Man Extremely Interested in Doodled Penises on Subway Ads
Some people collect stamps. Others, rare LPs. Graphic designer Galen Smith likes to gather pictures of New York City subway ads defaced by scribbled penises. He's put together a whole book of them, called New York Dick, chronicling ways the male member has been used to undermine media messaging beneath the NYC streets. He's not just goofing around, either. "These defacements (besides being a generalized screw you to the establishment) are part of a dissatisfied dialog with advertising, marketing, and consumerism that all of us can relate to," Smith said. "The idiocy of the graphic was part of the kryptonite-like power of the whole enterprise. No matter how multidimensional and superhuman an ad was, it was made flat and feeble by a penis drawn on it. And no matter how ubiquitous and branded an apparent one-way communication was, a disrespectful dickish two-way dialog was possible if you wanted it to be, and if you had a Sharpie with you." Check out some of the images from the book below. And no, Smith doesn't include instances where the advertiser scrawled the penis on purpose.









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