Stickers like tonight's certainly prove that the message is often far more important than the people who create it. For the last couple of years these "homes not whole foods" stickers have been one the more prevalent finds within my collection. I'm pretty sure I've seen them all over the city but there are two in particular that I see every single day, since it's on my route into work. And even though I've seen these stickers everyday, they still continue to catch my eye. It is such a simple and clean design that it often just stands out on the typical surfaces. It is also fairly clear that whoever made this sticker was more concerned with getting their message out there than garnering attention for themselves. Unfortunately I have to admit that until I actually looked into this sticker tonight, I really only had a vague idea what this message pertained to. While I hate the idea of being ignorant, I have never been very good at keeping up with current events especially on the local level. So it was fairly interesting to see how this story unfolded over the course of two years through the various articles I found related to this sticker.
For those who are about on the same level of obliviousness as I am, this particular controversy started back in 2015 when the residents of Penn Plaza over in East Liberty were given eviction notices. The owners of the building, LG Realty, had made the decision to redevelop the property into a new complex of apartments, offices, and to create the space for a larger commercial venue. Which of course meant the current housing had to be demolished and the residents would have to find homes elsewhere. After some time it was then announced that the store that would be headlining this redevelopment would in fact be Whole Foods, whose current location wasn't too far from this proposed project. Well this announcement led to a fair amount of outrage by local rights groups, with a few of them calling for a boycott of Whole Foods. However while this attempt to shine a light onto the issues of affordable housing within Pittsburgh did get a bit of attention, it really wasn't enough to make a dent into the lives of people who would normally go to this store anyway. This project and Whole Food's involvement did become a big discussion point for people when they were looking at the housing issue though. With the ever increasing tech presence here in Pittsburgh and the gentrification that tends to accompany it, there are some valid concerns about people being able to afford living in many of the neighborhoods. Then the story takes an interesting turn. The demolition officially began in the spring of 2017 and then Whole Foods announced that it would no longer be part of the project in the summer. After all of the struggles this project created and the relocation of the previous residents, the main component decided that they were no longer interested in it for the moment. A portion of this decision I'm sure had to do with the Amazon purchase of Whole Foods and the company as a whole doing an evaluation of its current state. While some could say that this was a bit of a win, there are others that would say that this served more as a cautionary tale. The situation as a whole seemed to showed poor planning on the developer's part and caused many to wonder how you balance that wish to develop an area with supporting your current residents. Obviously this isn't an easy question to answer, I know I personally have been feeling the financial strain of living by myself here in Shadyside these past few years. But no matter the outcome of this discussion, the "homes not whole foods" stickers serve as a reminder that this is a larger issue that still needs to be looked at. Oh and if you were wondering where the Penn Plaza development currently stands, it was announced back in November that Whole Foods had renewed their interest in the project. And with the recent race to lay a claim for being the newest Amazon headquarters, I can guarantee this project plays some small role in Pittsburgh's play for the title.
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It's a little eerie how much of popular culture manages to seep into your head without you realizing it. Now a large part of this is clearly just effective advertising by the creators/pushers of products, getting even the most banal things noticed by all. I just have to admit to finding it a little concerning when I know what I'm looking at without actually knowing anything about it. As soon as I saw tonight's sticker I knew it belonged to the game Plants vs Zombies. Now everyone who reads this on a regular basis knows that I am not a video game person, so I have zero experience with/exposure to the game itself. Honestly before I started looking into this tonight I had no idea what the game even was, other than obviously dealing with plants and zombies in some manner. Reading through the Wikipedia page, it doesn't seem to be a terribly complicated game since you're really just keeping the zombies away from your area. It also feels like a unique take on these sorts of strategy games, with the planting and collecting of seeds to create your defenses. And while I may still be mildly baffled by the appeal of these kinds of things, this game is certainly still a popular one after almost 9 years. Capcom has even gone on to create 4 different games based on the original premise. There's a Twitter feed to keep players updated with new quirks to the game and what I'm guessing are fun/cute pictures for it. And they have an entire Youtube channel dedicated to gameplay breakdowns and walkthroughs. I'm also a little surprised by all of the different devices you can play this game on, I kind of thought it was just one of those phone apps people gushed over and didn't realize it started on the computer. Quickly skimming through my previous posts, I see that while I've briefly touched on zombies a couple of times I really haven't