Well, not the Games themselves: A Polish newspaper recently ran an image with everyone’s favorite child-molesting teddy bear among the event’s official mascots.
In a rather embarrassing case of hasty photo attribution, the Polish daily Gazeta Olsztynska ran a picture of Vancouver 2010 mascots Miga, Quatchi and Sumi that included the likeness of Pedobear, a long-running 4chan meme that signifies the sexualization of underage girls. The image itself is the work of Canadian artist Michael R. Barrick, who created it last July to express his distaste for the Games’ official cartoon spokespeople.
It’s not the only time that Pedobear has crashed the “real” mascots’ party: Barrick reported last week that his work now appears in the first page of a Google image search of “Vancouver 2010 mascots.” Whether a similar Google search was the origin of the Gazeta Olsztynska‘s error or the misplaced photo was the product of a newspaper staff member in it for the “lulz” is uncertain. What is certain, however, is that sea bear Miga, sasquatch Quatchi and animal spirit Sumi are all extremely uncomfortable right now.
Source: Metafilter
Published: Feb 8, 2010 11:15 pm