Re: virus: Tabacco mind virus: antivirii

Eva-Lise Carlstrom (eva-lise@eskimo.com)
Tue, 22 Jul 1997 20:11:56 -0700 (PDT)


There was a poster on a bulletin board on the University of Oregon campus
bearing a picture of a young Asian woman, arms crossed, facing the viewer,
in front of a line of dark-suited men whose heads disappear off the top of
the poster, with the text:

"Tobacco companies pay millions of dollars to make you want cigarettes
like a baby wants candy. But you're not a baby anymore."

This seems to me to be a good approach, using the desire to rebel, and the
desire to appear mature, *against* cigarette use, instead of allowing them
to argue for it. Somehow the poster doesn't seem quite compelling enough
to suit me, but that may just be because it stands so much on its own,
against an onslaught of pro-smoking advertising.

I also liked the "Don't be a Draggin' Lady" TV commercials that ran in my
area about ten years ago, showing teenage smokers being rejected socially
because they smell bad, look silly, and get ashes everywhere. These ads
showed the smokers strutting around apparently under the impression they
looked cool, while people in their wakes made faces and held their noses.

And then there were the posters in my high school with photos of really
ugly old people smoking cigarettes, with captions like "Smoking is
Glamorous". They did make me wonder where they got the photos and whether
the subjects knew what was being done with them....

Eva