# Bert is Evil Bert Is Evil! was a parody website created by Dino Ignacio in 1997 that used Photoshopped images to "prove" that Bert from Sesame Street was secretly connected to history's worst people and events. The site won a Webby Award and spawned dozens of mirror sites, but its strangest moment came in October 2001, when a Bert-and-Bin-Laden image from one of those mirrors showed up on a real protest poster in Bangladesh, making international news and forcing Ignacio to shut the project down. ## Origin Dino Ignacio, a Filipino-American artist based in California, launched Bert Is Evil! on March 30, 1997[5]. The site lived at fractalcow.com and featured Bert's "mug shot" alongside a collection of doctored images and fake documents[3]. The format was simple: take a photo of a real atrocity or villain, paste Bert into it, and write up a tongue-in-cheek explanation. The original site included fake intercepted emails between Bert and Jeffrey Dahmer, a staged "Jerry Springer Show" appearance, and references to the Pamela Lee tape scandal[3]. Ignacio actively solicited tips from visitors, asking them to submit more "information about Bert" if they had it[3]. The site exploded in popularity. By 1998, it had built such a cult following that Ignacio, along with Wout J Reinders and Jasper Hulshoff Pol, accepted both the Webby Award and People's Voice Award for Best Weird Website at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco[4]. - **Platform:** Personal website (fractalcow.com) - **Creator:** Dino Ignacio (site creator), Dennis Pozniak (first mirror site), J Roen (Bin Laden image contributor) - **Date:** 1997 ## Overview Bert Is Evil! was a website that presented digitally manipulated images of Bert, the grumpy Muppet from Sesame Street, alongside infamous historical figures and disaster scenes[5]. The images showed Bert hanging out with Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong-il, and Osama bin Laden, or present at events like the JFK assassination and the Oklahoma City bombing[5]. Each image came with a short, deadpan "backstory" offering fake evidence of Bert's supposed dark side[3]. The humor worked because of the contrast between Bert's wholesome children's TV persona and the deeply dark scenarios he was dropped into. The site played it completely straight, treating each Photoshop as hard evidence that Bert "is not the lovable harmless geek he so successfully makes us think he is"[3]. ## How It Spread The site's popularity created a problem: bandwidth costs. By summer 1998, traffic had grown too expensive for Ignacio to handle on his own[5]. Rather than kill the site, he made an unusual decision. He offered anyone who wanted to mirror the site permission to host their own copy[4]. Dozens of mirrors popped up almost immediately. The first major mirror, run by Dennis Pozniak, kept the spirit going by adding new "evidence" of Bert's evil nature, including connections to the Ramsey family and Jack the Ripper[5]. At the end of 1998, Pozniak posted a contribution from humorist J Roen: a doctored image showing the then-obscure terrorist Osama bin Laden posing with Bert[5]. That image sat on Pozniak's mirror for nearly three years without much attention. Then came September 11, 2001. In October 2001, during pro-Bin Laden protests in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Reuters photographers captured demonstrators carrying large collage-style posters of Bin Laden[1]. One poster had a small image of Bert tucked over Bin Laden's right shoulder. It was the same Bert-Bin-Laden image from Pozniak's mirror[5]. Mostafa Kamal, the production manager at Azad Products (the Dhaka print shop that made the posters), told AP that he'd grabbed the images from the internet without noticing anything unusual[1]. His company had sold about 2,000 of the posters to demonstrators angry about US military strikes on Afghanistan[2]. The photo went global. Western audiences immediately recognized Bert and the story became a strange, dark punchline during an otherwise grim news cycle. ## How to Use The Bert Is Evil format is straightforward: 1. Find a historical photo, disaster image, or picture of a notorious person 2. Photoshop Bert (specifically Bert, not Ernie) into the scene 3. Write a deadpan explanation treating Bert's presence as real evidence of his sinister nature ## Cultural Impact The Bert-Bin-Laden poster incident triggered real consequences. Sesame Workshop, the producers of Sesame Street, said they were "considering all legal avenues to prevent the misappropriation of Bert in the future"[1]. Ignacio received a DMCA takedown notice and pulled the Bert Is Evil section of his website[5]. "Reality is imitating the Web!" Ignacio said in a statement. "I am honestly freaked out!"