The now famous Hope posters, designed by Shepard Fairely represent a positive logo for then presidential canidate Barack Obama. With patriotic colors and a thoughtful, upward looking face combined with the word hope across the bottom, the poster is pretty enticing. Mad Magazines mascot, Alfred E. Newman is a sort of king of appropriation, his face being morphed into parts of pop culture, particularly political sitations, such as this. He is an icon for outstanding stupidity, dumbness and and a representation of the phrases "herpderp" and "u mad?". A sort of founding father for all trolls and memes to some people. Mad Magazine used the Hope image and juxtaposed Newmans face onto it and changed Hope to Hopeless. Mad magizine promotes realism with a democratic edge, but they play fair and neutral. They are known for their satirical peices and humor. The combonation of this and the hope poster tells me that Mad magazine didnt put a lot of faith into Obamas words and even went so far as to imply his intelligence is off via Newmans replacement face and the word Hopeless at the bottom.

Charlie Sheen Chanel

I have seen these ads pop up on the Internet, and i believe they are an anti-ad/meme. They all are "ads" for Chanel that juxtapose images of disapproved society on them, such as little kids smoking and a 6 year old super model in a suggestive set-up.

This one hosts the face of Charlie Sheen after he became infamous for his drugged interviews and, shall we say, interesting comments. Chanel has both a positive and negative side to it, that being their front-runner status in the fashion world and their iconic image and founder. The more negative side being their model weight standards and perhaps their use of animal products and general lack of empathy.

Charlie Sheen has come to hold an increasingly negative view in the public eye. Chanel has always been up and down, irrelevant to most of the population, but known, which is something that both concepts have shared up until the Sheen interviews. I believe this ad (and all of the Chanel parody ads) has to do with exploitation. Sheen exploited himself and essentially ended up unable to handle it and getting carried away, which is also a common situation in the fashion world. This ad is a social commentary on fame as well and how that often leads to exploitation.

This ad certainly persuades me because I know it to be true as it has been shown in many other ways and forms, so my background knowledge helps sway me in one direction. The suicide of model Daul Kim, the mess that is Lindsey Lohan or the suicide of designer Alexander McQueen are all examples of how fame and exploitation lead to not so glamorous results.