Waving Signs Around

Down with this sort of thing!

"What a field day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly saying, 'hooray for our side'"

— Buffalo Springfield, "For What It's Worth"

In any mass public gathering, positive (on the campaign trail, during sporting events, to raise awareness) or negative (at protests and/or strikes), there's bound to be people waving signs around.

Truth in Television. In more humorous depictions, expect at least one sign to be completely irrelevant to the actual topic—"Hi, Mom", "Buy at Moe's", "I came to this rally and all I got was this stupid sign", etc. More serious ones may be the Powder Keg Crowd.

Often accompanied by a Slogan-Yelling Megaphone Guy. Usually a component of a Strike Episode, as disgruntled workers are known to march in a picket line. See also Torches and Pitchforks, for when the crowd gets too rowdy. Also The End Is Nigh, Beggar with a Signboard.

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Positive Support Examples:

Advertising

• The Chick-fil-A Cows mainly communicate with humans using badly spelled signs.
• One of Progressive's semi-regular campaigns involves a guy with a sign which reads that drivers who save with Progressive save over $750 on average. In one ad he finds himself standing next to another guy who's advertising condos who says that people will look at his condo sign because the insurance sign is pointing at it. So the Progressive guy flips his sign around so it's pointing in the opposite direction.

Comic Books

• Achille Talon has a strip where the locals advertise an upcoming block party by parading around with signs reading "Fete de quartier! Grand repas de sanglier!" (Block Party- Boar Banquet). Unfortunately, what with everyone jostling and walking at different speeds, they ended up reading "Fete du sang! pas de quartier!" (Feast of Blood! No Quarter!)
• The F1rst Hero: In the first issue of the second story arc, Jake Roth decides to visit he church where Scotty's funeral service is being held. Across the street, he sees a bunch of people from the Eastboro Baptist Church waving around signs saying terrible things about Scotty because he was an extrahuman.
• Thin Blue Line: Near the beginning and end of the comic, anti-police protestors can be seen holding up signs with messages like "Disband The Police", "Thin Ballsack Line", and "Screw The Blue".
• Wonder Woman (1942): One Golden Age cover depicts a crowd waving signs saying "Wonder Woman for President" and variations thereof.

Films — Live-Action

• In The Big Cube, Johnny's friends carry psychedelic signs at his wedding to Lisa that say "Johnny and Lisa do their thing" and "Johnny is Lisa's old man."
• In Disaster on the Coastliner, crowds of bystanders stand by the tracks, holding signs for the hijacker that say things like "Stop," "Why Murder," and "Jesus Loves All." One group of young people holds a large banner that says "Why do it?"
• In Ferry Cross the Mersey, Gerry And The Pacemakers' fans wave signs supporting the band.
• In God Told Me To, some Christians respond to news of the killers' religious motivation by declaring a new religious order. They take to the streets waving signs that say things like "Thy will be done" and "The End of the World!"
• The opening of Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) features a news report of people marching on Washington D.C. when Monarch are on trial in the U.S. senate for keeping the Kaiju secret, with signs demanding that the military kill off the hibernating creatures around the world. One of the signs clearly visible reads “Destroy All Monsters”.
• High School (2010): After Dr. Leslie Gordon institutes a drug screening for the whole student body, a number of people are waving signs around outside the school in protest, seeing his actions as an invasion of privacy.
• In Hold On! (1966), Herman's Hermits' fans wave signs that include "Herman's Hermits in Space" and "We Luv 'Erman."
• In The Idolmaker, a fan waves a sign that says, "I love Tommy Dee!"
• At the end of The Muppets (2011), all the Muppets' fans have gathered outside the Muppet Theatre waving signs about how awesome the Muppets are. In Muppets Most Wanted, they turn out to be paid extras.
• In Tyson's Run, spectators at the Standbridge Marathon wave signs supporting their favorite runners.
• In You and Your Stupid Mate, Philip brings dozens of Boy and Girl Scouts to the protest to stop Jeffrey's favorite Sons and Surf character from being killed off. They hold signs and banners that say "SAVE EMMA" and "SONS AND SURF."
• In Youngblood (1986), fans of the Opposing Sports Team show their support by waving "Thunder Bay All the Way" signs.

