cambridge – Bad Reputation A feminist pop culture adventure Thu, 01 Dec 2011 09:00:23 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.6 37601771 Markgraf’s World AIDS Day Rampage /2011/12/01/markgrafs-world-aids-day-rampage/ /2011/12/01/markgrafs-world-aids-day-rampage/#comments Thu, 01 Dec 2011 09:00:23 +0000 http://www.badreputation.org.uk/?p=8715 HELLO, INTERNET.  My name is Markgraf.  In recognition of World AIDS Day this year, I’ve been rampaging all over Cambridge city centre with FACTS, my talented friend Kirsten (who took the completely amazing photographs) and a whole load of mis-behaving paper!

COLD HARD FACTS ON IRRITATINGLY FLIMSY PAPER

ARE YOU READY FOR THE FACTS?  Of course you are.  Everyone should be ready for facts about HIV transmission and statistics, because it’s ignorance that fuels prejudice, and prejudice that shits on people’s lives.
A photograph of a young man holding a placard in a busy town centre. The crowd is blurred out, and the figure of the young man sharp and colourful in contrast. The placard reads, 'FACT: More people than ever are living with HIV in the UK, but prejudice makes keeps them silent and makes their lives extremely difficult'

Fun fact: there’s effective treatments for both HIV and hideous misinformation and ignorance!

A photograph of a young man posing with a placard against a building. The placard reads, 'FACT: you cannot get HIV from a kiss, or by sharing a cup or a plate or a hug.'

…So hug away! :D

A photograph of a young man crouching on a fountain, holding a placard. The placard reads, 'MYTH: Only gay men can get HIV. In 2010, the majority of new HIV diagnoses were acquired heterosexually.'

Can we stop assuming things about people’s lifestyles, now?  Please?

A photograph of a young man holding a placard above his head while standing on the wall in front of King's College, Cambridge. The placard reads, 'MYTH: Lots of people come to the UK for free HIV treatment. No they don't! Most migrants with HIV don't even know it.'

HIV can be spread regardless of anyone’s background or immigration status.  And you can’t seek out treatment for free for a virus you don’t know you have.  Get yourself screened regularly.

A photograph of a young man looking perplexed while holding a placard in a busy market. The placard reads, 'MYTH: You can get HIV from a fish pedicure. What? No! This has never happened and there is no evidence that it ever could.'

I mean, the fish don’t even get anywhere near your bloodstream. And if they do, YOU HAVE BIGGER PROBLEMS THAN HIV TRANSMISSION TO WORRY ABOUT AS YOU ARE PRESUMABLY RECEIVING A SHARK PEDICURE.1

AND THAT’S A WRAP, FOLKS.  Pop over to HIVAware for more.

A photograph of a young man looking determined while holding a placard and stepping dramatically into a red old fashioned phonebox. The placard reads, "FACT: More people than ever are living with HIV in the UK, but prejudice makes keeps them silent and makes their lives extremely difficult."

Spread facts, not fear.  Wear a ribbon.  Get screened.

  1. Ed’s note: For those made curious by the fish pedicure placard, this is a misconception that’s currently so widespread, it has its OWN SECTION on the HIVAware Mythbusting FAQ. Yeah.
]]> /2011/12/01/markgrafs-world-aids-day-rampage/feed/ 13 8715 Found Feminism: How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To Say No To The Special K Lady /2011/07/19/found-feminism-how-i-stopped-worrying-and-learned-to-say-no-to-the-special-k-lady/ /2011/07/19/found-feminism-how-i-stopped-worrying-and-learned-to-say-no-to-the-special-k-lady/#comments Tue, 19 Jul 2011 08:00:51 +0000 http://www.badreputation.org.uk/?p=6557 Just in case anyone hasn’t seen this rather gratifying piece of graffiti, I’m borrowing the Found Feminism mic to extend its reach.

@annarchism on Twitter took this shot on Mill Road, Cambridge.

Photo of a poster advertising special K. A white brunette model poses in a red swimsuit. Graffiti stickers are pasted over the poster. They read 'hey there special K lady, I know you think I should diet so I can be slim like you. Thing is, I think I look fabulous just the way I am. Also Special K tastes like cardboard, so piss off.'

Special K is one of those things I’ll happily eat for breakfast, or if I feel like eating cereal. The berry edition is kinda okay. The Special K diet, on the other hand, is about as special and remarkable as white in a snowstorm, especially when you realise that you’ll get a more interesting bunch of flavours from taking your hungover colleague up on the offer when they dare you to shove your own face into the shredder tray at work and explore whether it can double as a food trough. The entire diet is marketed towards going down a jeans size as fast as is humanly possible for £3.89. (I have already mastered going down four jeans sizes without paying any money. I just walk out of H&M and into M&S.)

But! Aside from the fact the diet is as useful and realistic to genuine lasting weightloss – or healthy living – as wearing a loaded fruit bowl on your head, and aside from the fact that these ads are flagged squarely at certain kinds of gendered insecurity that make me go “Shine? Shine on fire, Kellogg. Right on fire“, a quick look at some history of Special K’s posters is an interesting little trip to go on.

Because it didn’t used to hang quite this way, ironically. Kellogg launched Special K in 1955, when my mum was toddling and the NHS was just hitting a ripe old age of seven. It was, Kellogg’s big proud blue-and-white “history site” informs me, “the first high-protein breakfast cereal ever offered to consumers.” Two years before, they’d launched “melba-toasted PEP flakes”, which … yeah. The Fifties. I don’t even.1

Here’s a Special K poster from that era, in which the elderly, man and woman alike, are DISCOMBOBULATED BY THE SHEER IMPACT OF KELLOGG’S NUTRITIONAL PROMISE. However, neither of them are particularly bothered about dress sizes at this particular historical juncture. (There’s been a War on, you know.)

There is something distinctly strange about the vintage poster looking kinder to women as consumers than the now-poster, is what I’m saying. Especially given our common habit of dissing our idea of the Fifties as some sort of comparative hell for that hackneyed GCSE-textbook concept, “the role of women”. Holding forth in the pub, you might crack one about how ads like Special K Lady look like they fell “out of the 1950s”, until you remember that in the 1950s they were just ditching rationing and things like bananas were riveting news. So maybe nobody wanted to goddamn well eat any more cardboard than they really bloody had to. This is not to say that things were better then (I also found an ad showing a bikini-clad woman trying to touch her toes with the slogan IT’S TIME FOR JELLO) but they’re not really much better at all now, are they, which gives me quite a bit of uncomfy pause for thought. Yes, following on from (in the UK) the Ministry of Food and Doctor Carrot and all, there was a real focus on nutrition, convenience foods, and how (or whether) these could be combined – and I mean, yeah, Kellogg were good at playing with that, with slogans like Teen-agers welcome a new protein cereal that helps you have – A FINE BODY. But it wasn’t quite “Is your man off checking out a peppier model? Never mind The Second Sex! Give dinner the shove! Subsist instead on Special K until your tastebuds fair expire from unparalleled wheaty boredom, and a prevailing vague suspicion that life really should, by now, be a bit more fun.”

Hurrah for you, therefore, Cambridge-based graffiti warrior. You are hereby awarded one BadRep salute, and we have dedicated breakfast in your honour.

Not a cardboard flake in sight.

  1. For more cereal posters, check out the hall of fame here. The 1960s was even less sensible, with the launch of a poster proclaiming NOW – ICE-CREAM IN A NOURISHING CEREAL. Age of extremes, guys. Age of extremes. Even Coco Pops have not yet gone that far.
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