In the year 2024, we have almost become accustomed to pesky protestors marching around shouting about useless causes like how they don’t think American tax dollars should be funding genocidal wars in foreign countries, but in Boston, Massachusetts, a protest finally created some meaningful change. Two months after a protest was held in the Boston Commons, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) acceded to the unruly protesters and agreed to stick large googly eyes on the front of several of Boston’s public transit trains, called the T.
In case you couldn’t tell, I’m being a bit facetious. The protests demanding the googly eyes be added to the T were peaceful and silly, and the protests about the reckless misuse of American tax dollars to fund foreign wars are entirely valid and necessary. The googly eyes, however, are no joke. If you take the T in Boston any time soon, safely look at the front of your train and see if it’s running with a set of oversized googly eyes. The Washington Post interviewed Phillip Eng, the general manager and chief executive of the MBTA who said,
“When something like this comes up, and it’s just a little opportunity to add a little levity to the day, people embraced it,” Eng said. “I guess we’re a little surprised by the amount of attention it’s gotten.”
The two people, or more accurately heroes, who organized this all-important movement are 22-year-old coworkers named Arielle Lok and John Sanchez. Their goal was to bring a bit of whimsy to Boston’s commuters, which is much needed in New England. As a native Angeleno who graduated from Boston University, New Englanders need to take advantage of every morsel of joy they can possibly get. Hopefully adding googly eyes to the T helps lift the notoriously icy mood of Bostonians, but there is a catch.
The stingy bigwigs at the MBTA claim that they couldn’t decorate the entire fleet of MBTA trains with googly eyes without citing a reason. They only placed stickers of large plastic googly eyes on five trains: four trains on the T’s green line, and one train on the commuter rail. While it is a little win to get googly eyes on some of the city’s trains, it’s disappointing that only five of the region’s trains received the ocular additions. I guess some whimsy is better than none. I hope more aspects of life become similarly whimsical, since so much of life has been feeling heavy for so many Americans recently, little changes like this can brighten up peoples’ day.