Have y’all heard about those kids in Virginia who were arrested on terrorist conspiracy charges for leaving Joker’s cards with the date 8/15 written on them around town?

I’m not all that interested at the moment in defending them or condemning them for being stupid or whatever, but what’s absolutely fascinating to me is how, based on the ubiquity of a superhero movie, something that would have been more or less innocuous six weeks ago is now seen as a serious threat.

Six weeks ago, a bunch of Joker’s cards with a date and the word joker scrawled on them would have been seen as viral marketing, or maybe just some irrelevant weirdness.

Today, the concept of the Joker is enough of a cultural phenomenon that spreading a symbol associated with the character resonates with everyone on a base level, to the point where people are calling the police. Which is really compelling, when you think about it- everyone knows that the Joker is a fictional character, but people are afraid of him anyway. At the very least, it’s a reminder of what an effective image they created when they invented the character.