Jesus Dress Up

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Jesus Dress Up refrigerator-magnet set - Normal Bob Smith

Jesus Dress Up is a game that was created by artist Normal Bob Smith in 1991 as a black-and-white colorform, which he photocopied and distributed to friends.

In August 2000, Smith converted the drawings to digital art and launched a website, allowing users to virtually play with a dress-up doll by placing movable layers of clothing on top of a crucified Jesus. Outfits in the original version included a light-blue tuxedo, football uniform, snorkeling gear, and red devil pajamas.^[1]

1 Internet reach
2 Reactions
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Internet reach

Within a month of its launch, JesusDressUp.com received over 150,000 original hits, and by October 2000 had over 250,000 original visits. Almost entirely by word-of-mouth referrals, the website received nearly 6 million monthly hits by the end of 2000.^[2]

In 2003, Normal Bob Smith produced a companion refrigerator-magnet set, which was sold through the website and was subsequently picked up by retailer Urban Outfitters.^[3]

Sarah Silverman with Jesus Dress Up magnets (given to her for this pose by the artist); photographed in the East Village, New York City, April 28, 2006

As of November 2006, Normal Bob Smith has sold more than 15,000 sets of the Jesus Dress Up magnets. There are six versions: the original, Final Justice, Superstar, Christmas, Halloween Dress Up, and "BDSM" Dress Up. Among the celebrities who have been photographed holding the magnets are filmmakers John Waters^[4] and Jim Jarmusch^[5], comedians David Cross^[6], Janeane Garofalo^[7], and Sarah Silverman^[8], and Bullshit! host and magician Penn Jillette.^{[citation needed]}

Jesus Dress Up magnets appeared in the segment on Normal Bob Smith in the Neil Abramson documentary film Bob Smith USA,^[9] which premiered at the American Film Institute’s SilverDocs Film Festival in Washington DC in June 2005.^[10]

[edit] Reactions

On March 14, 2004, Jesus Dress Up sparked national controversy when a Philadelphia man, known only as "Gerry", voiced his outrage after seeing the magnets at an Urban Outfitters store in the King of Prussia mall.^[11] He wrote a letter of complaint to the chain and brought his story to his local NBC affiliate WCAU-TV when he received their response: Urban Outfitters stated that the magnet was not being sold to offend anyone, but to reflect a diversity of opinion among its customer base.

The story was broadcast on NBC in Philadelphia, then MSNBC’s Scarborough Country,^[12] on which it received coverage alongside Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ premiere. The magnet set also appeared on Comedy Central’s Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, where it was discussed by Scott Thompson, Kathy Griffin, and other comedians.

Urban Outfitters received more than 250,000 complaints, due mostly to organizational efforts from OneMillionMoms.com and OneMillionDads.com, activism group websites sponsored by the American Family Association.^[13] Following the controversy on March 17, Urban Outfitters cancelled its remaining orders with the artist and publicly stated that they would no longer order the magnets to carry on their shelves but would sell their remaining stock.

As a result of this attention, on March 28, 2004, an activism group called Laptop Lobbyists alerted Normal Bob Smith’s web-hosting company and succeeded in shutting down the Jesus Dress Up site. Charles Wheelus, President of Pick Internet Solutions Inc., said in response to the protests, "I am as appalled as you. I find the content of these sites to be obscene and offending."^[14] JesusDressUp.com was offline for several days until a new web hosting service was found.