C[artoon]N[etwork] CEO Resigns Over Mooninite Scare

After over a week of thinking about this whole Mooninite situation, I've come to a few conclusions. First, and most obvious, the reaction in Boston was [and is] entirely overzealous and irrational. Menino and the city of Boston had to play a little political football, and a couple guys got screwed. Perhaps using my better judgement, I won't go into my reaction to the politics here.

GRL [the Graffiti Research Lab], the inspiration behind the LED blinkies, posted a response to the media circus, denying any affiliation. More, GRL called the Interference inc project "more mindless corporate vandalism from a guerilla marketer who got busted" as if they [GRL] were in some way more rightous in their electronic art pieces. This has sparked all kinds of thoughts about the pop art world, and graffiti. When I was a kid, painting walls was about leaving a mark, getting up, getting over, and was very much about being unsanctioned. Graffiti requires some amount of deviance, from the law, and from society. In my old ways, I still want graffiti to have a permanance, or at least a semblance of permanance. So I'm calling GRL out, because accepting commisions and a residency at an art institution for techy street art is no less commercial than Johnny Geurilla Marketer throwing together a couple LEDs for a niche cartoon.

My distaste for mainstream news is growing at an alarming rate. The major news channells handled the mess in Boston in a supremely inethical fashion. Inethical meaning inflamatory. The news reporting industry needs to change. This is growing more and more obvious. I did rather enjoy the interview with the two Mooninite geurillas.

I wonder what will happen with future instances of similar work. I wonder if geurilla marketing will get banned. I wonder if electronic art will be banned. The amount of press AquaTeenHungerForce got in this cluster-f*ck is easily worth 2M, in my opinion.