The city of Boston was thrown into a panic last week, when a device similar to a Lite-Brite was found on bridges and above other high-traffic areas. The devices were light boards about a square-foot large, portraying a Mooninite, a character from the intensely popular late-night cartoon “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.” The lights were created by two men in their twenties, video artists Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens, hired by New York marketing company Interference Inc., a company that calls its work “guerilla marketing.” Adult Swim hired the marketing company to promote Aqua Teen’s upcoming feature-length film of the same name.

Four calls were made from concerned citizens who reported seeing suspicious devices above a bridge—lights with wires coming out from behind them. Police responded to the scene and destroyed the devices, unsure as to whether or not they were dangerous. They ended up finding several dozen of these boards in various locations around the city, and were contacted by Turner Broadcasting, Adult Swim’s parent company, who reported having placed the devices in nine cities nationwide as a publicity stunt. Massachusetts Attorney General, Martha Coakley, candidly told CNN, “It had a very sinister appearance. It had a battery behind it, and wires.” Not exactly technical terms. It was enough to cost close to $1 million in the all-day search for the dozens of devices, and enough to land Berdovsky and Stevens in custody.

No other cities received any complaints about the devices, and when a Portland, Oregon official was asked what plan of action he had for removing the Mooninite devices, he said he hadn’t received any complaints, so had no need to take them down.

Guerilla marketing doesn’t deserve to have such a cool name. It’s glorified advertisements, some as simple as stencils in the street, some technical and bizarre, like the Mooninite, and some just plain primitive, like having a few dozen people dress up as Egyptians and walk around New York to promote a History Channel series. It uses a graffiti ethic to spread a brand name, just as an artist spreads his tag.

In the Boston debacle, what began as a novel approach to advertising quickly became one of the most successful publicity stunts I’ve ever seen, bringing a simple spectacle to an international stage. To the show’s demographic, Boston looks like a city of fools creating a panic over a cartoon.

It can’t be very difficult to pit the young men who are the show’s demographic against the police and city officials. As said on NPR, the situation showed a generation gap between those who watch the show and those who don’t. On a recent news segment, a reporter walked down the street with a picture of a Mooninite, and found that most teenagers and young men knew exactly who the character was. The idea of someone mistaking the character for a bomb would be a gag funny enough for the show.

Berdovsky and Stevens were released on $2,500 bond, and gave a press conference immediately following—only the subject matter wasn’t what reporters wanted to hear.

“What we really want to talk about today is haircuts in the ‘70s,” they said to a group of reporters. When reporters wouldn’t play along, they argued, “We’re taking this very seriously, please don’t interrupt.” Any question regarding their arrest and night in jail was met with refusal; “I’m sorry, that’s not a hair question.”

It’s a shame that the two guys on the bottom of the pyramid might get five years in prison for the acts of a corporation. Their crime is that they didn’t pay for their advertising space. They didn’t pay for a billboard or a section of the George Washington Bridge, like Geico tried to. They thought it was a cool idea, and Turner thought it was a cheap idea that would get them appropriate press for their demographic. For a few weeks, everybody won.

But let’s not get mixed up. Turner Broadcasting is a huge corporation, not a teenager writing his name on a wall. They set up the advertisement and paid for it, and now a couple of kids are taking the rap.

Their plan wasn’t really all that original, it was an idea stolen from a group of independent artists calling themselves the Graffiti Research Lab who use LED lights to create designs and slogans. The devices are simple, and can be made simply out of materials from Radio Shack. In fact, artists have been using lights like these in progressive graffiti for years.

An LED light is the size of a pebble. It can be powered by a watch battery, and is light enough to throw. In one popular video from the website GraffitiResearchLab.com, hundreds of people gather to make “throwies,” an LED taped to a battery and a magnet, and throw them at a subway train. The result is harmless; a train dressed-up like a Christmas tree.

The Mooninite light board is a kidnapped idea—a graffiti campaign to attract young people with a big fuck you to old people. It gives us the feeling that we’ve been played. Turner knew of the rift they were going to create, and used that energy to fuel attention for their product. The coolest idea of today became the coolest ad campaign of tomorrow, and we all bit it: hook, line, and sinker.