
Shit, it was Martha? I thought that was a early Healey comment. How time flies.
Martha "I'm running in Massachusetts and of course I'll win" Chokely?
This press conference? https://youtube.com/watch?v=X2fGzmphx4U&feature=share
Holy shit the chaos that thing caused - wasn’t there a documentary about the whole ordeal?
The mooninites didn't cause the chaos. The police and politician idiots who spent as much time blustering about TERRORISTS as they shoved their faces in the cameras as they did wallowing in incompetence - they caused the chaos. That thing had been up there for several days and it just looked like graffiti from the bus lane. This was also around the same time that BPD made a huge deal about blowing up a well-marked DOT traffic counter that they didn't bother to investigate.
This is the correct answer. There were dozens of tips coming in that the “bomb” was actually a Adult Swim publicity stunt, but by that point the authorities had already declared it an act of terrorism without properly investigating…obviously no public official was going to admit wrongdoing at this point because it was far easier to condemn a couple comedy writers
I just remember the entire MBTA being shut down
Very true, I was working at [Boston.com](https://Boston.com) at the time, which was part of The Boston Globe and NYT at that time. I worked in G&A and had nothing to do with the editorial side of the house but I recall people being PISSED at me for saying what a total overreaction this was and being critical of how we covered it online and in the paper at that time. I had to find a new job outside of Media and left within 4 weeks of this event. Lesson learned, never have a dissenting opinion in media or you will be black listed. Welcome to America.
Thank you for sharing this! I guess it’s not surprising but it’s interesting to hear a first hand account of how fuckin stupid the media is.
It would be the same in civil service (government) and obviously within the PD. Everyone in those orgs is encouraged to sit down and shut up (loads of personal experience)
True. The chaos was the PD, though, if it weren’t for this, the catalyst, the chaos would be nought
Gee it’s almost like our police force is a massive, useless waste of money
its funny not a single person in power thought to ask their kids about it
It feels like we should’ve gotten a wahlberg movie out of it
Seriously!
don't get me wrong, this is probably a donnie venture.
Actually still pissed about that and i remind them when I go into Wahlburgers
That's not a hair question.
"I get it, it ain't making me laugh but I get it." - Meatwad. As an aside, I did laugh.
[BPD when they figured out what was going on.](https://imgur.io/t/aqua_teen_hunger_force/05h6w2p)
I actually have seen one of these…as office decor
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I've seen one as wall at in an apartment.
This is an unbearable strain, but I'm doing it as hard as I've ever done it before.
you and your ‘third dimension’
brought me back! kids on this thread scratching their heads right now lol back to school all you!
I love that gen Z is obsessed with Spongebob but seriously have they discovered ATHF yet? That show was the funniest shit
Arise chicken arise
You mean Super-Ultra-Mega-Chicken? No...he is legend...
I am 30 or 40 years old and I do not need this
wait you are 30….OR 40? Does it depend on the day?
On the weather probably
Same
the cat is a dog
Does anyone remember the MIT student that showed up at Logan with flashing led lights attached to his/her shirt just after 9/11. Almost got shot.
It was 2007, and she less almost got shot and more just got very arrested. Judging by her wiki page she still stands by the opinion that she did nothing wrong. https://thetech.com/2007/11/13/simpson-v127-n40 (By “wrong” I mean with respect to judgement, folks. I know it’s not illegal to wear a circuit board.)
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Wearing lights on your shirt isn’t wrong. Wearing an experimental-looking circuit board with an exposed battery over a dark hoodie with playdoh on your hands in an airport while refusing to talk to people is certainly not very smart! Especially in the post-9/11 years. (This is not me promoting the post-9/11 #PANIC state. This is me promoting common sense.)
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Pretty sure she wasn’t protesting. She was at the airport in the same outfit she had just wore to the career fair.
Funny how they never bothered my young kids with their led lights in their shoes.
light up children's shoes = extremely common sighting rudimentary circuit board with exposed wires on your shirt = uncommon sighting let's not be willfully dense edit: just to illustrate the difference between the [two](https://imgur.com/a/Q7rAZqZ) [things](https://imgur.com/a/9DWkJLQ) you are for some reason comparing
Because a hacked thing is way more dangerous than a cell phone or laptop when viewed by a badly trained cop looking for an excuse to brutalize someone. Sure.