gone into too much depth about them. Although that's not terribly surprising since the two big times I've looked at zombies it was in association with a local band. So I figured I would look at this popular creature for a little bit, since they are still such a prevalent element in TV and movies. I can't say I've ever been a big zombie fan, certainly an interesting piece of storytelling but it never really captured my imagination like some things have. Well I guess that's not entirely true, I find the original idea of the zombie to be fascinating and scary in a way that the current zombie isn't. While every culture has had a fear of the undead, the word zombie that we use today is derived from Haitian folklore. What makes the Haitian zombie a little different from the zombies you'll see on things like The Walking Dead is that these creatures weren't mindless flesh craving monsters. The Haitian zombie was just an animated corpse created by a powerful sorcerer or bokor. These animated corpses were then used as personal slaves by the bokor who created them. There is also a branch of this zombie belief that claimed bits of people's souls could be captured and used as a source of power by people. In either situation though, what the zombie boils down to is that even after death you can have no rest and are trapped without a will of your own. So for a group of individuals that were already enslaved, the idea of remaining a slave even after death is a horrifying one. There are even stories out there of living people who are enslaved in a similar manner through the use of powders that cause them to appear to be dead and deprived of their will. One of my favorite stories on a Podcast I listen to actually uses this premise during their zombie section. So while being a mindless creature that craves human flesh is certainly a scary one, I think the idea of being trapped within yourself with no hope of rest even after death is far worse. While I'm on the subject of zombies tonight, I really can't end tonight's post without sharing The Cranberries song Zombie. I vaguely remember growing up with this song, my dad is a fan of The Cranberries, but this one of those things that remind me heavily of college. It is one of those sad and odd coincidences that I decided to go with tonight's theme, especially with the recent news of the lead singer's passing away today, but I can't think of a better way of ending things. I hate to admit it but tonight's another night where I'm not really sure where to begin. I could start off with something trite about hidden things, since the sign is almost completely covered in stickers and those are then hidden by some weeds, but eh... I'm pretty sure I've done that before. Hmm, I guess rather than beat around the bush tonight I'll just share what I've managed to find with the stickers I can clearly make out. Obviously the first one that really pops out is our good old local theater Row House Cinema. I know I've seen this sticker in a lot of neighborhoods, the first time I shared it was in a photo from downtown, but I'm pretty sure a good portion of the ones in my collection right now are along Butler like tonight's photo. Although that does make a fair amount of sense since this is where the theater is and you can grab a sticker while you're buying your ticket. Who needs expensive advertising when you can get your patrons to do it for you, right.
Heading to the bottom of the sign, you can see a sticker for Torch and Dagger Tattoo. This particular parlor is located over on Liberty, up in Bloomfield. Looking at their Facebook page it looks like they're a slightly newer shop, opening their original location in 2015 and moving to a larger one this past fall. Their actual website is an interesting little thing though. A lot of the sites that I've looked into for the blog recently have had sections that break down important information about not only the shop but their views on tattooing as well. This one though really only has their contact information and small galleries of the different artists' styles. So if you're intrigued by a particular style you have to contact them to get booking and pricing information. It certainly is one way to get people into the doors. Now one of the good things I've found about continuing on with this project is that the more I look into the various stickers around this city, the more stickers I actually find online. I briefly featured the Pete Butta sticker before but could not find anything about it, so I kind of glazed over it. With the information I found tonight though, I really have to wonder what in the world I was even searching for that first time. I just started typing in Pete Butta into the search bar in Google tonight and it began to auto fill for me, so I must have been looking for something weird that first time. As it turns out, Pete Butta is a popular DJ here in Pittsburgh. Looks like he's not only done a lot of work at various bars and events around the city but has also done some work with the Pittsburgh Penguins and musicians like Wiz Khalifa. While his personal website seems to be down at the moment he does have a fairly large presence on Facebook and Instagram. The final sticker I want to briefly touch on tonight is the Jorts one. If you remember a while back I featured an Inspector Gadget sticker that had in very small print a message from a Jorts. Back then I briefly alluded to the fact that there was another set of stickers that shared this Jorts signature but couldn't be sure that they were actually the same person. Well this is an example of these stickers and unfortunately I'm still not sure who Jorts is. When you search for Jorts or even Jorts graffiti you mainly just get pictures of people in jean shorts, which is ultimately a bizarre collection of images in the end. Whoever Jorts is though, he is certainly an interesting character. The series of stickers that tonight's example falls into are all handwritten