Literature

• In Hoshi and the Red City Circuit, pro-Operator advocates outside the Integration Office have holo projections that say things like "Ops are not the enemy/Make good on your apology."
• In The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I mean Noel), Mrs. Carillon and the twins watch a baseball game on TV, where fans hold banners that say things like "Massapequa Loves the Mets." Mrs. Carillon tells the twins to look out for "Noel Carillon Loves the Mets."
• In Love Over Gold, field hockey players Diane and Katrien decide to take a break from their relationship with each other to avoid distraction in the last few games of the Olympics, in which they will be competing against each other. When fans find out, they hold signs at their games urging them to get back together.
• Reeve Lindbergh and Abby Carter's My Hippie Grandmother, published in 2003, has a little girl joining her grandma in hippie occupations, including a peace demonstration with hand-painted signs.
• The end-spread of Happy Pig Day! of the Elephant & Piggie books shows Gerald wearing a pig nose and holding up a sign reading "I ♡ PIGS." On one of these, the Pigeon appends a paper to it reading "eons!" to make it read "I ♡ PIGEONS!"

Live-Action TV

• CSI: NY: During the running of the Big Apple Marathon in "Love Run Cold," a number of fans are shown holding/waving signs of support. A discarded one reading "Marathoners are crazy people!" is taken into evidence after a participant drops dead near the end of the course.

Radio

• Our Miss Brooks has the radio episode "Cafeteria Boycott" and its television remake "The Cafeteria Strike". Walter Denton and the other students make signs protesting the food in the cafeteria, such as "Remember PTO-MAINE" and, in the radio version, "Remember the saying what goes up must come down? In our cafeteria, what goes down must come up!"

Music

• For What It's Worth by Buffalo Springfield mentions this.

Pinballs

• Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy features an enthusiastic crowd of sign-wavers watching Elton John play pinball.

Web Videos

• In the first episode of Video Game High School, when Law appears on the fictional show In Real Life, supporters outside the studio are waving supportive signs. The Law himself enters with a sign reading "It's me".

Western Animation

• In Family Guy episode "Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington", Chris makes a John 3:16 sign for a baseball game. Brian looks it up, and it turns out that it means: "And the Lord said, 'Go, Sox.'"
• In Steven Universe episode "Mindful Education", Garnet makes a sign that says "Go Steven + Connie" on one side and "Go Stevonnie" on the other and waves it around encouragingly while Steven and Connie train together when they're fused.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Stark Raving Dad", the John 3:16 guy turns up to welcome "Michael Jackson" to Evergreen Terrace along with fans with Jackson-specific signs.
  • Played with in "Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington". There was a group of protestors outside the White House holding signs saying things such as "Things are fine", "No Complaints Here", and "Everything's A-OK".
  • In "How I Wet Your Mother", the family journeys into Homer's subconscious dreams and encounter a group of mothers who are for drunk driving. Signs include "Sobriety is Boring", "Booze It or Lose It" and "My Other Car is Wrapped Around a Tree".
• In "Strawberry Fields Forever" from Beat Bugs, "Strawberry Fields Forever" becomes a sort of protest cry as the Beat Bugs carry and wave signs with drawings of strawberries as they try to chase away the myna birds that are wrecking the strawberry fields.

Real Life

• The John 3:16 guy, also known as "Rainbow Man" (owing to his wig).
• Monday Night Football - Many of the signs have Fun with Acronyms, using the letters MNF to spell something humorous. Sometimes pops up on other networks, where their network abbreviation (ABC, CBS, NBC) are used to similar purpose. (Rarer with FOX, thanks to the last letter making such a sign awkward.) When WGN-TV (Chicago's Very Own!) used to broadcast Cubs baseball games, fans created similar signs, e.g. "We're Going Nuts - for Cubs Baseball", etc.
• Obama bring back◊ Arrested Development.

Negative Protest Examples:

Comic Books

• The F1rst Hero: Anti-Extrahuman protesters can usually be seen waving around signs that express their hatred for extrahumans.
• The Avengers: In the aftermath of Fear Itself, protesters gathered around Avengers Mansion, holding up signs that said "Avenging your own interests" and "What have you done for me lately?"
• Nextwave is seen carrying protest signs about the Civil War (and the fact that they're not involved).
• Wonder Girl Vol 1: There are a bunch of protesters all over the place holding signs protesting something about Amazons Attack!, which while vile is rather pointless as at this point the Amazons—besides Wonder Woman who had been fighting the invaders—had been wiped from the face of the earth. The most common is "Blunder Girl," which makes sense as Cassie and Kara grabbed such a potent Idiot Ball during Amazons Attack! that they thought attacking Air Force One and kidnapping the president would somehow help matters.
• Wonder Woman (1987): Following the publication of her book Diana is faced with groups of protesters at a book signing and outside the embassy in DC, whose signs make it clear they think her description of her beliefs and the fact that same-sex relationships are normalized on Themyscira as her trying to corrupt people and make them turn pagan.