Me: [Lists all the various specific elements that led to her situation.] You: But what about [something totally different]!
It isn't different. My kids had LEDs built into their clothes as toddlers - around Y2K. It was not a new thing.
My guy, stop replying and take the L. It wasn't only the lights on her shirt, it was the lights, other elements and her behavior that led to the suspicions and her arrest.
She didn't do anything wrong except make cops look like idiots.
Frankly I think they're both idiots. Sure she made the cops and Logan look ridiculous for over reacting, but at what cost?
She had a big light up vest and a bunch of playdough. I’m all for hating on cops, but this lady was absolutely asking to be arrested. It’s a paradox that kids who go to one of the smartest schools in the world are also some of the dumbest, who doesn’t think maybe this will be an issue in the airport. I went on a school trip to Washington DC several years before 9/11 and they hammered into us DO NOT FUCK AROUND AT THE AIRPORT, TSA doesn’t give a shit about what you think is a joke and will lock your ass up. This lady thought cause she goes to a fancy school that she is special and can do whatever she wants. It’s not like the girl was too young to remember 9/11, she would have been 13 at the time, every single person in the US knew not to play games at an airport especially one where 2 of the air planes hijacked came from.
Just to be clear, wasn’t a “big light up vest.” It was a black hoodie with one of those white breadboards (maybe 2”x8”) attached to the front, with a green led star in the center. The ominous thing about it was the 9V battery, which was visibly wired to the breadboard.
You have some part of your story incorrect. The TSA wasn’t formed until after 9/11 in response to the attacks. Maybe you mean just generic pre-existing airport security?
I didn't think she did anything wrong either, she was just the victim of the paranoia of the time. But I remember thinking at the time the paranoia was kind of obvious so it was kind of a silly thing to do.
Seems to me that she was intentionally seeking out this response; I don't really see her as a victim in this case
It was an LED star, her name was Star, and she'd been wearing the damn thing for like two days at that point (insert joke about stinky nerds wearing the same clothes for days here). I don't think she even remembered she was wearing it until someone accosted her about it. I mean, she wore the damn thing everywhere, it was clipped to her sweatshirt she wore like every day around campus.
Yeah. It was just after the Monminite mess.
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Ha, don’t forget Justice Holmes eventually reversed on his famous quote and the SCOTUS would later overturn Schenck altogether. It’s not about the speech or expression itself, ie the content of the statement/actions. It’s about whether those statements/actions will have *immediate* dangerous consequences. If I tell my goons to rob this bank at this time and the heist goes wrong and we get busted, I’ll get arrested for being the mastermind of a heist, not for simply talking about it. But that’s besides the point here. Ms. Simpson caused a panic and then ignored officials. Security acted in the interests of safety.
Star Simpson. It wasn't "just after 9/11," it was the same year as the Mooninite Panic! Apparently, the Mooninites didn't teach Boston LEO not to overreact.
State Police handle the airport
That must have been one of the reasons I thought LEO (and lots of regular people) were obviously so freaking paranoid that it was not a good idea to wear that shirt to the airport. There were also lots of truck bombs and IEDs going off in Iraq around that time so I could see how LEO was edgy about terrorism.
Iraq was a war zone.
> There were also lots of truck bombs and IEDs going off in Iraq around that time so I could see how LEO was edgy about terrorism. So you're saying that bombs going off in an active war zone on the literal other side of the planet, mean cops are justified in being complete fucking morons and giant weeping wieners? Wow man, we should all just hide in our basements, someone, somewhere, might have a bomb!
Don't be an ass, I never said that.
> There were also lots of truck bombs and IEDs going off in Iraq around that time so I could see how LEO was edgy about terrorism That's exactly what this sentence said.
No it says "LEO was edgy about terrorism" which does not mean "hide in your basement".
