Posters and billboards began popping up in major American cities last week proclaiming that “Hipsters Deserve to Die.” Sort of shocking to say the least.
Also named as “deserving to die” are: the tattooed, cat lovers, the genetically privileged, crazy old aunts and various other niche groups. Each poster uses a photo portrait to demonstrate the labeled persona. Click through the tabs above to see the work.
This has been upsetting some people in cities like Chicago where people tore down the posters in anger. ”I think that’s very offensive to people who are animal lovers,” Shelli Williams told the Chicago CBS station when first shown the cat lovers version of the poster. These types of reactions have prompted news coverage already. People seem to be a bit confused as to why anyone would post these types of messages.
That is precisely the point though. One quick click at the campaign’s website URL reveals that NoOneDeservesToDie’s goal is to raise awareness for a deadly disease that “doesn’t discriminate.” The point seems to be that whatever you might be labeled by society-at-large – that none of us deserve to die. [The site reports that 158,000+ people died of lung cancer in 2008.]
The campaign was designed by Wisconsin agency Laughlin Constable and the Lung Cancer Alliance “We knew that one would be polarizing,” Laughlin Constable strategy VP Denise Kohnke told a Milwaukee TV station.
What do you think? Does it work?
Such a disappointing approach. Negativity,and personal offense cannot be the root of anything you hope to associate a positive or non discriminatory feeling towards. The realessage should be the big bold wording, in this campaign what they think the message is and what they are communicating are way off base. Poor communication.
This disgusts me, people who kill others get just jail but for being a different style category you deserve death? NO. So wrong, this world is way too nasty!
100% Missed the point …
Did you even read the article?
Cancer is caused by what is put into people’s bodies, be that the foods we eat (animal products) or the air we breath (polluted by cigarettes, exhausts and so on). On the one hand, this shock and horrify campaign is great for duping people who otherwise wouldn’t care into realising that the impacts that their pollution – produced by their car, their company, their cigarettes – cause problems for other people who did not partake in polluting the environment, and since not enough people are listening or lookiing for the facts we need education like this to stop cancers caused by the poisonous air people breathe.
Yet it ignores how animal product foods are causing stomach cancer, colon cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, you name it! We are primates, humans are frugivores, and we should be eating like it! So come on and please educate the public about that little bombshell fact, so they can stop feeding themselves baby cow’s milk as grown adults when osteoporosis is rampant among dairy-consumers and virtually non-existent among raw vegans and those millions eating minimal to no animal products in rural Japan and China.
Then there is meat, people have been educated that humans ‘need meat’ to get enough protein and minerals like B12, but the reality is that all 8 essential amino acids are found in plant foods, and a Tufts University found that 40% of US citizens are B12 deficient due to our crappy agricultural system. Don’t just take my word for it, educate yourself, read the studies, try it out, make a vegan/raw fruit vegan dietary diary on cron-o-meter and see for yourself that you can meet all your nutritional requirements without giving yourself a disease from consuming animal products – I did, and so have athletes like ultra-marathoner Michael Arnstein, cyclist Durianrider and several 2012 Olypian being trained by Dr Doug Graham; nutrionists like Star Kechara as well as thousands of ‘regular’ people who just want to simply be healthy and sustainable.
Prospective studies suggest that total dairy may decrease colorectal cancer risk. A probable protective effect of total milk against rectal cancer – and even more consistently – against colon cancer risk is suggested.
Please stop making false statements. kkthxbye
Ember I think you are missing the point, while what we put into our bodies has an effect on our chances of getting cancer, how our body deals with what we put in is vastly more important. Our genetics and family history are vital in our chances of getting a malignant tumor. Eating all kind of chemicals and smoking everyday is bad, yes, but a person is far more likely to get cancer if their genetic makeup shows an increased risk. There are people who are pack a day smokers, live to be 100 with no signs of cancer. Your passionate response misses the fact that people are just flat out different and there is no way you can possibly say that by eating any animal product, you will get cancer.
Oh god, another vegan, ranting and trying to force their opinions on people…
I love the the images and the slogan; wonderful work. Playing Devil’s Advocate for a second: The titles which say he or she deserved to die: Is it consistent with the point that no one deserves to die, or just provocative for the sake of being provocative, and not consistent with the central piece of awareness the campaign had hoped to evoke?
What the campaign’s website makes clear is it’s slogan; not the text facing the portraits. The Url points out that not everyone who has lung cancer got it from smoking, which, the campaign says, most people assume. Their hope is break through that assumption. But one concluding that one acquired lung cancer from cigarettes or not taking care of themselves, etc, doesn’t mean that one feels like a lung cancer patient deserved it and should die from it. Those are two very different feelings about a person.
I’m grateful the campaign is doing well and the portraits are solid. But I feel the work with the Deserve-to-Die text in front, may have raised eyebrows (which is to say, it was successful but only in that regard) it isn’t consistent with the campaigns central question: “What does lung cancer look like to us?”
“Who do we think deserves death?” is a very different campaign.
Your question Nicholas: “The titles which say he or she deserved to die: Is it consistent with the point that no one deserves to die, or just provocative for the sake of being provocative, and not consistent with the central piece of awareness the campaign had hoped to evoke?”
It appears that the campaign is attempting to be ironic by saying that all of these groups of people “deserve” to die (when they don’t and there is no reason to say they do). Apparently there is a stigma that people with Lung Cancer some how deserve it, which is a ridiculous notion and this campaign aims to raise awareness for these people.
I also must share a fact with you regarding your statement: “The Url points out that not everyone who has lung cancer got it from smoking, which, the campaign says, most people assume.”
This is true, not everyone who contracts lung cancer is linked to smoking, but the percentage is very high, it’s actually 80%!
“Tobacco use accounts for at least 30% of all cancer deaths and 80% of lung cancer deaths.” (Source: Cancer Facts & Figures 2012)
– Nick
We’re almost at the point where shock and trickery are expected. Someone’s going to make a simple traditional ad campaign and it will be called revolutionary because it’s not deceptive!
Nevertheless, I do like the look of these posters 😉
I agree with you JN. That’s how far the world has turned. What was once normal and routine has now become unusual and obsolete.
Its so amazing how our world changes so rapidly this days.