Comic Strips

• One The Far Side cartoon depicted a protest by the Imbeciles Of America, whose signs were of course crudely made, misspelled, held upside down, etc.

Films — Animation

• In a deleted scene of Turning Red (seen briefly in the trailer), Mei her friends protest for the environment in this way.

Films — Live-Action

• In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, when Superman appears at the Capitol building for a Senate committee meeting, several people are holding signs protesting his presence on Earth: "Superman is an Illegal Alien" and "Earth is for humans."
• PCU: Played with in this film, where there is an entire student organization evidently devoted to protesting for various causes, the cause in question seemingly changing with each week. At the end of the movie, the protagonists stage a large ad hoc protest against the college president, and offer some of their signs to the leader of the student protest organization, to which they reply "We brought our own" and produce a set of blank picket signs and markers that they evidently carry around with them.
• Revolution: The crowd of protesters are carrying a lot of signs. The signs say things about how wages shouldn't be cut, the U.K. shouldn't be the 51st state of the U.S., and other topics such as Communism and National Liberation Front (Viet Cong).
• The 1982 film Who Dares Wins (aka The Final Option) opens with a CND rally through London, including children holding signs and even a dog with a sign in its jaws. A more humorous banner implores everyone to DROP TROUSERS NOT BOMBS.
• X-Men has a group of anti-mutant protesters, including one waving the ridiculously awesome placard "Send the mutants to the Moon forever."◊
• Seven Days in May. There is a brief scene of protestors doing this against the President's proposed peace treaty. However a fight breaks out with other demonstrators who favour the treaty.
• Change of Habit: Enraged by the cashier's unfair treatment of Hispanic customers, Barb makes a sign that says "AJAX GROCERIES UNFAIR TO CUSTOMERS" and sits by the counter giving speeches until she's arrested.
• In Riot on Sunset Strip, the protestors wave signs with various hippie slogans. After Lorimer's act of Police Brutality, they start waving anti-police signs like "Peace, not police."
• In Drive, He Said, fans of the Opposing Sports Team stand in front of the Leopards' bus with a huge banner saying "LEOPARDS ARE PUSSIES." During the game, they wave signs with puns on the players' names, like "It ain't Easly" and "Lower the Bloom."
• Color Me Perfect: During Dina's gene therapy to boost her intelligence, protestors march outside the institute chanting "What's at stake? Dina Blake!" with signs that say things like "Gene therapy is abuse" and "Save Dina Blake."
• In The Ghost Goes Gear, Algernon stands by the road with a sign that says "Come to Rowthorpe Hall - It Has Everything." Suddenly a flock of sign-waving anti-war protestors goes by. By the time they're gone, Algernon's sign has been replaced by another one that says "Ban the Bomb."
• In The Strawberry Statement, protesters wave signs that say things like "Ban Bombs, not Blacks" and "Disarm - War Is Insanity."
• In Youngblood (1986), fans of the Opposing Sports Team wave signs that say things like "Pussies on Ice" and "Sutton Is A Fag!"
• Getting Straight: A common sight on campus is student protestors waving signs protesting the ROTC, the Vietnam War, and anti-drug laws and calling for the voting age to be lowered to eighteen.

