The 25 Most Nonsensical Protest Signs

In this modern age of cynical detachment, where many people have difficulty expressing an opinion that isn't couched in layers of irony and "meh," there's something refreshing about protesters. These people actually care about something, so firmly and fervently that they're willing to get up and do something about it, even if that something is only marching around and trying to work up a rhyme for "globalization." Yeah they smell, and they're usually shamelessly ugly, but there's just something so earnest about these people that we can't help but respect.

Except for the stupid ones. It turns out there's a lot of those. Here are the 25 stupidest.

#25.

Later this guy would feel humiliated, when he realized the spelling error on his sign after he'd gotten home from this small town's annual protest of the works of Rick Moranis.

#24.

This guy was opposing the protest across the street by the Double Negative Enthusiasts Club for Not Ending the War in Iraq Sooner Rather Than Later!

#23.

Maybe, but Jesus had the PR, and a way better stylist.

#22.

Here's a couple dorky signs, though given the sorry state of most protest humor, these qualify as pretty cutting edge. But as we see it, if you're going to use an internet meme for a protest sign, why stop at anything less than:

#21.

This hippie's sign is made all the better by the fact that he ran out of room when writing "Johnson's" and instead of making a new sign from scratch, just Scotch-taped an "S" on the end, making him both cowardly and lazy. The only conclusion you come away with is that the army would have done this fellow a world of good.

#20.

Photo courtesy of zombietime.com.

If this guy was any more in your face, he'd be living in your nose, which would suck since your work life and ability to form relationships would be severely impeded by the sound of Rage Against the Machine constantly blaring out of your nostrils.

#19.

Calling Dick Cheney a war criminal is old hat by now--there's actually a pretty good chance his wife calls him that in bed. What makes this one so odd is the second-grader-Halloween-art-project-skull-mask the protester, who appears to be Art Garfunkel, is wearing.

#18.

Lunatic protesters aren't solely a product of America of course. This one is a particularly good example of someone missing the point of "freedom of expression" entirely.

#17.

Another contender for our "missing the point entirely" prize, we instead decided to nominate this entry for Cracked's first Annual "Doesn't Understand How Buses Work" award.

#16.

Claustrophobics have a real love/hate thing with protests, what with their tendency to be held outdoors and densely packed crowds.

This guy's evidently using several American flags to calm him within that mass of people.

#15.

Until you read the small print and then think about it for a minute, the sign just looks like she wants us to vote vampires out of office, which, honestly, we never knew was an option.

#14.

Protesters, brown people, and a war on Christmas. You'd swear this is a digital composite created by Fox News.

#13.

In America, we mainly consider Japan to be a crazy little inventor who makes the cool gadgets that help us do our jobs--the Fuji to our Super Dave Osbourne. But in China, they hate, hate, hate the Japanese, for a variety of somewhat compelling reasons. Go Google "the rape of Nanking" if you want to find out more. Here at Cracked, one of our specialties is "not making jokes about the rape of Nanking," so we're not gonna go into it.

Suffice to say, many Chinese really hate the Japanese, which makes us wonder if "scamp" means something different in Chinese.

#12.

"Hey, how can we work these stilts into our protest?"

"Don't ask me. I'm trying to figure out what to do with five extra yards of gray felt."

#11.

Photo courtesy of zombietime.com.

Hey fella, if you're going to multi-task your protest, why not go join the elephant guys? May we suggest, "Keep your bullhooks out of our vaginas!

#10.

Photo courtesy of zombietime.com.

We had to find this picture and now you have to look at it.

After staring at this for about two minutes (what are you snickering at?) we realized this was actually a brain teaser.

Re-elect

Gore

But

Not For

War Oil.

Which is obviously referring to Al Gore's repeated Presidential campaign promises for "More War Oil."

#9.

Photo courtesy of zombietime.com.

When we found this picture, its most groinal aspects hadn't been blurred out yet. You can thank us later. Anyways, hooray free speech!

You know something, on second thought, that Muslim guy might be on to something.

#8.

Although American mastery of tortilla-based technologies has yet to reach the same level as Mexico's, it's probably not logically taut to declare that "no burritos" would be the result of "no illegals."

#7.

"I'm telling you Ethel, it doesn't matter if it's grammatically accurate, you're just going to confuse people."

#6.

While researching this piece, we came across a whole bunch of images on the internet that all had a similar theme: one guy holding up an outrageous or self-righteous protest sign, with a second guy standing behind him wielding a sign that says "I'm with stupid." We didn't include any of those here, because they sucked.

This one's different though. We include it here partially for the convoluted two-prong homophobia in the background, but partially for the huge balls the guy with the "sational" sign must have.

#5.

"Oh, I'm sorry. You just wanna go over there to kill a bunch of motherfuckers and take their shit? That's totally cool."

#4.

This one's also bounced around the internet a bit, but it's too good not to pass along here.

When you see it all up there on the one sign, you realize that God must just have smoke billowing out of his ears like a tea kettle, all the time.

#3.

That's actually how James Madison originally phrased the First Amendment, but it got muddled up in committee.

#2.

A careful eye will notice that the "electrocuted" portion of the sign has been taped on as an afterthought. Is this another case of someone not choosing their font size carefully, or did he simply decide after creating the world's most hypocritical protester sign that he wanted to do something much worse to protesters' asses?

#1.

As comedy writers, our work necessitates us using computers for upwards of 10 hours a day, a substantial portion of which, quite frankly, requires us to look at gay porn. So really, this woman's got a pretty good handle on this computer thing.

But a devil machine? That's crazy.

If you liked this, you may just enjoy this list of famous men who look like old lesbians. Or, vent your pent up hatred of banner ads in this week's photoshop contest.