Tuesday, March 06, 2012

40 Days of Lent: Day Fourteen

Given the cost and the number of people who see them every day, I'm still surprised at how amateurish and just plain bad the advertisements in New York's subways are. Say "Dr. Zismor" to anyone in NYC and they'll immediately know who you're talking about but not necessarily in a good way.

Of course there's "bad" and then there's "so bad is this maybe an art project?" Towards that end I present shots of the most fascinating and awful subway ads I've seen.

As with most bad things that serve a higher purpose than aesthetics, you can't help but wonder "why did they imagine this would help their cause? Whoever thought that an anti-smolking message would best be served by generic Valentine's Day artwork and weird juvenile slogans about love and bunnies?"



"Bunnies never lie?" What is that supposed to mean?



One sense that smoking doesn't affect is your hearing. I also don't see what great advantage there is to hearing the birds sing again. If I was a smoker and it was a choice between my addiction and hearing the birds sing, well you can guess what i'd choose.



"Love needs honesty. Look into my eyes." I'm not sure what honesty has to do with any of this, unless it's aimed at those who say they're not smoking but secretly are. The "look into my eyes" line is just creepy even without the cutesy imagery. It brings the unsettling notion of trying to reach people with juvenile imagery to the fore. Who thought treating adults like they were children and trying to convince them to overcome a powerful addiction was a good idea?

2 comments:

Erin said...

Where are those ads?

Seriously, they are freaking me out.

the hanged man said...

I took those pictures a while ago. I can't remember what subway line they were on.

But yeah, they used to weird me out too. I found them fascinating and creepy, a good example of something so cute it's sinister.