Literature

• In one The Hardy Boys story, the boys and their friend (Chester, I think his name was) are investigating a massive protest against a boat, and get handed signs (which makes for a difficult moment when the boys' employer turns out to be the owner of the boat). Chester brings his own sign reading "FRANK HARDY FOR MAYOR".
• House of Robots: Robot Revolution: The robots of the Hayes-Rodriguez household start waving around signs in protest of their neglect from Sammy's mom working on a top secret project, as well as seemingly favouring E above the others.
• The Montana IPB base in The Infected is picketed against several times, despite being in the wilderness thirty miles from the nearest town. More often than not, this is a cover for an attack. Though when a handful of people show up to picket the IPB's Fourth of July cookout, they're invited in and help themselves to burgers and hot dogs. Also, there is a riot squad formed specifically to keep a number of anti-Infected demonstrations from getting out of hand.
• In the Known Space short story "Cloak of Anarchy", one character joins a protest group and holds up a blank sign. He intends this as a sociological experiment to see what people read into the sign; the protesters see him as mocking them and their cause, as they make painfully clear to him when a hacker crashes all the police robots that were the only thing preventing visitors from committing acts of violence on other visitors.
• In Mo Willems's Edwina, the Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct, when Reginald's first plan to convince people that there is no Edwina because dinosaurs are extinct fails, he stands around, waving a sign in red letters reading "This is not happening". It doesn't work either.
• Discworld:
  • In Paul Kidby's illustration of the Fresh Start Club from Reaper Man, Reg Shoe is holding a sign saying "Undead, yes - Unperson, no".
  • In Interesting Times the rebels try to Wave Signs Around but because they're still indoctrinated into an exaggerated version of Japanese Politeness, the signs aren't very strongly worded. They say things like "Slightly Bad Things Please Happen To Our Enemies."
  • In Jingo, Vimes sees a sign that reads GREASY FORANE HANDS OFF LESHP.
• Both the novel and the film based on it of The Pelican Brief open with people waving signs around saying stuff like "Death to Rosenberg," "Retire Rosenberg," and "Cut off the oxygen," the last of those being Rosenberg's favorite.
• In Miracle Creek, protestors outside the hyperbaric oxygen clinic hold signs that say "I'M A CHILD, NOT A LAB RAT!", "LOVE ME, ACCEPT ME, DON'T POISON ME," and "QUACK MEDICINE=CHILD ABUSE."
• In There's More Than One Way Home, protestors gather outside the Kagans' house, waving signs that say things like "PROTECTION FIRST" and "MURDER IS STILL A CRIME" and demanding that Jack be punished for killing Tyler, until the police break up the protest for creating a public nuisance.
• In Hoshi and the Red City Circuit, anti-Operator protestors outside the Integration Office have holo projections that say things like "Safety First/Hobble All Ops!"
• Call Me Sunflower: At the Fur-Free Friday protest, Sunny wears a raccoon costume and sits in a cage with a sign saying "CAGED ANIMALS WAITING FOR DEATH."
• A Quantum Murder: Julia Evans sees a rent-a-crowd of students who've been bussed out to her rollout of Britain's first Space Plane, and asks where they get the money for transport and attendance fees. Her chief of security says only, "We're looking into it." She regards one sign saying Julia already owns the Earth, don't let her own the stars as well as Actually Pretty Funny.
• Bounders: In The Forgotten Shrine, bounders' rights advocate protest the drafting of bounder children into Earth Force by picketing an induction ceremony with signs that say things like "Earth Force = Liars," "Save the Bounders!" and "Youli? Truly? We need the truth!"
• The Outside: During an anti-angel protest in The Fallen, people wave signs that say things like "We are not heretics" and "Let us eat."
• In Distress, anti-theory-of-everything protestors belonging to the cult Humble Science! wave a luminescent banner that switches between "Humble Science!" "Welcome Janet!" and "Say No to TOE!" (Janet Walsh is an author who agrees with them.) Later, members of Mystical Renaissance, a similar cult, wave banners that say "To Explain Is to Destroy!" "Revere the Numen!" and "Say No to TOE!"
• Johnny the Walrus: When Johnny's mother posts a video of him pretending to be a walrus, a bunch of protesters are shows waving signs around demanding that Johnny become a real walrus.
• In The Tuning Station, Chris and Ted witness a protest outside an abortion clinic that Past Ted attended. People on one side of the street wave signs that say "Choose Life, Stop Abortion Now" and "Park Street Women's Clinic is a Death Camp." People on the other side of the street wave signs that say things like "Keep Abortion Safe and Legal" and "Keep Your Theology Out Of My Biology."
• The Black Fox of Beckham: On the day of The Grand Hunt, Benton shows up with a sign that says, "BAN KILLING. SUPPORT DRAG HUNTING INSTEAD." Later, he's joined by other protestors, with signs that say things like "BAN FOX HUNTING, STOP THE KILLING! 76% SAY NO TO FOX HUNTING!"
• The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I mean Noel): When Mrs. Carillon is arrested for yelling "Fire" in Bloomingdale's (she was on the up escalator, she thought she saw Noel on the down escalator, and she needed everyone on the up escalator to turn around so she could follow him), Tina and Tony recruit a bunch of hippies for a protest march in front of the Women's House of Detention. They wave signs that say things like "WOMEN'S HOUSE OF DETENTION IS A PEST-HOLE" and "GRAPE MRS. CARILLON," written on a sign left over from the grape workers' boycott.
• The Enormous Egg: After Nate goes on TV to give a speech protesting the extermination of Uncle Beazley, the only living triceratops, protesters show up at the zoo in droves, waving signs that say things like "Birdwatchers for Beazley" and "Save the Only Dino."
• In The Mermaid, demonstrators gather in front of Barnum's American Museum, reading Bible passages and waving signs accusing P.T. Barnum of arousing the audience's lust by displaying a naked mermaid.

