2007 Boston Bomb Scare - Reactions

Reactions

The Boston Globe stated that the "marketing gambit exposes a wide generation gap," quoting one 29-year-old blogger as writing "Repeat after me, authorities. L-E-D. Not I-E-D. Get it?" The Globe's Brainiac blog was quick to credit bloggers such as Todd Vanderlin and Brian Stuart for being among the first to report on the ad's origin. The Brainiac blog earned praise from other media outlets for their own timely coverage of events, even as the paper continued to report on simply "suspicious objects".

Los Angeles Times editorials derided the reaction of Boston's officials, remarking,

Emergency personnel and anti-terrorism squads shut down more than a dozen highways, transit stations and other locations across the city Wednesday after receiving reports about multiple suspicious devices. The slender, placemat-sized items had dozens of colored lights, exposed wires and circuitry, and were powered by a row of D batteries wrapped in black tape. In other words, they looked like an upscale version of Hasbro's Lite-Brite, a toy for artistic grade-schoolers.

Bruce Schneier, a computer security expert and writer on contemporary security issues summed up the incident as a "Non-Terrorist Embarrassment in Boston".

The Boston Herald stated that part of the overreaction in the response could be blamed on two packages that did not blink. According to Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis, phony pipe bombs were also discovered that day, one inside Tufts-New England Medical Center at 1 p.m. Its security guard described "an agitated white male" fleeing saying, "God is warning you that today is going to be a sad day." The Herald went on to characterize the placement of the devices as a "coordinated hoax." Davis also mentioned other incidents of the day that may have influenced the reaction, including a Washington, D.C. metro stop being shut down due to a suspected package and fumes emanating from a package at a post office in New York City, resulting in four people being treated there. "It was almost like we had a kind of perfect storm of circumstances falling into place," Davis said.

The advertising magazine Brandweek said that the incident, which it labeled a fiasco, would cause marketers to "steer clear of guerrilla tactics until the controversy around the Aqua Teen Hunger Force stunt-turned-bomb-scare in Boston dies down." It further said the incident "will no doubt be followed by a reassessment of the potential price of what used to be known as a low-cost method to generate buzz."

According to Fox News, fans of Aqua Teen Hunger Force mocked Boston officials during the press conference of Berdovsky and Stevens, calling the arrests an overreaction while holding signs supporting the actions of the two. These signs had slogans such as "Free Peter" and "1-31-07 Never Forget," satirizing Mayor Tom Menino's mentions of 9/11. Other local Boston residents were quoted by local papers. "We all thought it was pretty funny," said one student. "The majority of us recognize the difference between a bomb and a Lite-Brite," said another. One resident said that the police response was "silly and insane," and that "We're the laughingstock." Something Positive, which is written and drawn by Waltham resident R. K. Milholland, also weighed in on the issue. Bloggers on a Boston LiveJournal community commented on channel 4 footage of the first device being exploded and clearly identified it as a "Mooninite" reacting in disbelief. One blogger pointed out the similarity to what he called "Super Mario Question Block Hysteria all over again" in which five high school girls in Ravenna, Ohio, following the lead of Toronto street artist Posterchild, placed brightly colored boxes with question marks resembling the Super Mario Bros. game around town, and drew the bomb squad and possible prosecution. Similar boxes had been placed around various universities in the country including the University of Massachusetts. The effort was part of an artistic and political commentary on the use of community areas which spread in the year 2005 and the year 2006.

Karl Carter of Atlanta-based Guerrilla Tactics Media said fans of the show Aqua Teen Hunger Force would recognize the character and think it was funny, but other people who saw the signs wouldn't get the joke. "This is probably better set up for nightclubs and other sorts of scenarios where the people that are receiving the message, one, would know what it's about, but also two, wouldn't be frightened," he said. "You know, if you put these in certain environments, like public spaces in this post-9/11 sensitivity, then of course you're going to wind up in trouble." Make magazine editor Phillip Torrone said the advertisers should have used better judgment, but called the Mooninite board a "neat electronic project." As reported by Boing Boing, the media and the State of Massachusetts itself maintained the use of the word "hoax" when describing the event, despite Turner Broadcasting Systems' contentions that they had no intention of arousing suspicion or panic in approving the advertising campaign.

On February 27, 2007, just a month after the incident, Boston police authorities detonated another object that they believed to be a bomb, but was a traffic counter. The next day, Bax and O'Brien on the Western Massachusetts radio station WAQY weighed in, with John O'Brien saying, "and they were also placed in Boston over two weeks ago. I don't think the terrorism officials in Boston are very observant... Good thing September 11 didn't happen here; we wouldn't have found it until September 20." In the months following the scare, stickers reading, "Don't Panic! This is NOT A BOMB. Do not be afraid. Do not call the police. Stop letting the terrorists win," began to appear on Boston parking meters, ATMs and other objects in public, as a sarcastic rebuke of the police overreaction. Despite all this, on March 18, 2007 at the annual St. Patrick's Day Breakfast in South Boston, jokes were made about the incident by Massachusetts politicians. Tom Menino himself said it was a way to obtain a local aid package for the city. Congressman Stephen Lynch claimed that the Mooninites were part of a sleeper cell that also included SpongeBob SquarePants. State Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill held up a picture of a Mooninite with Mitt Romney's face on it, saying "We had to blur out his real feelings about Massachusetts."