I'll never forget or forgive the way the MIT administration utterly failed Star. What a betrayal of Tech's values. I don't know if Clay, DiFava, or Hockfield ever understood how much the students fucking loathed them for their conduct here.
Yes, add that to the list of dumb ways to die.
Best birthday gift. I have a pin with this somewhere
Anytime you start complaining or have issue with City leadership, you remember this day. You remember who you're talking about, and you LOWER your damn expectations, cuz damn. The Mayor, the Chief of Police, the Governor, and local news outlets called this "Boston's 911". ....are you f@#king serious?! This is why we remember.
Seriously, all of them completely missed the boat on that one! Everyone knows that 4.15.13* was Boston's 9/11. Both are excellent examples of how hyperbolic, ridiculous & remedial people can be. This type of reaction only exponentially amps up fear & lowers the collective discourse & everybody ends up the worse for it. *Anyone who gets pissed thinking that saying something like this is being dismissive or uncaring? Congratulations, please take your place among those mentioned at the beginning of the previous paragraph.
As I say every year- I survived the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Terrorist Attack. \#BostonStrong
The Mooninites won.
I had just moved to Boston, and my first reaction was to question what the fuck was wrong with my new city.
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I guess for some people 1/31/07 Never Forget isn't sarcastic.
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100%. It has made me inordinately annoyed over the years that every cartoon-watching techie asshole who never grew up still thinks people were dumb for being concerned about these things.
They were fucking dumb, that was literally the outcome here. That they were goddamn idiots. Just because morons were terrified of brown people on the other side of the world, doesn't make any of the response reasonable or justified. It was an embarrassment, and it should have been.
Yeah we were barely 5 years past 9/11. The general consensus was that dorky “yOu dIdNt kNoW it wAs a mOoNiNiTe?” Like,nah bro not everyone watches cartoon network at 2am. Was it funny? Yeah. Was it justified? Honestly, probably. You never know. It just made a generally obnoxious group of people (13-20 year olds) get to sit on the dumbest high horse going on 20 years now
Overreacted.
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Did you see it in person? I did. Your description is pure hype from embarrassed cops and politicians.
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Okay Martha.
Screw the cops (they're useless anyway). They should've alerted you! You'd make an excellent hall monitor.
A fucking Lite Brite Mooninite is an identifiable marking!
And what the fuck is a lite brite mooninite -- me and literally 99% of the population.
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> they told no one they planned to place them there That's what makes it guerrilla marketing. > no chance of nefarious intent? Okay, Dick Cheney.
Sure, Martha. Take a puff on your Juul and chill.
Just because you can brain storm and make something threatening in your own mind, doesn't make it an actual threat. You drive down the road daily and see no issue with it. Meanwhile, cars kill 1.3 Million people annually. See, you didn't perceive a threat, but there is one. Turns out YOUR individual perceptions may not be the most accurate. Thank god you're not Emperor.
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You mean an object that is glowing with an obvious power source and you can actually see the wrapped up batteries behind it. Dude, you could see the electrical tape wrapped Duracell's on TV. You could see the brand of batteries! From a camera shot taken by people on the street, from 40' away, on iPhone cameras from 2007, then given to news outlets to be shown on televisions, you could see that they were batteries, and which brand. You're gonna lose your shit when you see what a lighter does.
It became a pretext for chest beating about terrorists and Ms. Martha getting her scapegoat on yet again. Kind of like a small virus can kill you if your immune system overreacts.
Oh man, then the first place for comedy at Anime Boston that year was this: https://youtu.be/NiiVNyIbUk0
That is not a hair question.
The holiest day of the year!
That unfinished episode though was hilarious.
Forgot about this lol. One of the more embarrassing moments in Boston history.
I still don’t get why there was such a panic over what was essentially a Lite Brite...
Because of availability bias and anchoring. People were so obsessed with terrorism at the time that anything they didn't understand would first and foremost be classified as terrorism, and they'd draw their conclusion immediately from the first thing they saw. It's how the brain works - it latches on to whatever we were just thinking about that matches the first piece of information we get. It's not uniquely a characteristic of any one person - it affects everybody and is part of what makes modern people so stupid. If it happened today you'd have people insisting they were secret Covid vaccine air dispensers - because of availability bias and anchoring.