messages that can mostly be found along Butler Street. Generally sardonic and irreverent, these stickers are always worth that pause in your walk to consider them and what they are saying. If you don't have a moment to wander down Butler looking for them though you can check out Pgh.Stickers, pittsburghgraffiti, and pgh_street_art over on Instagram for a couple of other examples of these Jorts stickers. Actually if you're looking for someone new to follow on Instagram I highly suggest these guys, they are always turning out interesting images of the great things you can find along the city's streets. A big thing you have to develop early in any English class is that ability to look at a story and find the meaning of things. It's not necessarily figuring out the plot of the story, although the plot often plays into the greater meaning of the piece. You need to know the history surrounding when a story was originally released to get where a lot of the references and allusions come from. You also need to be able to see how the story fits into the accepted social themes of that particular time, to know when they are examining the larger issues of that time period or if they are just out to entertain you. It's always about finding the symbols throughout the story and pulling a larger context out for discussion. Probably the biggest skill you can develop as an English major though is the simple skill of effectively bullshitting an answer. Finding that small area of expertise you can bring to the arena and expounding the hell out of it. I had a friend in college who could always find some way to get an underlying gay tone out of any story. Now granted he did focus a lot of his classes around the Victorian Era, so repressed sexual undertones are a dime a dozen, but I was always impressed by the sheer number of prompts he could pull out of that particular idea. I will admit though that bullshitting has never been my strongest suite, I can usually see enough of the symbolism to pull a discussion out but expanding it into a full argument is a struggle. But what little bullshitting I managed to develop in college has definitely help out with the blog, giving me just enough ability to come up with some meaning for a sticker when I share it with you guys. Unfortunately those skills are falling up short on this one.
I decided to share this sticker because I do find it to be an interesting design. I love all of the details in the owl and...well I do generally just like owls. There is a previous post where I looked at a different owl and the general symbolism the bird tends to stand for, but as a quick reminder the owl typically stands for wisdom here in the West. Although it can also be a harbinger of death or associated with femininity, you know these go. Going back to the sticker, I also find the can to an odd yet intriguing addition to the sticker. I would say with the frown and the x-ed out eyes that this is representing something that is bad for you. My initial reaction would therefore be beer, since it is the alcohol you would find in a can, but it's not like soda is all that good for you either. And here is where I get stuck with this tonight, both of these images are part of the same sticker so somehow they fit together to mean... something. Now this could just be something like Owl Beer, which there are actually a couple of companies that either have an owl involved in their name or have a draft using it. Or it could be a statement against improperly disposing of your cans/waste and how it affects the wildlife. However, while either of these ideas could fit the bill, a large part of me feels like there is something I'm missing about this picture. Is it saying that it's wiser to avoid poisonous everyday substances? Is this owl a particular species that changes the way you would read it? If this was the only instance of seeing this sticker I'd probably just write it off as someone drawing two images they thought were cool, but I've seen this sticker quite a few times. I feel like there is something here, I'm just missing it. Do any of you have possible interpretations you'd like to share? I'd greatly appreciate it if you do :). Going through my collection of sticker photos, there are just some finds that I can't help but be tremendously impressed by. A few are because of how well the final photo turned out. Sure this is stroking my ego a bit but when I manage to get that angle or the settings just right, it really does transform these sticker finds into something special. For other photos, it's the story that I managed to uncover about the sticker. The fact that I found a Canadian artistic social statement here in Pittsburgh is still great. Or there is the sticker in East Liberty for a presidential campaign from the 90s that I still don't quite understand how it's standing. There are also all of the great interviews that people have been kind enough to give me, bringing so much more meaning to the sticker than I could even guess at. And then there are the designs that are just so impressive to begin with. I'm pretty sure I just stood there in the middle of the Waterfront staring at this sticker when I originally found it. At first it was because I was trying to figure out what exactly I just stumbled across, wondering who could be behind its creation. The longer I stared though, the more I began to appreciate it. Being just shades of white and gray, this sticker is subtly shaded to bring out the definition of the skull without going too far into the usual skull tropes. It makes it feel so realistic for how fantastic of a design it is. There is also so much detail in it for being such a small image. When I finally did start taking pictures, I ended up taking 5 different exposures of this just trying to figure out that right balance of background and sticker. Obviously there's no way this sticker wouldn't grab your attention, it just needed to be given the space to do so effectively.