Live-Action TV

• Father Ted and Dougal protesting outside a cinema. "Down with this sort of thing!" "Careful now!"
• How I Met Your Mother: Ted has to wrestle with a crowd of protesters who don't want the Arcadia, a beloved old building, to be torn down.
• Mimpi Metropolitan:
  • Half the plot of episode 9 revolves around earning money through becoming a paid protester. When Alan and Prima finally find a protest, some of the protesters can be seen waving signs.
  • In episode 51, Juna claims to the rest of the dorm residents that he doesn't need to pay rent. The others proceed to protest in front of their landlady's house and break out some protest signs (and a megaphone).
• In Bewitched, Samantha and her Aunt Clara, along with Clara's friends Bertha and Mary, are pissed off at a Halloween candymaker's insistence on a stereotypical ugly old crone for his mascot. They prepare to stage a protest in his home. Their signs read Brinkman Unfair to Witches, Witches are People Too, but absent-minded Clara, reminded she needs a sign, zaps up the first thing she thinks of: Vote for Coolidge.
• On The Daily Show, when Jon Stewart announced his "Rally to Restore Sanity", he showed some toned-down protest signs he produced for the rally, including, "I Disagree With You, but I'm Pretty Sure You're Not Hitler", "Got Competence?", "9/11 Was an Outside Job!" and "Legalize Pot".
  Jon: I don't know how that last one got in there, we didn't write it. I think this is what happens when signs breed.
• Schitt's Creek: After Moira gives an interview to People Magazine saying she dislikes living in the town, protesters show up at at City Hall with the most Canadian angry protest signs ever including "If you can't say something nice..." and "We're unhappy with you, Moira." and "That wasn't very nice!"
• On 24: Live Another Day, there are a number of people in a crowd in Britain protesting a drone program by President Heller with signs saying things like "No more drones" while chanting similar slogans.
• In the Red Dwarf episode "Polymorph", Rimmer is reduced to doing this after the eponymous emotion-eating monster sucks out all of his anger: his sign reads CHAMELEONIC LIFEFORMS NO THANKS.
• An episode of Modern Family has Mitch and Cam drawn into protesting a restaurant while unaware of what it has actually done, so they show up with signs saying merely "stop doing what you're doing" and "shame!".
• The Partridge Family: In "Forgive Us Our Debits," a department store's computer accidentally charges Shirley $2900 for a $29 cuckoo clock. Laurie pays a group of protesters-for-hire to march outside the store waving anti-computer signs and chanting "Up with humans! Down with machines!"
• Daredevil (2015): Wilson Fisk's release in season 3 is greeted with protesters who take up shop outside the Presidential Hotel with slogans like "STOP AND FISK HIM".
• Stranger Things: Season 3 episode 2 sees Hopper get pressured by Mayor Larry Kline into breaking up a protest outside City Hall regarding the new Starcourt Mall that's put local mom and pop stores out of business. Hopper is reluctant to do so until Larry more or less threatens his job (while condescendingly announcing plans to throw a big Fourth of July bash for the purpose of distracting voters from these protests come November).
• In the opening of "Ring Around the Rosie" from The Mentalist, the CBI is working an immigration rally with a bunch of people waving signs saying things like "We are not thugs," "Stop targeting immigrants NOW!!" and "Legalize aliens." After someone is stabbed to death in the area, Patrick Jane quickly zeroes in on the one guy in the area who isn't waving a sign and who is standing around looking shifty with crazy eyes and wearing a big overcoat in hot weather as a suspect.
• In Utopia (US), a group of people, including the virologist Michael Stearns, stand outside of the gates of the St. Louis Hot Zone for the killer flu, waving signs and demanding access.
• Adam-12:
  • In "O'Brien's Stand," Malloy's titular elderly landlady feels the police aren't working hard enough to find her stolen purse, so she gets a group of old women whose purses have also been stolen to march outside the police station waving signs like "Protect Our Purses" and "We might be senior, not senile."
  • In "Northwest Division," a group of women protest the high cost of living by marching outside a grocery store with signs like "Down with prices."
• The Republic of Sarah: After the New Hampshire government puts up road blocks to cut Greylock off from outside supplies, the town's residents protest with signs beside the new border.