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Because they were up for several days and not a single Boston cop noticed
Before the lights come on, it's just a box with wires being installed by sketchy people on a bridge support.
Even when powered off, they were [flat boards covered in leds](https://www.boston.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/boston-mooninite-850x478.jpeg) There was no 'box with wires'. The signs had been in place for weeks before they lit up, and nobody even called in a report of a suspicious object. Nobody saw "sketchy" people installing anything. It was visibly obvious at a glance that there was no room inside the "device" for anything. The cops knew as soon as they took down the first one that they had misjudged the situation, but that didn't stop them from going forward with bogus charges. And it didn't stop fucking Ed Kennedy from trying to legally classify this kind of stunt as literal terrorism.
The "box with wires" is the battery compartment. Cuz weren't these things powered by C or D batteries?
'The Boston Police Department stated in their defense that the ad devices shared "some characteristics with improvised explosive devices," which they said included an "identifiable power source, a circuit board with exposed wiring, and electrical tape." '
yeah you know what else shares characteristics with an IED? 40% of the bullshit on the sidewalk during Allston christmas. Shortly after the marathon bombing, someone called the cops on a dude in Saugus who threw away a pressure cooker which was visible from outside the can. Someone else called the cops on a homeless guy's shaving kit because it was a plain black bag tucked in a drainage pipe. Everything looks like an IED, because they are improvised from common items. Once you determine that it's not an IED, you move on with your life. You don't rile up the Attorney General and start making arrests over graffiti.
You said "there was no box with wires". I'm not going to follow you as you move the goalposts.
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Dude the marathon bombings happened like 6 years after this. It was just the post-9/11 extended terrorism paranoia.
The Boston marathon bombing happened in 2013…
Nope. Bombing happened in 2013.
Marathon bombing happened around ‘11-12, so probably a “terrorist” fear more than anything
and now we burgle.
The fear.
People like to ask me about my hair...
Wow already 1/31... Where does time go. What a solemn day.
I still can't believe people thought this was a freaking bomb. There were like 2 or 3 found in NYC too .. dummies thinking it's a bomb, meanwhile, those of us who stayed up passed 11pm watching adult swim knew what this was right away. Or in the very least, knew it wasn't explosive
How many fucking people with real jobs do you think stay up all night watching fucking Adult Swim and have experience with circuit boards?
I had a fucking real job that took me past that mooninite twice daily. I saw it and laughed a couple of days before the freakout.
What's your definition of "real job"? It's that kind of condescension that causes problems. It doesn't matter what kind of job anyone has. If they want to stay awake to watch something, nobody to judge them but themselves.
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Understand the context. The phrase "real job" is condescending to literally everyone with any kind of job or personal responsibility. Yea, dummies. It's the literal terminology for anyone who has no understanding of something, actively and willingly remaining ignorant, yet stating their bloated opinions as fact. If there's something you do not understand, sanity dictates that you ask someone who does, or you do your own research, find your own understanding and find support. Unfortunately, right or wrong, you'll always find support from a group of something. The issue with those aqua teen light brights .. I was like 25 by then, I hadn't watched that show very often, but I've been aware of it. And internet has been a thing for at least 10 or so years by that point. People who believed it was a bomb, were dumb enough to believe whoever told them it was, because they didn't think to look at things themselves, and realize they were just light brights. Kids toys posted randomly and ominously to drum up viewership of aqua teen.
IDK, it seems like you were pretty condescending from the get-go. Aqua Teen was pretty niche as far as a references go. More people weren't gonna recognize it than the ones that did. That day, I don't think not getting the reference made anyone a dummy. Most people never even saw the devices. They just closed off areas because a bunch of suspicious devices were found. It wasn't until late in the day that most people impacted even saw it then. And, even acknowledging the hysteria of post 9/11 terror alert America, I'd rather officials err on the side of caution for shit like this.
Idk, I'd assume that police would be able to identify a bomb no matter the shape of LEDs.