When I decided to use this sticker tonight though, I knew that there was no way I'd actually find anything for it. For how detailed of an image it is, there really aren't any big identifying features to this design even when you zoom in. It also probably doesn't help that the only way I can really describe this image is devil skull which is not terribly descriptive. A lot of ideas fall into this fairly broad description: human skulls with tiny devil horns, more animalistic ones with realistic curved horns, your typical cartoon devil, and for some reason a fair amount of skulls with a snake. Well alright the last one isn't that odd since I think symbolically it can translate into a sign of evil and demons, but still wasn't expecting that many to pop up in my search. So I'm sure you can imagine my surprise when I actually did stumble across something that seemed to match this image. Unfortunately though, this find has kind of confused and complicated things. In my image search results I found a picture of a miniature figurine that had the same defining characteristics as tonight's sticker. The long curved horns, an open mouth with the same teeth configuration, deep set eye sockets, and the diamond shape nose all seem to match perfectly. The artist behind this little statue is Magdalena Ladwik and her site is called Sandwomancraft. Now here is where it starts to get a little confusing, Magdalena is originally from Poland but is currently living in Ireland. And while it isn't unrealistic for stickers and art to make their way to Pittsburgh from across the pond (considering I did find a German music label a few months ago) these kind of things do cause me to pause and reassess my find. There is also the fact that searching through her site, I can't find any example of her venturing into stickers as a creative outlet. She's got quite a few amazingly intricate mini book sculptures, some drawings and illustrations but no stickers. I even checked her Etsy page and I didn't see anything. It could very well still be her creation, the images are so similar, but I find it bizarre that there isn't some remnant or hint that she did something like this. Happy New Year folks, I hope you had some great ways to celebrate the holiday. I decided to bring the new year in with a brief look at one of our most prolific graffiti artists here in Pittsburgh. I know that I've said there have been a couple of stickers I feel pretty confident that you've seen before but if there is one tag that you are guaranteed to have seen it's a Chu. A Chu tag can come in quite the variety options: some are just the letters, others are the letters turned into a face, many are just spray painted onto objects but there are quite a few which are sticker's like tonight's example. And while it is a very simple design, it is a very common one to find. A lot of the Chu tags seem to be concentrated around the Lawrenceville area but I know I've found this tag in most of the neighborhoods that I've wandered around, although this admittedly is not that large of an area at the moment.
The mind behind Chu is the artist Jerome Charles. According to his website he started off as a photographer, got into tagging, and is now doing a fair amount of work as an illustrator. The collection of his work on the site is impressive, with examples of his photography and the recent exhibits that he has participated in. One of these exhibits was in association with Ace Hotel, where they gave him a room to do whatever he pleased. He also does a lot of work in community service, although a portion of this is due to the fact that it's court mandated. In 2016, Jerome Charles turned himself in for the damage to public property and criminal mischief charges that had compiled against him. And although he complied with the police and their investigation, he made it into the papers again a few months later when it was announced that he had gone against the pact he made with the court and continued to graffiti. He also mentioned in a blurb on his home page that when he was doing the exhibit with Ace Hotel, he had a court appearance the day after for his graffiti. While I understand that it is technically a crime to deface public property, and I'm sure that if it was my property that was getting spray paint and stickers all over it I'd be annoyed, but a large part of me has to wonder how much it matters at this point. Graffiti is used to make artistic and political statements on a daily basis. Quite a few of these artists/taggers end up continuing on to make a name for themselves in the art world. It's also not like charging people for this minor crime actually stops it. True this has given Chu even more notoriety but I'm sure he would appreciate having his tags valued without the hefty price on him. Well I definitely let the ball drop this week. I ended up letting the holiday get away from me and didn't get a chance to get a post around. But rather than throw something together to fill the spot on Tuesday, I figured I would just let it slide just this once. This is generally my issue with holidays, I let myself get distracted by all the goings on that I end up forgetting to do something. However, it was a nice day spent with my parents so I can't be too annoyed. Since it is the end of the year I do feel like I need to do some reevaluating of things associated with the blog. There are things I've let slide that I should probably restart and adjust how I present things across the outlets, but that's a thought to be discussed later. For now I thought I'd look at this interesting collection I found over in Bloomfield.
