Normal Bob Smith and the Jesus Dress-Up doll

[ajmilne]

The wire's been getting scattered reports that a graphic designer called NormalBobSmith doing a satirical 'Jesus Dress-Up doll' got his website shut down by the Christian Right. Anyone else know anything about this?

Normal Bob Smith (http://www.normalbobsmith.com) offered a "Jesus Dress-Up" doll; Urban Outfitters was distributing it; seems to have PO'd a Christian activist group enough to get a boycott going. They've got a web-to-fax thing going at http://www.laptoplobbyist.com/jdu.html; assuming this is what got the ISP to pull him.

I can confirm www.normalbobsmith.com did go AWOL from the web some time between three days and a day ago. If you check Google's cache, you can see the site as it was (to a degree) before the ISP pulled the plug.

News stories also:

http://www.nbc10.com/news/2928341/detail.html
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_895001.html

edited by Toto to fix URL

[BruceWane]

You need to take the semicolon off of the end of the "laptop lobbyist" link to make it work.

What a hoot. The Laptop Lobbyist, self-proclaimed upholder of all that is good and conservative, has no less than 5 requests for a $20 "donation" to send a fax on your behalf.

So how is this guy not cashing in on the "depravity" of the jesus dress-up doll?

[Toto]

The site is down, but you can see the same thing here:

http://members.freemail.absa.co.za/sspawn/jesus/jdressup.htm

[RawData]

I have the referigerator magnet set of Jesus dress up :D It's a hoot. Hope 'Normal' Bob gets back online soon. He's full of nasty ideas :p
RD

[ajmilne]

http://www.well.com/~ajmilne/decals/jdu.png

... minimalist.

[Technogeek]

Mmm...chocolate savior...

http://www.imageshack.us/img2/1255/chocolatecoveredchrist1.jpg

(This one's older.)

[Derec]

Anyone know which hosting companyt was hosting his sites so we can write a few emails. Why should fundies be the only one to exert consumer pressure?

The record WHOIS (http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/whois/results.jhtml;jsessionid=FN2LM5FPVUWFYCWLEAMCFEY?_requestid=487940) shows Earthlink but thatm info could be dated based on Netcraft (http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=normalbobsmith.com).

In any case it appears that he switched the hosting company effective 4/1 (i.e. tomorrow) so the whole thing could be moot soon. :cool:

UMoC

[Malachi151]

This is a complete freaking crock of crap.

And by the way, I had visited his site about a week ago, and it was very impressive. It was one of the most well put together sites I've seen. He is a godo designer. The site was very distinctive and origional and well done.

[ajmilne]

Someone emailed me the following:

We will be staging a protest outside of Urban Outfitters 1627 Walnut St. Philadelphia, PA (midtown Philly) Sunday, April 4th 3:30pm. I will be coming with a camera crew, photographers and friends. We will be contacting the local NBC news station (where this all began) and we will be protesting the discontinuing of the Jesus Dress Up magnets. Be there and let your voice be heard! This is no joke, so come with signs, friends, loud voices and energy. It'll be fun!

... this comes to me indirectly, however; to confirm you might try to contact Bob himself via:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheNormalBobSmithGroup/

[ajmilne]

Someone emailed me the following:

We will be staging a protest outside of Urban Outfitters 1627 Walnut St. Philadelphia, PA (midtown Philly) Sunday, April 4th 3:30pm. I will be coming with a camera crew, photographers and friends. We will be contacting the local NBC news station (where this all began) and we will be protesting the discontinuing of the Jesus Dress Up magnets. Be there and let your voice be heard! This is no joke, so come with signs, friends, loud voices and energy. It'll be fun!

... this comes to me indirectly, however; to confirm you might try to contact Bob himself via:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheNormalBobSmithGroup/

Mr. Smith himself has now confirmed it. As above.

[BruceWane]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheNormalBobSmithGroup/

I'm now getting a "Page Unavailable" message from this link, too.

This is f*cked up.

Edit - It looks like all yahoo groups are down at the moment...

[catmar]

His website is back up and running.