Music

• The Barenaked Ladies song "Angry People" almost drops the trope name:
  In a square, a thousand angry people are
  Waving signs in the air
  While a million other happy people are
  Trying hard not to care
• Unclear whether they're positive or negative, but "Chinese Satellite" by Phoebe Bridgers describes a few of these protests, one by a bunch of conservative Christians that provokes conflict. The song makes fun of them, but she's also sympathetic, saying that she'd do the same despite the embarrassment for the one she loves.

Pro Wrestling

• While he was managing Dino Bravo, Frenchy Martin regularly carried a sign saying "USA Is Not OK".
• During WCW's last year on TV, it was very common to see signs that read:
  "I'd Rather Be At Raw"
  "We Can't Wrestle"
  "Wheel Chair Wrestling" - a reference to WCW's hiring of older, often-injured wrestlers.
• Subverted by WWE, who regularly confiscate signs that portray the company or John Cena in a negative light.
• The Real Americans' manager Zeb Colter would often come to the ring with protest signs to fit his anti-immigration persona such as 'ILLegals make me ill".

Radio

• In a 2017 episode of The Now Show, Ivo Graham describes spending an entire day before a protest march trying to think of a witty placard slogan (and acknowledging that this was kind of making it about him, rather than the thing he was protesting). Unfortunately, the pressure got too much for him.
  Graham: So if you're wondering, I was the guy on BBC News wandering around Parliament Square waving a blank piece of cardboard. What a thrillingly postmodern act of defiance that was! And not just any cardboard, but an old Amazon Prime package, 'cos that's the kind of mixed message I like to send: Down with elites, down with capitalism, but I still want my books delivered by midday tomorrow.

Theatre

• Comes up a few times in Newsies, given that the plot revolves around the Newsie strike of 1899. In the first day of protest, Crutchie shows Jack and the others that he's made a sign and attached it to his crutch. The others congratulate him for his effort, but Racetrack says it's "pathetic". Later at the rally, each of the boroughs is holding up a sign for their respective neighborhood.

Theme Parks

• In the event that the Doctor Doom's Fearfall ride at Universal's Islands of Adventure is closed, several of Doom's minions will stand outside of the attraction and protest against superheroes, holding up picket signs that say things like "SUPERHEROES OUT OF LATVERIA".

Video Games

• BioShock: Signs with slogans such as RYAN DOESN'T OWN US! can be found around Rapture, in protest to the city founder's policies, but by the time the player gets there, the time for peaceful protest has long passed. It probably ended pretty badly for the people gathered around the Welcome Center and Apollo Square.
  • These same signs make a cameo along with a small section of Rapture in the sequel BioShock Infinite towards the end of the game.
• Fallout:
  • Fallout 3: Outside of Vault 101, there are skeletons of people who tried to get entrance into the vault after the Great War, holding signs begging for their lives.
  • Fallout 76: In various industrial areas around West Virginia, you can find abandoned protest camps with signs protesting the rise of automation and subsequent loss of jobs. Additionally, you can equip these signs yourself and use them as weapons.
• In Goat Simulator, there's a group of people protesting against penis-shaped foods.
• In Growing Up, the animation for studying Human Rights has the protagonist waving picket signs with two other people in protest.
• inFAMOUS 2 and inFAMOUS: Second Son have groups of anti-conduit protesters scattered around their respective cities who will swarm you and chant anti-conduit rhetoric. Attacking them will net you negative karma.
• Kingdom of Loathing: Late in the Pastamancer Nemesis quest, on your nemesis's secret volcano lair, you encounter one (1) protestor who is trying to spread the word of the Spaghetti Cult's evilness, by standing on the edge of the island waving around a sign that says "THE SPAGHETTI CULT IS A CULT". Also, a second, smaller sign saying "And it sucks!"
• In the Mata Nui Online Game, before you unlock the entrance to the lightstone cavern, you can see some miners protesting in the dark with signs that say "No can see no can dig" and "You can't dig what you can't see".
• The first two protest groups encountered in Postal 2 are of this variety - the first are protesting the Running With Scissors dev team moving into town, the second are protesting against books at the library. Going into those respective areas and doing the errand there causes them to ditch the signs and go for straight-up violence (shooting up the offices and setting the library on fire).
• In Saints Row: The Third, you may see bystanders walking around waving signs with stuff like "Shaundi is a whore" and "No Saints in Steelport" written on them. Nothing's stopping you from killing them in a variety of nasty ways, of course.
• In SimCity, one "disaster" shows a crowd of protesters waving signs and destroying property.
• Team Fortress 2: The Smissmass update comic has an angry civilian with the sign "RED & BLUE OUT OF TEUFORT" as part of a Funny Background Event.
  • There is also a melee item called the Conscientious Objector that now allows players to wave signs around...and also kill each other with them.
• The icon for a citizen who is peacefully protesting against Presidente's rule in Tropico 4 is a picket sign, although (due to technical constraints) the actual protest is just one citizen declaiming at a crowd.