Starting with the sticker on the top, we have a local tattoo parlor. Armature Tattoo Co is a parlor actually located pretty close to where I found this sticker over in Bloomfield. I'm fairly certain they are still an active shop, I haven't gone down Liberty in a while to see if their shop is still open, but I would say since they did just post the other day on their Facebook page it seems likely. The only reason I hesitate is because their domain recently expired and just takes you to Go Daddy where it let's you know it's pending deletion. It may just be something where they haven't gotten around to renewing their domain, although I swear I was on their site fairly recently when I was looking for possible artists I'd like to go to. They do have a Twitter as well however they haven't appeared to use that since 2014. Like most of the parlors I've linked to though, they are a group that have a variety of styles for their customers to choose from. The next sticker that caught my attention was the Jukebox sticker. I have to say I wasn't sure what I was expecting when I went to the site at the bottom of the sticker, but I will admit that I was a little surprised to be taken to a rapper's site. Jukebox is a rapper out of Ohio who released his first album in 2016. In the little blurb about him, he mentions that he was a part of two other bands before attempting to go out on his own. He's got a couple of the tracks from his album Tales from the Black Hole as well as a few videos from a previous band and the album. Jukebox's sound is certainly a different a one. He has a bit of a slower method of rapping while the music behind him is a mix of that driving beat you'd expect in rap and a slightly experimental spacey electronic thing. Almost remains me of Flobots and their sound. He definitely looks to be a character, I'm just not sure how active he is now. I don't see anything on his page from this year but I also can't really say I looked for other outlets of his. The one that drew my attention the most though was the Sabo sticker. Since I started this project up, the Sabo stickers have been a pretty big presence in the Bloomfield area. I can't recall if I've seen this particular one or one of the other Sabo stickers in other areas but I know I used to pass them all the time on my walks through this particular neighborhood. Part of what that has always caught my attention is just how simple the designs of these stickers are, with that graffiti stencil feeling that they all seem to have. I also enjoy the gas mask, although I do have a bit of soft spot for a good doomsday's element in anything. Now I did try to find the artist behind this, I'm just not sure I did. There is a street artist called Sabo out there, who is fairly prolific, but I don't quite see a similarity between his style and this sticker. He is a conservative graffiti artist who has created some very eye-catching political statements. All of his pieces are very anti-Left and typically do their best to feel realistic and recognizable, which doesn't fit in with the stencil style of the stickers I've seen. I tried to do a little digging through his site for something that looks similar to tonight's sticker but it doesn't look like he's got much posted that's older than 2015. There is also the fact that he appears to be located around Hollywood, although that doesn't really mean much. I tried to see if I could pull something up more locally tied, unfortunately the closest thing I found was another photographer's post of a Sabo sticker. It would certainly be intriguing if this is the same Sabo but I can't help being severely doubtful of this. It seems like when you reach a certain age, there are just some phrases you really can't avoid hearing on a daily basis. "Traffic was just horrible," "Isn't the weather just (insert adjective)" or that dreaded cliche "Thank God it's Friday" always seem to appear in a conversation at some point throughout the week. Now admittedly most of these phrases are so frequently heard because they're a part of the acceptable business small talk. Those little topics that everyone knows to be safe and relatable to anyone who's spent even a short period of time in the workforce. I'm pretty sure the biggest culprit out there though is "Fake it til you make it." I will admit that while I've never liked the phrase, I do find it to be rather fascinating. Half the time people utter the phrase it's as a half-hearted attempt to promote confidence in someone else. This use of the phrase has become a bizarrely debated frame of mind apparently. Half of my Google results were articles about why "faking it til you make it" was a great method of self-improvement and the building of confidence. The other half were about