Wait, what did that poster say?
This poster, on the side of a pay phone* on New Scotland Ave near Albany Med, caught our attention the other day. No, it doesn't mean what it first seems to mean.
The smaller print:
Many people believe that if you have lung cancer you did something to deserve it. It sounds absurd, but it's true. Lung cancer doesn't discriminate and neither should you. Help put an end to the stigma and the disease at NoOneDeservesToDie.org.
We looked up the website. The campaign, from an org called the Lung Cancer Alliance, includes a bunch of "____ deserve to die" posters: the smug, the genetically privileged, cat lovers, and so on. The other side of the New Scotland Ave poster is the "crazy old aunts" version.
You can see where they're going with this -- that just because a person smoked they don't deserve cancer, and/or that there are people who get lung cancer even though they didn't smoke -- but we're not sure the campaign actually gets there. That's a complicated message and these ads are rather vague -- especially if they're just catching people in passing. (The original version of the campaign apparently didn't include the "if they have lung cancer" part -- making them even harder to figure.) [Philly.com] [KVAL]
The campaign has run in a bunch of cities and, not surprisingly, been tagged as "controversial." The agency that created the campaign said it knew the ads would be "polarizing." Apparently there's even a word for this sort of campaign: "shock-vertising" (we think shock-vertising needs to hire a new agency). [Houston Chronicle] [WJLA] [WTMJ] [NYT]
(*Maybe the last pay phone in Albany?)
By the way: "Hipster Cancer" sounds like a Tumblr.
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Comments
Really not sure what we're supposed to do with this information. "Deserve" isn't the right word, but a lot of people do things to cause their diseases, including lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease and the diabetes epidemic. And other people just get them. I hadn't heard about a lot of lung cancer sufferers being denied health care or having fingers pointed at them. It IS possible to think someone brought a disease on themselves and still have sympathy for what they're going through.
... said Carl on Aug 7, 2012 at 7:18 PM | link
I remember reading about this group in the Times Union. Lung cancer is no joke, kills more people than a bunch of other cancers combined.
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Caring-Community-Cancer-survivor-continues-fight-3575042.php#photo-2967152
... said Hibo on Aug 7, 2012 at 9:19 PM | link
Carl, have you had any family members with lung cancer? People, in the broad sense, do get a bit of a "well, they smoked? they deserve it" attitude.
... said Laura Bird on Aug 12, 2012 at 12:44 AM | link
Rather the same smugness people get when they learn that a fat person has diabetes, in fact -- even if that diabetes is type 1 (non-deathfat diabetes)
... said Laura Bird on Aug 12, 2012 at 12:45 AM | link
When my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer, nearly the first thing out of everyone's mouth was "did she smoke?" Even professional medical colleagues asked that (although they at least had the good sense to immediately be horrified).
There is certainly a stigma around lung cancer that doesn't exist with other cancers. On the one hand, it's nice to see that the various media and public health pushes to emphasize the dangers of smoking have worked. But on the other hand, it really sucks to have to constantly deal with the implication that you (or your loved one) "deserved" to die because they made a bad choice (especially those who made bad choices because the cigarette industry was lying to them).
On the gripping hand, it's sort of a fascinating example of unintended consequences: in an effort to scare people off cigarettes, we've created an entire stigmatized group.
(And, for the record, no, my mother never smoked. That didn't stop the lung cancer from killing her.)
... said Kelly on Aug 12, 2012 at 12:49 AM | link
So the question remains, what am I supposed to do with the statement in the ad?
@laurabird -- my father killed himself with cigarettes, though he died from asthma before lung cancer had a chance.
... said Carl on Aug 12, 2012 at 9:29 PM | link
I'm mostly shocked at the black hipster. All the hipsters I've met have been painfully and insufferably white. Its like he's breaking new ground, in a bad way.
... said Mrs. Misanthrope on Aug 12, 2012 at 11:15 PM | link