About
Glitter Bombing is a prank that involves dumping glitter particles on an unsuspecting victim. In the United States, the prank has been used as a form of protest against politicians who are opposed to same-sex marriage.
Origin
The earliest known glitter bombing occurred on May 17th, 2011, when political activist Nick Espinosa[1] dumped glitter on former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Newt Gingrinch and his wife Callisata in protest of their opposition to same-sex marriage. That day, the Associated Press YouTube channel uploaded footage of the incident, receiving over 550,000 views and 4,100 comments in the next four years (shown below).
Spread
On January 5th, 2012, YouTuber SheyaSite uploaded footage of political activist Vermin Supreme at the “Lesser-Known Democratic Candidates Presidential Forum,” where he glitter bombed Republican pro-life activist Randall Terry, claiming Jesus told him to “make Randall Terry gay” (shown below, left). Over the next three years, the video accumulated more than 2.7 million views and 11,300 comments. On January 21st, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum was glitter bombed at his primary headquarters in Charleston, South Carolina. Over the next two months, Santorum was glitter bombed an additional three times.
On February 1st, Republican president candidate Mitt Romney was glitter bombed during a rally in Eagan, Minnesota. On February 7th, he was glitter bombed a second time following a speech during the Colorado Primary (shown below, left). The activist was subsequently arrested and pleaded guilty to charges of “disturbing the peace” in April that year. On March 18th, 2013, YouTuber Edward Lawrence uploaded footage of actress Lindsay Lohan being gitter bombed while arriving at a courthouse in Los Angeles, California (shown below, right).
Glitter Shipping Services
In January 2015, the website ShipYourEnemiesGlitter[2] was launched, which mails glitter bombs to a specified address for a fee of $9.99. On January 15th, YouTuber edamame uploaded footage of her father opening a spring-loaded glitter bomb tube sent from the website RuinDays.[3] The following day, Redditor chillwithbill submitted the video to the /r/videos[5] subreddit. Within one week, the video gained over 2.7 million views and the Reddit post gathered upwards of 5,000 votes (89% upvoted). On January 22nd, The Guardian[4] reported that the ShipYourEnemiesGlitter site had sold for $85,000 on the Flippa online marketplace.
Search Interest
External References
[1]Twitter – Nick Espinosa
[2]ShipYourEnemiesGlitter – Ship Your Enemies Glitter
[3]Ruin Days – Ruin Days – send glitter bombs to your enemies to ruin days
[4]The Guardian – Ship Your Enemies Glitter site sells for 85,000
[5]Reddit – Someone finally delivered a video of a glitter bomb