why faking it was a terrible idea. Either way though it certainly has produced some weird posters. The other times I've heard this phrase uttered it's as a weird way to fool yourself into thinking your day/ life isn't as miserable as it seems. A big thing the company I work for does every morning is to hold a brief meeting to discuss the upcoming day. The start of every one of these meetings is to ask how people are feeling, which generally leads to one person claiming to be in a better mood than they are. While there really isn't a need to extrapolate on your mood there is always someone who admits that they're trying to fake it til they make it. Now what in the world does this thought process have to with tonight's sticker you may be wondering. Well as soon as I saw "Act like you know," I couldn't help but feel that it was pretty similar to "fake it til you make it." Both phrases seem to emphasize the idea of making it appear like you are better equip to handle a situation than you are. For some reason though, "act like you know" doesn't seem to bother me as much. Maybe it's because there isn't an ulterior reason for the pretending. You're just in a situation where you're unsure of yourself, so you just need to act your way through this moment. There isn't a need to keep the charade up to make others think you're better than you are. Sure the point of the fake it phrase is to pretend until you're confident in your abilities but knowing where that line in the sand is seems to be a bit harder to discern. The phrase in tonight's sticker just feels like a more plausible thought to me, act through it for now and figure it out for real later on. I think the fact that I found this sticker on Pitt's campus probably plays a small role in my interpretation. I mean I can't tell you the amount of tests and papers I faked my way through at the last minute while I was there. Although Urban Dictionary claims "Act like you know" means to recognize or stop playing, so I may be very wrong about this. I did try to find the mind behind tonight's sticker but it doesn't seem like I had any luck finding it. Although, I did find some interesting things that use this phrase. There is an acting coach who created the site actlikeyouknow.org to drum up some business for his workshops. NPR looked to have a series called Act Like You Know that seemed to introduce listeners to musicians. Apparently there is a group of guys that seem to do bike tricks on the streets who have created a Vimeo site with brief collections of their performances. They also seem to have a small online shop that sells a variety of items with the phrase on them. With pins, hats and shirts with different designs showcasing the phrase, I really thought that this sticker was one of theirs. I mean it may be but I couldn't find definitive proof that they made stickers like it. I did find a couple of different stickers from other people that also use this phrase but none that use this same style. But I think my favorite find was a song by Fat Larry's Band. It's a nice smooth and funky thing from 1982 that really catches your attention within the first couple of notes. It was an interesting twist to see that this group actually comes from Philadelphia. Now some of you may have heard this song before, it was apparently used in one of the Grand Theft Auto games, but it was delightful discovery for me tonight. Well that was a little surprising. When I snapped this photo, I will admit I wasn't really expecting much to come from it. I just enjoyed the remnants that were left on the bridge and that clear feeling of dusk I managed to capture. Unfortunately while getting photos at dusk is always nice, it is fairly problematic. If I'm not trying to find stickers on the weekend, it's usually while I'm wandering home after work. This means I only have the amount of light that's available when my day is over which isn't a whole lot of time in the winter, if any. Recently I haven't been getting out of work until almost 5, so I haven't done much searching as there is no light to work with. But the night I managed to get this photo there was just enough left to grab a few on the way to Station Square. Although I do feel like the colors are a bit muted, I think it works for the time of day. It also kind of works since the sticker is just a remnant, a faded thing along people's walks across the bridge. What I also find interesting about this sticker is the fact that you can still make out some of the leftover ink on the bridge from where the sticker fell away. As there is so much ink left there it's almost like the whole thing is there. We may have lost the phone number at the bottom but you can still find the defining features of this piece of advertising.
