Gruesome

[elfs]

Alaska: B4UDIE.
Hosted on Flickr!. Click to enlarge.

Is it just me, or does this billboard send totally the wrong message? If you can't make it out, it reads "Alaska: B4UDIE."

Comments

[solarbird]

By design. No, really. I think it's dumb, too.

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

Am I weird for reading that as "bawdy" and getting really confused by the "gruesome" header for a few minutes?

[blackcoat.livejournal.com]

No, just l3373r then the rest of us. :)

[rfreebern.livejournal.com]

I read it that way, too.

Heck, that'd probably be a better ad campaign.

[rapier.livejournal.com]

It turns out that it's a marketing campaign by the Alaska Travel Industry Association. Seems exceptionally morbid, but if you believe that all publicity is good publicity, Alaska will probably see some tourism dollars out of it.

[woggie.livejournal.com]

I don't get it.

Is this something to do with current pop culture?

[srmalloy.livejournal.com]

It's not properly leetspeak; if you look closely, that's an Alaska license plate, so it's just the standard 'how can I get something clever out of a custom license plate message?' schtick you see people doing all over the country (like "ML8 ML8" on a white Rabbit, or "GSHNDHT" on an Isuzu). Even if it's dumb, though, it's still less disturbing than Virgil's comment "See Naples and die".

[woggie.livejournal.com]

Ah, thank you. No wonder I didn't get it. The lowercase helps, too. :)

[fallenpegasus]

jatg actually called me last week to tell me about that billboard. Apparently the campaign ended up in the news, and she heard about it on the radio.

Gruesome

[(Anonymous)]

I agree. How long b 4 we go numb? May be to late. The stupid Marijuana commercials "just tell em' you were getting high." All this stuff drives me nuts. Saw a billboard this morning. A man walking happily with the absent figure of a woman and reads,"He sped, she's dead." There is a time and a place. Here kids we have to tell the adults what could maybe possibly happen when you speed or get high. Or better yet if you don't go to Alaska. Yeah sure kids don't know what it means just yet but after they are all grown up and have had no choice but to dwell on death all their lives what significance is death going to have? Maybe they'll be hanging the remains from the signs. eww I can't belive that came from me. See.