It’s funny. Sometimes people take technology for granted. They just kind of get caught up in all the various sundries of life and lose touch with what’s important.

Now I’ve been seeing a lot of cowboys lately. There’s a movie, Cowboys vs. Aliens coming out (which looks awesome), I’ve been doing a lot of Deadlands lately, and finally there’s a cowboy movie on TV right now.

And you know what? The whole cowboy thing? It’s like, a hundred years old. Most of that stuff is set around the 1880s, 1890s. That’s the Victorian era, for those of you across the pond. That’s practically ancient history. Look at how far we’ve come in such a short period of time. It boggles the mind. I mean, we’ve walked on the moon. We’ve walked on the moon. Think about that.

You know who does a good job of expressing this kind of amazement? The onion. Look at this.

Okay, so yeah, it’s satire. Just like everything the onion does. But let’s take a look at it, shall we?

The image basically boils down to a fake front page newspaper for the late edition of the day of the moon landing. The headline reads “Holy Shit. Man walks on fucking Moon”. There is the oh-so iconic picture of Neil Armstrong on the moon, the iconic picture of Earth from the Moon and some fake articles describing in, perhaps not the most polite of language, the fake history of those few moments immediately after the landing.

Do what is it saying? Basically it’s trying to make humor through the application of contradiction. One would not expect that kind of language A) about something that we take to be a historical event nor B) in any form of press. It uses a contrast between an image we automatically associate as something historical plus a format we automatically consider conservative (or, at least, professional) against just the sheer irreverence and absurdity of the textual component in such a situation to immediately indicate that there is not only something comically wrong about this, but to alter one’s perceptions of the situations accordingly.

Think about it. The onion isn’t an old organization. They weren’t around when this actually happened. This is old news. So besides the laughs, which, admitably, it has some of. What message is this trying to get across?

It probably has something to do with the fact that man has walked on the moon and that that is amazing. Most people today take such things for granted, but if something like that were to happen today, most people’s reactions would be “holy shit!” or some approximation thereof. It’s a monumental event, and so by expressing it in the exclametaive form, the onion seeks to remind people of the significance and sheer amazement such an event should engender.

Satire, as opposed to pastiche, functions in that age old ‘telling the emperor he’s naked’ role. It acts as a means to educate through comedy. So the next times you worry about delays related to technology or are annoyed with how slow the internet is loading. Just think to yourself “Holy shit! Man has walked on the Moon!”  And the sheer amazement of the technology you use everyday should start falling into perspective.

Well, hopefully at least. If it doesn’t, just Google “Everything is amazing and no one is happy.” It’ll serve the same purpose.

Live Young.

Living young aparrently means drinking a lot of water.

Evian’s Live Young ad campaign, recently launched, features rollerblading babies as its primary selling point. What babies have to do with drinking a lot bottled water is anyone’s guess. While it would seem at first that Evian is trying, much like Pepsi has in the past, to make themselves more youth centric in the hopes that they can catch on to that ever elusive youth market, this is not actually the case. Instead, the babies are being used as to represent the idea of the escaped youthfulness that those on the shadier side of twenty may often feel that they have lost.

There are several different wings to the ad campaign, but I shall focus on a set of six print ads. These ads feature attractive people of various ages standing around wearing shirts depicting a baby’s body in such a way that the models head fills in for the baby’s. The models are invariably all holding an Evian bottle, and the Evian logo features into the top corner along with the text “live young”.

A look around the more subtle aspects of the ads reveal much what would be expected from an ad designed to sell water. There are six ads, targeting a wide variety of North American demographics, each featuring attractive models. The most prominent colors in each of the pictures are blue, peach and white. In many cases there is some accessory, such as a blue bracelet or bandana, which further emphasises this. These colors, of course, correspond to the colors of the Evian logo and bottle; blue, white, pink. The blue and white creates a very cold effect which dominates heavily, something clearly desired when selling cold beverages, and the skin tone is often sufficiently dwarfed by the white of the background and clothing that it presents itself as a compliment color rather than a major focus while still managing to create a very effective and eye catching contrast.

The important visual element here though is the illusion created of the baby with the model’s head, or the model with the baby’s body, depending on how you want to view it. This, of course, stands as a metaphor for the ad campaign’s slogan, live young. It implies that while the person is Cleary not a child, by drinking Evian water, they can have a youthful body. Again, this is metaphoric. The baby is not being used as a baby in the literal sense. They are not saying that drinking Evian gives you the body of a baby, weak and feeble, but rather that drinking Evian gives you the metaphorical youth. The baby is being used as a symbol for youth that can still apply no matter what the viewer’s age. This use of symbolism is very effective as not only are babies rarely used in advertisements except as attention grabbers, but also because it manages to prove such a wide catching symbol in its own rights.

The advertisement goes back to Evian’s roots, as one of their first advertisements featured strangely CGIed roller skating babies. This can be seen as a nice little in-joke for those who are familiar with the company’s long history.

Traditionally, the idea of having the body of a baby, or trying to be more like a baby, or even (if one misinterprets the ads) a baby trying to be older, would prove difficult to sell. These ads do a remarkable job of it though through their effective use of contrast. By eliminating the baby’s head and instead creating a stark disconnect when a full grown adult’s head is where we would expect the baby’s head, the advertisement no longer focuses so much on the idea of infants, freeing the symbol to be used as the advertisers intended.

The campaign, while having its problems, certainly does a lot of things right, and stands as a solid example of what can happen when risks are taken with metaphoric imagery and the hilarious use of t-shirt design.