Web Animation

• RWBY Chibi: In Season 2 Episode 9, Neo attends a protest where everyone is holding up signs. The signs indicate everyone's there to protest different things, including the teachers (and Weiss) who are campaigning for more homework for students, and the students who are campaigning for less homework. Neo herself holds up a megaphone as if she's going to announce something to the crowd before simply putting it away and also holding a sign: "THIS IS JUST HOW I TALK!"
• Homestar Runner's resident Soapbox Sadie Marizipan frequently shows up to various gatherings holding a picket sign, including one claiming Decemberween kills bunnies.

Webcomics

• A demonstration in Bad Machinery featured this with, as pictured above, rather polite signs reading "FLIPPING KROPOTKIN" and "COME ON NOW".
• In Bruno the Bandit a bunch of dragon rights protestors had at least one misspelled sign.
• Moby Dick: Back From The Deep: A number of times in the comic, a number of panels show people waving around signs showing how much they hate Mayor Barlow, and how they can't wait for Beckman to replace him once his term is up.
• Why should The Bible get all the free advertising? Mountain Time has a scene with people holding up signs at a football game, including John 3:16, Titus Andronicus 2.4, and Hop On Pop p.43.
• In xkcd, an audience member at a politician's speech holds up the sign "[CITATION NEEDED]". Another strip talks about showing up with "contented" signs at rallies ("THINGS ARE PRETTY OKAY!")
• In a El Goonish Shive NP storyline parodying Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the pro- and anti-augmentation factions are represented by two people holding signs saying "RoboCop was cool" and "Robocop was not an ideal to aspire to".

Western Animation

• Played with in an episode of The Boondocks. Huey assembles an army of sign wavers to try and shut down Jasmine's lemonade stand, but when Huey tries to start a riot, they just stand around swaying ineffectually. One of them explains that they will shut down the lemonade stand...even if it takes several years.
• On the South Park episode "I'm a Little Bit Country", the boys get roped into an anti-war protest rally, complete with signs (they only did it to get out of class). They demonstrate on TV that they don't know anything about it, pissing off Mr. Garrison.
  Newsperson: Can you tell me why you marched out of school today?
  Stan: Uh... war.
  Newsperson: Right, and what about the war?
  Kyle: It's, it's....gay?
  Newsperson: Uh huh, and what aspect of it do you think is most gay?
  Kyle: Uh...reading the sign he's carrying No blood for oil!
  Stan: Yeah. reading War is not my voice.
  Cartman: reading Bush is a nayzzi!
  • This was Sheila Broflovski's raison d'être.
• One episode of Johnny Bravo started off with Johnny at a war protest. He was yelling, "I love pie! I love pie!", and holding a sign saying as much.
• An example from The Simpsons-in "Itchy & Scratchy & Marge", Marge's anti-Itchy and Scratchy protest, triggered by Maggie whacking Homer in the head with a mallet after she watched one of the cartoons, starts with Marge and the other family members marching outside the show's production company. Homer's sign is a detailed explanation of what happened to him and Maggie's says "Stop Me Before I Kill Again". Bart changes his sign to "Don't Ban Itchy and Scratchy". As the protest grows, additional signs include "Save the Cartoon Animals," "Bring Back Wagon Train" and "What If A Mouse Blew Up A Cat And Nobody Cared".
  • There's also "Homer Badman", when a group of women protested at the Simpson house after Homer is accused of grabbing a woman's butt. Signs include "Homer Bad Man", "Homer Is A Pig" and "You Pinch, I Lynch"
  • In "The Fight Before Christmas", Lisa shows her disdain for people cutting down Christmas trees by holding a sign reading "Fir Is Murder".'
  • In "Scuse Me While I Miss the Sky", the town is in an uproar over Lisa's lights-out campaign because it brought about an increase in night crime. Signs include "Lighten Up, Lisa" and "I'm Pro-Light".
  • In "Mr. Plow", Homer has a Imagine Spot of him helping George HW Bush sneak valuable art works out from the White House by plowing through the protesters. Signs include "Forget the Alamo", "I dislike Ike" and "Pay me not to work".
  • The "Trumptastic Voyage" web video shows supporters of Donald Trump holding signs saying "Paid" and "Vote".
• Happened in the Futurama episode "The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz" with Leela and a group of protesters protesting against a Dark Matter oil rig flying too close to a penguin preserve on Pluto. The sign messages included:
  Give A Hooto, Don't Pollute Pluto!
  Preserve Our Useless Wasteland
  Free Chilly Willy
  Protester: (excitedly) Here they come. Oh, I hope they read my sign! (Holds up sign saying, "Go Away Tanker!")
• This happens in the Rock, Paper, Scissors episode, "Six Pieces of Turkey", as Rock discovers that the box of turkey that he ordered only has four pieces of turkey instead of six as advertised on the box, he tries to protest in front of Big Turkey with him running back and forward in unison with a sign and saying un-fair only by himself with no crowd, he realizes this after Paper tells him that no one seems to care regarding his cause leading to him adding turkey to his sign that now reads: "Turkey Unfair", and immediately a crowd of people join his protest.
• Parodied in the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Squid on Strike", where Squidward teaches SpongeBob how to make a picket sign protesting the Krusty Krab.
  SpongeBob: How's this, Squidward? (holds up a white fence)
  Squidward: Not a picket fence, you ding-dong! Picket sign!
  SpongeBob: How about this? (holds up a sign with a picture of a man picking his nose)

