# Eyebombing
Eyebombing is a street-art practice where people stick googly eyes on inanimate objects in public spaces, turning fire hydrants, mailboxes, and lamp posts into little faces. Two Danish artists coined the name in October 2011 when they registered eyebombing.com and set the rule that only wiggle eyes on public objects count.
## Overview
Eyebombing is the act of sticking a pair of wiggle eyes on an inanimate object in a public space so the object appears to have a face. Fire hydrants, mailboxes, parking meters, drainpipes, and broken sidewalk fixtures are common targets, and photos of the results are shared online[1].
The practice was formally defined and named by two Danish artists who set two strict rules for what counts: the eyes must be physical googly eyes (not drawn or Photoshopped), and the object must be found in public rather than staged at home[2]. That definition separates eyebombing from earlier googly-eye photo projects that used household junk[3].
## How It Spread
Laughing Squid picked up the site on December 2nd, 2011, giving eyebombing its first outside press[1]. Gawker covered it later that month and noted that the Danish pair were tightening the format around older, looser googly-eye blogs like All Googly and Googly Eyes on Stuff[4].
Coverage widened through 2012. The Mary Sue ran a feature on the trend[5], and design site Core77 wrote about the aesthetic appeal of giving cast-iron street furniture a personality[6]. Craft-focused outlets like Make and Takes and lifestyle blogs including The Pioneer Woman followed, pushing the idea to a non-art audience[3].
On Tumblr, users collected submissions under the tags #eyebomb, #eyebombers and #eyebombing, and a Facebook fan page plus Pinterest pinboards became secondary hubs[3]. The single-topic-blog format kept eyebombing alive as a low-effort street project long after the initial press cycle.
## How to Use
The typical eyebomb involves buying a bag of self-adhesive wiggle eyes, walking around a neighborhood, and pressing a pair onto anything with two features that could pass as eye sockets. Common targets include bolts on fire hydrants, ventilation grilles, tree knots, and rusted padlocks. The convention set by eyebombing.com is that the eyes are physical, the surface is public, and the photograph is taken in place rather than staged[2].
## Frequently Asked Questions
### What is Eyebombing?
Eyebombing is the street-art practice of sticking googly eyes on inanimate objects in public spaces so they look like they have a face, then photographing the result[2].
### Where did Eyebombing come from?
The name and rules were set by two Danish artists who registered eyebombing.com on October 25th, 2011, though people had been posting googly-eyed objects to Flickr since 2005[2][3].
### What does Eyebombing mean?
It means bombing a public object with a pair of wiggle eyes, in the same graffiti-adjacent sense as yarn bombing. The eyes must be real, and the object must be in a public space[2].
### How do you use Eyebombing?
You buy self-adhesive googly eyes, stick a pair on a public object like a fire hydrant or mailbox where two features suggest a face, and share the photo, often on Tumblr or Flickr[2][3].
### Is Eyebombing still popular?
It is a classic single-topic-blog meme from the early 2010s. After heavy coverage from Laughing Squid, Gawker and Core77 in 2011 and 2012, it settled into a steady low-key hobby rather than a viral trend[1][4][6].
## References
1. [https://laughingsquid.com/eyebombing-a-project-by-two-danish-guys-who-put-googly-eyes-on-random-things/]()
2. [http://eyebombing.com/]()
3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/eyebombing]()
4. [https://gawker.com/5865530/googly-eyes-make-everything-better]()
5. [https://www.themarysue.com/eyebombing/]()
6. [https://www.core77.com/posts/22193/eyebombing-googly-eyes-on-inanimate-objects]()
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Source: https://meme.com/memes/eyebombing
Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library