Cartoonist Trolls Bigots With Web Trickery [Statements]

When cartoonist Zach Weiner discovered that NOM (an anti-gay marriage lobbying group) had appropriated one of his comics as a hotlink on its website, he fired back inside the simplest, cleverest way he could. He changed the image to this.

Weiner managed to turn yesterday’s Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal panel into a rainbow flag and the next quote from the Declaration of Independence, but only on NOM’s website:

” We hold these truths to be self-evident, that every one men are created equal.”

The SMBC homepage still showed the original comic, which apparently NOM had interpreted as somehow anti-gay rights:


Before NOM was ready to remove the post, the change drove enough traffic to take down the complete site.

Was Weiner in a position to effect much change inside the brief time his troops invaded NOM’s shores? It’s easy to assert no, needless to say not, this was just a silly prank. But Weiner believes otherwise:

There appears this concept in the market that action during the Internet has no important effect… Well, today, I probably got a message of equality to over 100,000 people, among them members of the opposite side. This generation fights in a new way, but we fight just as hard.

The takeaway? The net’s not just for kittehs and memes (although those are great too!). It’s a robust tool, where a silly prank can carry plenty of power. [ TWW via TDW ]

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This post is tagged: declaration of independence, lobbying group, morning breakfast, rainbow flag, saturday morning breakfast cereal