Man, this one's going to take a long time to explain...

Okay, let's say you have a T.V. cartoon, and it's is called Aqua Teen Hunger Force: one of the weaker links of Adult Swim's lineup of edgy, nonsensical humor-based shows.

Now, let's say you're one of the producers of the show, and you want to promote it using a cutting-edge method called Viral Marketing: that is, by stealth or guile or honest-to-goodness forthrightedness, you convince your fans to do a low-key advertising campaign (often internet-based) for you.

Still with me? Re-read the first two passages if you need to. Okay, let's say that for this viral marketing campaign you get people to build little LED-signs of some of your show's characters. You encourage fans to build some of them and hire people to build others. Then you have people place the little LED signs on walls and hang them on various structures. And when people see them they look at them and say, "What's that?" And then they find out about the show. Genius! Right?

WRONG. DEAD WRONG, SON.

What really happens is that after weeks of being ignored by the masses hobbling along in their usual fog of apathy, people suddenly notice the little signs and as one voice cry out, "OH JESUS CHRIST! WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT? IT'S GOT BLINKING LIGHTS! IT MUST BE A BOMB MADE BY THE TERRORISTS TO BLOW US UP!!!"

So, a major American city like Boston virtually shuts down for an entire day as SWAT teams and bomb squads poke at the little signs for a bit before realizing that they're completely harmless. Two men (electronic hobbyists and fans of the show) who placed the majority of signs in Boston are arrested and later released on bail. The prosecution claims that the signs were "bomb-like", whereas the defense attorney rebuts: Based on that criteria, a half-smashed VCR in the middle of the road is "bomb-like".

Now, imagine all this really happened.

I'll give you a minute to laugh hysterically or weep for humanity... or both... whatever you feel is applicable really.

I think it was someone on Digg who put it best when they said that this was indicative of the huge generation gap between two groups of western society. That is, we have the younger, internet-saavy people for whom everything is tongue-in-cheek and absurdism is the foundation of humor. On the other end of the spectrum are the people who still consider even the most delicate sarcasm to be crass; for whom the world is divided into two categories: things they understand and things they fear.

Being a member of the "younger" group and at the same time quite close to 30, I wonder how long it will be before these two demographics clash once again.