Valley of the giants

2005-04-27

Valley of the giants

Another one of Japan Tobacco's extremely indirect "smoking manners" ads:

捨てる人は、拾わない。
捨てない人が、拾っている。

Some people throw trash in the street.
Other people have to clean it up.

Yeah... we call that capitalism. Other people swim in vats of gold coins, or so I hear. If we're going to complain about unfairness, let's start with them. Meanwhile, I don't think any argument stronger than "Don't be a jerk" is needed against the practice of throwing cigarette butts into the street.

But I'm more disturbed by the fact that that "BAD SMOKER" on the left is throwing away a cigarette butt almost as large as he is. And then the "STREET CLEANERS" come to pick it up with a tiny little dustpan and broom. But apparently they manage! Maybe the BAD SMOKER threw the butt away many thousands of years ago and the forces of erosion wore it down to a managable size as the centuries passed.

Popularity factor: 9

Anonymous:

So each litterbug smoker provides employment for three sanitation workers?

If you're going to complain about scale, I think the little garbage truck (which looks like it would hold exactly one of those cigarettes) is a worse offender than the dustpan and broom.

-- Tim May

Matt:

Apparently, it takes three workers to pick up a cigarette, yeah. But I can understand why when the butts are as big as refrigerators.

My eye saw that garbage truck as being in the background, although I suppose if we're going to go that route we could equally argue that the BAD SMOKER threw his cigarette into the foreground and that's why it looks so big..

language:

You're ignoring the possibility that the BAD SMOKER is only a few inches high.

Anonymous:

Here's the high-res web version, incidentally

Some of these are just weird. Does the Japanese make more sense than the English? What moral are thesesupposed to convey?

You should stick your face in the snow?

I like how they've consistantly represented "shock/injury" and "pleased surprise" with slightly different patterns of radiating lines.

--Tim May

Matt:

Or, maybe the BAD SMOKER and the truck are normal-sized, but the STREET CLEANERS are giants. (And the BAD SMOKER bummed his giant cigarette off them.)

Thanks for the links, Tim. I made a lazy effort to find those myself, but then the page crashed Firefox and I gave up. And no.. they don't make any more sense in Japanese. Especially that one about "if it wasn't a cigarette, it would be crying". Smoking hurts cigarettes' feelings now?

If I were going to endorse an anthropomorphic view of cigarettes, it would be one in which they WANT to be smoked. Because really, what else are they good for?

P.S. No-sword does not endorse the sticking of one's face in the snow.

GaijinBiker:

You want a Japanese anthropomorphic cigarette that wants to be smoked? You got it.

Be sure to check out the TV commercials gallery.

Matt:

That's brilliant! I need to watch more TV.

So, in summary, the tobacco company anthropomorphises its cigarettes to suggest that they shouldn't be smoked. The nicotine gum (i.e. anti-tobacco) company has anthropomorphic cigarettes that aggressively demand that you smoke them. The only question remaining: exactly which Philip K. Dick novel are we currently in?

Pascale Soleil:

No no no.

That's foreshortening! The cig is big because it's really really close to us. That bum THREW THE CIGARATTE RIGHT AT US.

And we crawl on our bellies on the sidewalk, so it's at eye-level for us.

Okay, I got nuthin'.

IbaDaiRon:

Bad smoker! Bad smoker! Bad Bad Bad!

2005-04-27