Covidistan's Bipolar Christmas: 'Boosta the Syringe', Vienna’s Violent Pro-Covaxx Campaign, Reprimanded for 'Insensitivity'

Merry Christmas, everyone, except perhaps those who consider 'Season Greetings' more appropriate

Today’s Christmas posting comes to you courtesy of friend-of-these pages and independent journalist Thomas Oysmüller. Originally posted over at ‘my’ German-language hang-out, tkp.at (h/t to my colleagues Thomas and Peter F. Mayer), here’s the crucial background on ‘Boosta the Syringe’, the State of Vienna’s bipolar pro-Covaxx ad campaign, paid for by federal funding, of course.

Covid in Austria: Vaxx, Lies, and Videoclips Edition

The below was written by Thomas Oysmüller and went live on Christmas Eve (24 Dec.); the translation and all emphases are mine, as are the conventional bottom lines below.

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Reprimand for the City of Vienna and its violence-normalising syringe monster ‘Boosta’. The Advertising Council [Werberat] has ruled that its Code of Ethics was not implemented with sufficient sensitivity in vaccination advertising.

The Advertising Council condemns the City of Vienna for its vaccination advertising with the larger-than-life-size syringe ‘Boosta’. In the campaign around the aggressive syringe, which forcibly transports people to a vaccination clinic, violence is ‘not dealt with in a sufficiently sensitive manner’, the Advertising Council says in a recent decision.

Code of Ethics Breached

One of many complaints made to the Advertising Council by a private individual in early December reads:

In one of the current booster commercials of the City of Vienna, two young men are shown being forced by ‘Boosta’ by being pulled on the ears into the subway to be vaccinated. The action depicted constitutes coercion (StGB [Strafgesetzbuch, the Criminal Code] §105) and medical treatment without consent (StGB §110). The public prosecutor’s office and the courts will have to clarify whether this advertisement is an incitement, or approval, of punishable acts in the sense of StGB §282. In any case, this ad is ethically problematic and, in my opinion, violates the code of ethics of the advertising industry.

Now the private Advertisement Council has come to the decision in this complaint that some points of the Code of Ethics were ‘not implemented in a sufficiently sensitive manner’

Translation of the highlighted lines: ‘1.1.4: advertisement must not infringe upon well-accepted good manners and customs; 1.3.1: advertisement must not use violence in its messaging.’

Above all, the Advertising Council condemned the depiction of violence; for the full complaint and details pertaining to the entire Advertising Council decision, see here.

The ‘Boosta’ campaign caused nothing but indignation and anger. If the goal of the City of Vienna had been to get more people to vaccinate, it failed. Although the City of Vienna flooded social media with these disturbing videos, e.g., on TikTok and Instagram, vaccination numbers have declined every week since:

Translation: ‘Since the City of Vienna began its new (and allegedly successful) pro-jab campaign in late November, which involved, among others, the aggressive “Boosta” mascot, injection uptake has declined significantly.’

But that’s not all: the great outrage of the Viennese about the ‘Boosta’ campaign (which cost 40,000 € of tax-payer money) did not in any way lead to the responsible parties giving in. Thomas Walach, who is responsible for ‘digital communication’ over at the SPÖ, described the ‘Boosta’ campaign as ‘awesome’. It was a ‘really well done campaign’.

Translation: ‘Dear wannabe Twitter communication experts! “Boosta” is awesome. A really well done campaign that one cannot ignore, and it’s perfectly tailored to its target audience.’

The Viennese weekly Falter [one of the main recipients of ‘media support’ by the City Government] even made ‘Boosta’ its ‘Hero of the Week’ a little while ago and praised the campaign. Because no matter ‘whether it’s funny or not’, it made ‘people talk about [vaccination]’. Quite appropriate for the Falter and its ilk. The loud criticism of the shocking videos, one of which even showed ‘Boosta’ kidnapping a young woman, was simply ignored.

Translation: ‘Why hasn’t anyone thought of this two years ago? “Boosta” is a larger-than-life cuddly syringe with a sceptical face that always appears in the City of Vienna’s ad campaign anywhere anyone criticises vaccination and mask mandates.’

More recently, outrage caused by this campaign even reached Great Britain. There, a well-known pathologist expressed her shock and disbelief. The City of Vienna, however, completely ignored the criticism.

Dr Clare Craig (not one of her impersonators) @ClareCraigPath

This is why bodily autonomy is sacred - see video link. It is a fundamental value of our society (or was). Look where people's thinking goes to otherwise. Consent is fundamental. 👇👇👇tiktok.com/@boosta.diespr…

Orwell2024 @orwell2022

The Vienna #boosta vaccination campaign (violence and threats against young) is working. Here is a taxi kidnapping version of a young woman. https://t.co/ijfQ6jTs0A https://t.co/9kmeD3NesN

Perhaps now there is hope that Health and Human Services Secretary Peter Hacker, Mayor Michael Ludwig, and others in the Vienna city government who are responsible for the aggressive jab campaign will at least be made to relent by the Advertising Council’s decision.

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Bottom Lines

Well, now we know—the ‘Boosta’ campaign wasn’t just bad taste; it also offended, to a certain, if severely limited, extent, the woke tyrants. They aren’t offended by the shown content (intent) to infringe upon civil liberties, bodily autonomy, and lack of civility. To the contrary, what offended the Covid Hawks was its lack of sensitivity.

So, in keeping with the spirit of Christmas, why don’t you just intimate that ‘Boosta’ is a trans person? That should do away with all the problems of ‘lack of sensitivity’, I suppose, for any criticism of the campaign may then be quickly dismissed as anti-LGBTQ+ word salad.

There, I’ve fixed this for you. You’re welcome.

Lest anyone takes the above comment as indicative of anti-transgender sentiments: I frankly don’t care what anyone does to his or her body, provided that their actions don’t infringe on the autonomy and sovereignty of anyone else.

In this sense, have a Merry Christmas everyone!

Those who insist on ‘Season Greetings’ apparently don’t deserve to have that holiday anyways and should just go to work regularly; if ‘intersectionality’ means anything, I suppose that would be fair to all the involved and concerned parties.