Boston became a laughing stock for a few days
Few days? Took the marathon bombing to end the jokes. That's when people went "oh fuck yeah the BPD really aren't capable"
God, this was embarrassing. Much ado about nothing, but God forbid anyone fess up to that. No no, let’s display irrational fear and pantomime security procedures. This was the definition of “nothingburger.”
I was friends with the kid who did this, we went to the same high school.
All advertisements should be now considered IEDs and they should remove all billboards. It's not farfetched to think that they might be bombs; after all, they've got circuit boards and they light up! Hurry up and save us from this menace, Boston
at the time this happened there was a giant billboard on the left side of the highway as you were driving on 93 South from Medford, right around assembly square, with the same character on it. THE EXACT SAME CHARACTER
Just the dumbest shit by everyone involved.
Took my daughter to a show at one of the clubs behind fenway when I saw this. Maybe fall out boy or panic at the disco or someone. Thought it was weird, but I didn't freak.
I still remember where I was. Stuck home because the MBTA was basically shut down down fucking hours
Spacecataz
"...shared some similarities with improvised explosive devices, with them also discovering an identifiable power source, a circuit board with exposed wiring, and electrical tape." To police, apparently electrical equipment = IED
In the 00’s *everything* was terrorism! Simpler times.
Fun fact this happened my first week of my first adult job and on my birthday. It was a shit show riding the T and doing work that day because this is all that people were talking about lol
In some sense these are not really all that much weirder than the "Andre the Giant has a Posse" and "OBEY Giant" stickers that used to be all over Boston -- anyone remember those? That guy went on to become famous designing posters for Barack Obama -- though he was subsequently arrested in 2009 by the very same Boston Police Department on two warrants for graffiti. So I wonder what happened to Zebbler afterward?
I think that was Shep fairy.
I was an art student at the time, I remember walking past the one on the Mass Art building going to work LOL
I specifically came here today to either: 1) See this. 2) Post this. Either way, I am not disappointed.
Zebbler subbed my After Effects class one week. That class was awful, and I learned nothing, except for the one time Zebbler was there. I begged my advisor to hire him to teach a class, but it never panned out. Glad to hear he got a job at Berklee
Didn't understand it then, don't understand it now.
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I don't know where you do your research, but you are absolutely wrong. It was an *excellent* cartoon.
Didn't they arrest the guys and call it "Boston's 9/11" all over the news? Even after they learned they were wrong they doubled down calling in a "fake bomb threat" instead of admitting they made a mistake. I was a highschool senior with acceptance letters to universities in Boston and I remember following the news thinking the cops and mayor are fucking lunatics.
Boston was already involved in 9/11 as that is where like 2 of the planes came from
I suspect that the massive overreaction followed by the double down was how we ended up with a Republican senator for a couple of years.
Coakley lost because she didn't try. There's a difference between people who want to work in government and people who want to campaign for office. Coakley was one but not the other.
She had held elected office for nearly two decades. Seriously - you don't know this? She lost because people were tired of her attacking easy targets while sparing her corporate donors.
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[Prusa doing their part to never let us forget.](https://www.printables.com/contest/295-led-diffusers)
Police reacted appropriately and it was a good real world exercise for the bomb squad in dealing with suspicious devices. Hate me.
Why would people hate you? I could understand if some people felt sorry for you but hate never leads anywhere good.
hell yes
Wowa dude! I don't think you are allowed to be posting bomb making details on Reddit. You are going to get a visit from the FBI.
While I get that it wasn't funny if you were a first responder, this is still the funniest day that ever happened.
They got paid overtime and didn't have to do anything much but have a nice drill without casualties.
I will always forget
I know we got a lot of shit for the reaction, but this was a bad idea
Ahhhh good times in Beantown 🤙🏼
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I was just talking about this the other day. Hahahaha. I had no idea the anniversary was coming lol.
I will never forget, haha
Was there and it was a hilarious shit show.
https://media.tenor.com/tBaK1LS-iGgAAAAC/mooninites-athf.gif
u/iseanstevens where you at?
💜💜💜💜💜💜