Guerrilla Marketers from Tampa Bay ‘Protest Winter’ Outside South Station

There's a protest against winter at S. Station, and I think I'm joining the cause.. #ProtestWinter @universalhub pic.twitter.com/tAsu0dlUe1

— bcole (@CallMebcole) February 22, 2016

No, people are not so fed up with winter that they took to protesting the entire season outside South Station.

That would be silly for a number of reasons: winter will, more often than not, happen, regardless of whether a bearded guy in a beret waves a custom-printed sign outside the Red Line; this winter included the warmest January ever recorded worldwide since 1880, and is on-track to set the record for Boston’s warmest; and because this is very obviously a marketing stunt, vapidly viral for the sake of virality.

(And despite what one man’s sign reads, it can be both sunny and cold at the same time. Ask the folks who live and work at the summit of Mt. Washington.)

#protestwinter pic.twitter.com/LmoiQYvWZp

— Patrick Harrison (@LimeyPatrick) February 22, 2016

The Tampa Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau are behind the Eight-Man March. It holds the trademark for “#ProtestWinter,” and its website urges visitors to “Occupy Someplace Warm.” Monday morning’s spectacle happened a short distance from where the Occupy Boston protests—you know, the real kind—happened five years ago this fall.

There are plenty of things about Boston’s winter to protest, if you feel so civically inclined. Protest the underfunding and mismanagement of the MBTA. Protest for action on climate change. Protest for better care of our city’s homeless, for whom a JetBlue to Tampa isn’t as readily available.

Or, you can hold up a sign protesting a weather pattern for an hour or two. Your call.