Posted On: April, 16, 2009 16:04:57 By anne stewart

Ridiculously Aggressive Tax Day Tea Bag Protest Signs

Usually we're big supporters of signage…

…but some of this stuff makes me wonder what people are thinking. This week, amid Tax Day fervor, protests against tax hikes and the stimulus plan, inspired by The Boston Tea Party, have been sweeping the nation.

Literally HUNDREDS of people have been congregating in various states, waving signs and engaging in collective bursts of teabagging. Which sounds hilarious, I know, but mostly seems to involve flinging bags of Lipton into giant vats of water.

And in truth, the tone of the protests has been distinctly un-funny. Many of the signs and posters on display today have a grim, and often, aggressive tone. I'm not going to put any pictures up here, or list any of the slogans, but check this page on the Huffington post for a detailed gallery if you want to see for yourself.

Interestingly, these protests seem to feature mostly handmade and desktop printed signs, with very little professional full color printing on display. Which I'm happy for, actually. Some of these signs – particularly those with hate messages – would look really ghastly reproduced by the hundreds, or even thousands, as we so often see at mass protests.

This again brings up the question I always like to ask printers: is there anything you won't print? If someone comes to you with a piece of printing that is adult or controversial, that's one thing, but if someone is seeking the printing of a message that promotes hate or violence, what do you do?

I'm not saying that the protesters today were malicious or even wrong. And I know that the majority aren't going in for the type of message showcased in abundance in the above link. But since I spend most of my time pointing out all the ways printing is great, I thought it was important to look at the other side of the story – those instances where print can be used to promote true negativity.

It's great when print does wonderful things, spreads positive messages and delivers interesting information, but throughout history, print has been used for a lot of bad stuff too. I hope the good outweighs the bad, but what do you think?

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4 Comments Posted So Far:
Posted By: Frankie On 2009-04-19 15:41:24

I'd like to thank hot cards for their wonderful printing for my business. I have been using you guys for many years and will continue to do so. As far as this issue you have brought up I was one of the hand made sign protesters. Most of the signs out there were designed to be against both bush and obama. A lot of people also made signs that referenced Obama only because now the waste in Gov spending has increased to fast and in a huge way. We began protesting with Bush and I guess this is where Obama has it right when he says he is inheriting bush's problems but he is also not doing anything different in terms of spending. At our rally we asked that people not bring hateful signs or yell out obscenities. Acorn and other left wing groups did say that they would pretend to be apart of the tea parties but yell hateful things and have signs full of hate. Unfortunately they had a good plan and in many cases it worked as you can see by many of the news reports. So that is a bad use of a sign to trick the media. Just to clear up some stuff, we paid for everything out of our pockets and nobody gave money or started ours or any other in ohio. Also we got the idea from a guy in chicago who said he was going to have one.

Posted By: Anne On 2009-04-20 12:15:47

Hi Frankie,

Thanks for your perspective on the situation. It's very interesting to think that anti-protest protesters would show up and make waves with disruptive signage like that. Perfect fodder for the news media looking for a scandal, of course!

Other readers who attended Tax Day demonstrations, please feel free to share your experiences here!

Posted By: Ryan On 2009-07-16 10:19:56

For some reason my computer did not pull up the photo you all are talk about so I cannot make a comment on that matter. However, I will direct this message to the writer of the article.
I went to a Tea Party rally in Jackson, Mississippi and over 2500 people showed up to that one rally alone. So, your artcle is not factual - literally THOUSANDS of people have been showing up to these protest!
Also, I was until this morning directing a candidate for State Legislature to hotcards.com for all his printing, but now that I see what kind of company this is we will be going with someone else.

Posted By: Anne On 2009-07-16 12:33:10

Hi Ryan,

I'm sorry that you weren't able to see the images I linked to for this post, which I think give a much better sense of what I am talking about - I was hoping to generate a discussion here about controversial signage, moreso than present a criticism of Tea Party rallies in general.

I'm also very sorry to have presented Hotcards here in a negative light in any way, and to have offended your sensibilities. I was trying to be polemic to generate conversation on what I thought was an interesting topic. Perhaps if more people like yourself posted their perspectives here, the conversation wouldn't seem so one-sided?

Hotcards.com prints for all different kinds of campaigns and political interests, and I have no desire to alienate anyone with a narrow-minded opinion on my part, only to create dialogue. I hope that you have an opportunity to read this and that we can continue our discussion!

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