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For roughly 90 minutes last night, two billboards in a Chicago suburb displayed anti-Israel messages bearing the name of Mr Beast. The signs were next to a highway north of Chicago and read “Fuck Israel” and “Death to Israel” on top of a Palestinian flag. At the bottom of the sign was the message “Paid for by MrBeast LLC.” In one of the images, MrBeast pulled the soyface he wears in many YouTube thumbnails. With his mouth wide open and his eyes wild, MrBeast appears to be screaming “Fuck Israel.”
MrBeast’s team did not return Gizmodo’s request for comment but told local news outlet Fox 32 that it had nothing to do with the sign. “MrBeast did not pay for this billboard and after being made aware of its existence, we contacted our attorneys and the authorities about how to have it immediately removed,” it said.
OH MY GOD pic.twitter.com/ZSwQb54irr
— Experiment 626 : “Stitch” (@s626ch) October 17, 2024
The signs were of the glowing LED variety that’s hard to miss. The first pictures of the signs began to show up on social media around 5:30 p.m. By 7 p.m., OUTFRONT Media—who owns the sign and controls its content—had shut them off. Later that evening it issued its own statement about the incident on social media.
“We were made aware that two of our billboards displayed inappropriate and unapproved content this evening,” the statement said. “We take this matter very seriously. The copy, which was not approved or condoned by OUTFRONT or our advertisers, has been removed. The situation is being investigated & we are notifying all appropriate local and national authorities.”
I am aware of the hateful, antisemitic billboard signs located on Edens Spur Tollroad in Northbrook, one that says “F*$% ISRAEL” and one that reads”DEATH TO ISRAEL.”
This disgusting, intimidating display has no place in the 10th District, or anywhere in America.
— Rep. Brad Schneider (@RepSchneider) October 16, 2024
Local police told Fox 32 that they’re investigating the situation and assumed the billboards had been hacked. Rep. Brad Schneider, the Congressman for the area, called out the messages in a post on X. “This disgusting, intimidating display has no place in the 10th District, or anywhere in America,” he said. “It is notable that this sign is located in a community with a large Jewish population, in close proximity to a Jewish day school, at the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.”
Billboard hacking is a kind of culture jamming that long predates the advent of digital billboards. As massive advertising billboards gained prominence in the U.S. during the 1960s, artists and political activists began to climb up to them and paint over them with their own messages. Then came the digital billboards and things got even weirder.
One of the earliest instances of a hacked sign happened in 2009 when hackers took control of a road work sign and changed it to read “Caution! Zombies! Ahead!!!” In 2015, someone hacked a digital billboard in Atlanta to display a man stretching out his own asshole. In 2019 outside of Detroit, a billboard played pornography for Saturday night traffic.
