Here is a public service poster for the Tokyo Subway that makes me giggle every time I see it.
The poster shows a woman on a subway car rudely taking up 2 seats with her overflowing bag of makeup accessories and generally offensive grooming tactics.
The subways of Tokyo are notoriously overcrowded, so that even though it’s filled with the generally well behaved people of Japan, there are always those few obnoxious people that can make traveling a less than ideal experience.
This poster is part of a series called ‘Please Do It At Home’ that aims at showing obnoxious subway passengers just how …obnoxious… their actions are.
Apparently ladies trying to save time in the morning by putting makeup on while riding the train is a big problem. The text of this poster keeps things polite by asking ‘please do it at home’ and ‘please refrain from putting on makeup in the train’.
But the main impact of the message is in the yellow, black, and white picture which basically says ‘Lady, look at how ignorant you look to other people when you do this kind of thing!’
What gets to me though is the guy in the background.
I know that he’s supposed to represent the outrage and indignation of other Tokyo Subway riders at women who put on makeup while riding the train, but…well to me he just looks like a creeper.
Maybe he’s been stalking this particular lady for a while now, shadowing her every move while she travels unaware.
Or maybe he’s just a guy that rides the subway specifically to stare creepily at women from the other side of the a subway car.
Either way it looks like he just slid into the shadows to watch her from as close a vantage point as possible.
So I say this poster can be read another way: ‘No staring creepily at other subway passengers! Please do it at home.’ :D.