Thank you for your World Vision-less

I was watching American Idol last night, yes, I know…I noticed they blurred the Coca Cola cups sitting on the judge’s table. This is presumably because Coca Cola didn’t pay for an advertisement. It reminded of me the BBC’s induction week where they took us thru the history of the BBC and during the week, they gave a talk about the lasting power of images, even when you are exposed to them for few seconds. The speaker showed a BBC clip with a blurred image of another popular brand and explained why the image was blurred. Apparently, there are studies made about how images we see daily influence our choices or ideas subconsciously. I was intrigued by this and from then on I walked around London paying attention to the number of images I was exposed to and tried to figure out how they might influence my choices as a consumer and my thoughts.

If the BBC would go out of their way to control an image a viewer might be exposed to for just few seconds, how about the power a billboard has? One particular photo campaign that bothered me a lot was a “World Vision” poster at the time plastered all over London bus stops. It had life-size picture of a desperate-looking black child with flies on his face and a pot belly. And the pathetic line that accompanied the disturbing picture was something sadder even, “with your help we can combat poverty”! I found it incredibly offensive. Anyone remembers those horrid old Tin Tin cartoons with darkened faces of white cartoons and bright red lipstick? It reminded me of that.

These kinds of degrading images of Africa and Africans have partly contributed to my decision to leave Europe, together with the weather, potatos and the London Underground.