Real Life

• Red October: ALL POWER TO THE SOVIETS! OVERTHROW THE AUTOCRACY! STOP THE WAR! (later the Bolsheviks outlawed protesting they hadn't sanctioned)
• At least one Occupy rally was attended by a man carrying a sign promoting a local lunch spot.
• Another Occupy Wall Street rally featured a sign stating "I'M SO ANGRY I MADE A SIGN".
• Westboro Baptist Church is infamous for their picketing of celebrity/military funerals, popular events, or anything remotely associated with homosexuality. Inevitably, there are people who will counter-protest with signs of their own, some of which play with Westoboro's message (instead of "God Hates Fags," some will say something like "God Hates Figs" or "Dog Hates Cats"), or it'd be something completely unrelated to either Westboro's or the event's purpose ("Germany for the World Cup!").
  • When they protested San Diego Comic-Con 2010, they were met by a large group of counter-protesters bearing signs that said things like "God Hates Jedi", "God Hates Sentries", "God Loves Gay Robin" and "Kill All Humans" (carried by Darth Vader, Spy, Robin and Bender cosplayers respectively). See for yourself.
• A picture doing the rounds on Twitter shows a respectable middle-class man at a UK protest with a sign that read "I must admit, I too am not overly fond of the present government." Additionally, in the wake of Elizabeth II's death, Charles III and other members of The British Royal Family have been greeted with signs reading "Not My King" and/or "Abolish The Monarchy" at many public events.
• Protests held in Ireland often feature the signs mentioned from the Father Ted example listed above.
• At a protest in the U.S. in 2016 ^note after the particularly contentious election of Donald Trump, a man was photographed carrying a sign that read, "Not usually a sign guy, but geez!"
• A publicity stunt for the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes had a mob of women parading in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre declaring the film to be "Unfair to brunettes and redheads!"
• Dogma attracted some protests for what the protestors considered its disrespectful treatment of religion. Kevin Smith joined one such protest, bemusedly noting that none of the others had bothered to make a sign as nice as his. None of the other protesters recognized him either, funnily enough
• At Jon Stewart's 'Rally to Restore Sanity', one sign read "What Do We Want? Time Travel! When Do Want It? It's Irrelevant."
• Some candidates took to using the national costume competition at the 2020 Miss Universe to voice their grievances towards sociopolitical issues such as anti-Asian hate crimes, LGBTQ+ rights and the 2021 Myanmar protests by either incorporating messages in their costumes, or in the case of Miss Myanmar Thuzar Wint Lwin, holding a rather modest placard calling on people to pray for Myanmar as things have become chaotic in the country no thanks to its military junta.

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