Social movements, no matter how noble their original direction, easily lose power when their language and aesthetic are co-opted for alternate purposes. And one of the dangers of a movement with no discernible members is that it can all too readily be subverted, some of its momentum siphoned away to an irrelevant or contrary channel. Anonymous has been seen frequently in conjunction with the Occupy Wall Street protests, and many of their recent feats of activism had almost painted them in a constructive light in the eyes of the media. Then you get jerks like this one, who hijack the name of Anonymous for juvenile purposes--like making vague threats to destroy their high school.

Juvenile as it may be, the threats of one Bishop Montgomery High School student were taken quite seriously by the school's administration. Classes were cancelled yesterday after a student published an eerie video on YouTube claiming that he would ensure the fall of the school in three days' time. He ran his voice through distortion software and animated a video of an evil wizard to deliver his message, which touched on Anonymous's coda at its finish. Apparently upset over the expulsion of one of his friends, the unnamed student saw fit to invoke the mantra of his fellow 4chan frequenters. Not exactly sure what he was planning, if anything--rerouting the school's website to Lemonparty? ordering hundreds of pizzas to his principal's house?--but whatever it was, it's been checked out by the police and the FBI. A 16-year-old boy was traced to the video and subsequently arrested. 

The full text of the video is so vague--almost laughably so, like aimlessly angry bathroom graffiti--I wonder if the mention of Anonymous was what got the full brunt of the law involved. A cartoon wizard and a little doomy prose doesn't seem like enough to warrant a juvenile arrest. But invoke the name of a group that's capable of hacking into some of the toughest secure info around, and suddenly the Federal Bureau is knocking at your door. I doubt the kid even had much of the group on his side. It seems they've got better things to do these days than help a teenage boy get revenge on his high school for his buddy's expulsion. Anonymous might be an endlessly fluid organization, but there's only so much momentum you can garner from them. Trying to use their perceived power for your own trivial purposes will just come back to bite you.