Luckily for me, among the things you can still make out is the website on the top of the sticker and it is still functional. I'm sure you can guess what this shop does but as a confirmation Studio One Tattoo is a tattoo and piercing parlor. It's a studio that started back in 1992 and is currently located in a converted Victorian house. Looks like they have 7 artists on site that will either do more traditional designs or will work with you to create original ones. What is a little surprising is that while it is a Pennsylvanian shop, it's around the Philly area. Now I've found quite a few stickers from the Philly area here but usually it's a band of some kind. One of the great things about stickers is their way of migrating around the country, I never know where each sticker will take me. I always have to wonder how these kinds of stickers make their way here though. I know when I was talking with Hot Rod Piercing they said that they will place their own stickers in the cities they're visiting, so was it the same with Studio One. Or was someone such a fan of the studio's work that they brought the sticker with them to Pittsburgh and placed it here. As you guys know I generally avoid delving too deep into the current political issues. It isn't because I don't have opinions about what's going on, I just never felt that was the point of this blog. Sure I'll share my interpretations of the stickers but you're really not here for my opinions in life. When I was looking through my collection though tonight I felt that there really wouldn't be a more topical time for me to share this sticker. With everything that's been hitting the news circuits lately from Roy Moore, Matt Lauer, Al Franken, and well whoever happens to be the next big scandal, I can't think of a more pertinent find in my collection. Alright technically if I want to be truly topical I should look at something dealing with Net Neutrality but I don't think I've found a sticker that really deals with that particular issue yet. Although that is one of the many things that makes stickers and graffiti such a great subject. They are such an easy way to express your opinions about the issues in the world, allowing you to create an outlet for your anger and to provoke discussions. And since stickers can be so versatile they can be everywhere, be updated to reflect the current issues out there, or just serve as a reminder that these issues haven't changed as much as people like to think they have.
Tonight's sticker certainly serves as brief reminder that while sexual harassment seems to be appearing more in the news, it isn't a new issue by any means. For those that may not quite see what the sticker is doing, it's the word "rapist" in the shape of the number 7. This is a clear reference to the Steelers' quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and his sexual assault accusations from 2009 and 2010. When I originally found this sticker, I'll admit that I only vaguely recalled what it was even dealing with. So as a brief recap for all of you in 2009 Roethlisberger was accused of sexual assault in a civil lawsuit by a woman in Lake Tahoe and in 2010 it was revealed that the police in Milledgeville, GA were investigating him for an assault in a local nightclub. Now the 2009 civil suit had affidavits from associates of the woman saying that she was bragging about the encounter, it never really got much motion in the press, and eventually settled out of court in 2011. The 2010 accusation did make a bigger scene, getting him a 6 game suspension and causing him to lose some of his endorsements. But this also eventually fell from the public eye when the police said that even without the woman involved wishing to remain anonymous they didn't have enough physical evidence to pursue investigation. Full disclosure about my sources on this one, I was using the Wikipedia article on Roethlisberger and a Vice article about the accusations so my presentation should be taken with a grain of salt. Now I'll be upfront about my position on the issue surrounding this particular sticker, I have no real stakes in it either way. While I may be a pseudo Steelers fan, I don't have a true affinity for the team. Actually I have no idea how they're even doing so far this season, but I can say that about any sport. I'm also not saying that he hasn't been a decent person, his foundation has done a lot with police forces and their K-9 programs as well as work with Make a Wish. But judging by the reactions in the Post-Gazette from the 2010 revelations, I have to say that it is quite the divisive issue for fans. Although it is the same general arguments you hear in any piece covering sexual harassment or assault. You have some people saying that they still support him and that these allegations are being blown out of proportion by the media. While others argue that they are ashamed of how things were handled by the team, NFL, the man himself with the general claim that he should have been punished more severely. And let's face it, these accusations really were barely a blip in his career since he was the 11th highest paid athlete in 2015 according to Forbes. Which is generally the issue with most of the harassment cases that get brought up. Sure more people are getting dismissed from their positions when these cases come to light but it's always treated as this big shock by the media, like it's a one time event. Pundits claim to be shocked by the actions of someone in power and drag those half-hearted apologies out of the accused, repeating these actions in a week when another is revealed. Once they've gone through the accepted motions, these stories are then pushed fairly quickly to the side and generally just become the occasional side note on that individual. While there is no reason to continue to dwell on the bad decisions made by people, we also need to stop acting like these are blips in their careers and completely out of character for them. I'll admit that there really isn't a "good" way to address the wide variety of harassment cases out there and I have no desire to force people back into the shadows, but the current treatment of these cases in the media isn't helping either. |
Maggie Ondrey
An amateur photographer and writer capturing a small portion of the city. Archives
August 2017
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