[1] He followed up by explaining his decision to shut down: "I am doing this because I feel this has gotten too close to reality and I choose to be responsible enough to stop it right here"[2]. Pozniak's mirror, which had hosted the original Bert-Bin-Laden image, was also bombarded by international media seeking interviews. He shut his mirror down too[5]. The incident became a widely cited example of how content can travel across the internet in unpredictable ways, jumping from an inside joke on a niche humor site to a real-world political protest on the other side of the planet. BBC News covered the story extensively[1], and it was picked up by news outlets worldwide. Despite the takedowns, the original site was archived on Archive.org[3], and several other mirrors survived on platforms like AngelFire and BertisEvil.tv[4]. ## Fun Facts - The site's homepage claimed to be "brought to you by the letter H" and recommended it was "best seen with your eyes open"[3]. - Ignacio campaigned for votes in the Webby Awards directly on the site, writing "If you like this site, please vote for us for Weird in the Webby Awards, we need your support, Bert must be exposed!"[3] - The Dhaka poster maker sold roughly 2,000 Bert-Bin-Laden posters before anyone noticed the Muppet[1]. - Google search interest for "bert is evil" was already in steady decline by 2004, when Google Insights began tracking search data[4]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Bert Is Evil? Bert Is Evil was a parody website from 1997 that used Photoshopped images to place Sesame Street's Bert alongside historical villains and disaster scenes as fake "proof" of his sinister nature[3]. ### Where did Bert Is Evil come from? Filipino-American artist Dino Ignacio created the site on March 30, 1997, hosting it at fractalcow.com[5]. ### What does Bert Is Evil mean? The joke is that Bert, the famously grumpy but harmless Muppet from Sesame Street, is secretly an evil genius connected to history's worst people and events[3]. ### How do you use Bert Is Evil? The classic format involves Photoshopping Bert into a real photo of a villain, disaster, or crime scene, then writing a straight-faced explanation treating it as evidence[3]. ### Is Bert Is Evil still popular? No. The original site was taken down in 2001, and Google search data shows steady decline since at least 2004[4]. The meme is a historical artifact of early internet humor. ### Who created the Bert and Bin Laden image? A humorist known as J Roen submitted the image to Dennis Pozniak's mirror site at the end of 1998, nearly three years before it appeared on real protest posters[5]. ### Why did the Bert Is Evil site shut down? Dino Ignacio took it down after a Reuters photo showed Bert on a real pro-Bin-Laden protest poster in Bangladesh. Sesame Workshop issued a DMCA takedown, and Ignacio said the joke had "gotten too close to reality"[1]. ### How did Bert end up on a Bin Laden poster in Bangladesh? Mostafa Kamal, the production manager at the Dhaka print shop that made the posters, downloaded images of Bin Laden from the internet without noticing Bert in the collage[2]. ### Did Sesame Workshop sue over Bert Is Evil? Sesame Workshop said they were considering "all legal avenues" and issued a DMCA takedown notice to Ignacio, but no public lawsuit followed[1]. ### Did Bert Is Evil win any awards? Yes. In 1998, Ignacio and collaborators Wout J Reinders and Jasper Hulshoff Pol won both the Webby Award and People's Voice Award for Best Weird Website[4]. ## References 1. [BBC News | SOUTH ASIA | Bert in the frame with Bin Laden]() 2. [BBC News | SOUTH ASIA | Bert in the frame with Bin Laden]() 3. [Bert is Evil !]() 4. [Bert Is Evil! - Know Your Meme]() 5. [Bert is Evil]() 6. [Bert Is Evil! - Urban Dictionary]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/bert-is-evil Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library