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Tuesday, April 17, 2012

At Large Today In Backlit Plastic PSA Placard Placement

Posted by Dan Savage on Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 2:28 PM

Just passed through St. Louis's airport. The above PSA is right next to the PSA that appears the jump.

Orphanhood—your results may vary.

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Those are some fucking cheerful messages in any occasion, but Jesus, I feel sorry for the fearful flyer who sees those just before boarding the airplane to get home to his family.

Posted by Allyn on April 17, 2012 at 2:35 PM

Use a condom or your kid might be an orphan.
Then again, he might be better off without you.

Posted by Matt the Engineer on April 17, 2012 at 2:38 PM

I know this just might be a, 'I'm just saying', thingy, but really. These two are totally different messages. One, no matter what cards life deals ya, you must try and give it all ya got. And second, in the world we live in, AIDS still destroys the lifes of thousands and thousands of people around the world. Both do offer a message of hope and compassion.

Posted by cristo on April 17, 2012 at 3:06 PM

What's really fucking sad is that they have to use an image of a blonde white baby in a large city (rather than the reality, which is closer to a black baby in an African village) because otherwise middle America won't give a fuck.

Posted by UNPAID COMMENTER on April 17, 2012 at 3:07 PM

@3 "Get AIDS and die, and your child will be inducted into The Baseball Hall of Fame."

I'm just sayin'.

Posted by Ophian on April 17, 2012 at 3:38 PM

I think Clear Channel takes whatever unsold spaces they have at airports like this and rotates in PSA material they've committed to. I believe Clear Channel gets good publicity and a writeoff against their unsold space, so yeah, they should be more careful about placement. "Want to grow up to be Babe Ruth? Give your parents AIDS."

Posted by gloomy gus on April 17, 2012 at 3:59 PM

"Orphanhood: results may vary"?! That's fucking hilarious, Dan. You got a legitimate LOL out of me. There were these great ones in the Subway station in D.C. that were encouraging awareness for diabetes. It was like a picture of a life jacket with the phrase "We can stop drowning; why not diabetes?" Or of a seatbelt with the phrase "We can stop fatalities; why not diabetes?" I really love inane shit in travel centers.

Posted by mtnlion on April 17, 2012 at 4:01 PM

These are both reasonably good PSA's, and I think Dan's point is that when they are side-by-side they undercut each other and create a cognitive dissonance.

But maybe this is one of those situations where something stupid turns the corner and becomes, in a subtle way, quite smart. They grabbed Dan's attention sufficiently to get him to post them on his blog, afterall, so that that "Whoa. WTF?" dissonance might have been the subtle plan all along.

And yeah, most AIDS orphans are not first-world and blonde, but the playing-in-the-street imagery is going to grab more people's attention than a photo of some saucer-eyed, fly-covered and skinny baby in a refugee camp. Decades of commercials from "Save the Children" type organizations have inured many people to that imagery. PSA's that avoid cliches are often superior to ones that repeat a cliche--even if the cliche is factually accurate.

Posted by Functional Atheist on April 17, 2012 at 4:10 PM

@5: I think that I'm reading it the way that you and presumably Dan are reading it. If I were a contender for the GOP leadership I suppose I might use it to support my case against gay adoption.

Uh, luckily I'm not a GOP contender.

Posted by saxfanatic on April 17, 2012 at 4:46 PM

You don't know that the orphan in the street couldn't turn into the next Babe Ruth. An alcoholic with a gambling problem.

Posted by tacomagirl on April 17, 2012 at 5:22 PM

Every 14 seconds a stupid kids walks down the middle of a three lane waiting to be run down.

Posted by Cato the Younger Younger on April 17, 2012 at 7:07 PM

@11, that was definitely my thought, haha. Also, what a cute white kid. Yay white people! Hurray for being the majority! Never letting you forget it!

...That diversity thing isn't supposed to be just a gimmick, y'know.

Posted by GlassMoon on April 17, 2012 at 8:56 PM

So true. We have a lot less empathy for black people, by far. We patronize them in our movies and TV shows and turn away in fear when they cross our path in real life. Or we shoot them if they're young males wearing hoodies.

Posted by floater on April 17, 2012 at 9:21 PM

Babe Ruth wasn't an orphan. Placard FAIL

Posted by glasspusher on April 18, 2012 at 8:43 PM

There's another, probably unintended historical connection here -- Babe Ruth had many, many sex partners, and probably did not practice what today we would call safe sex. He had a child with a woman who wasn't his life. His sex life is partly what made him a larger-than-life figure. Babe Ruth is the poster boy for "traditional values"? Seriously? That's like making Brett Ravre a poster boy for texting....

Posted by Temujin on April 19, 2012 at 6:54 PM

There's another, probably unintended historical boo-boo here, besides the fact that he was NOT an orphan -- Babe Ruth had many, many sex partners, and probably did not practice what today we would call safe sex. He had a child with a woman who wasn't his life. His sex life is partly what made him a larger-than-life figure. Babe Ruth is the poster boy for "traditional values"? Seriously? That's like making Brett Favre a poster boy for wholesome texting or Ty Cobb the poster boy for sportsmanship.

Posted by Temujin on April 19, 2012 at 6:57 PM