A theater of commerce

November 26, 2024 1:30 AM

These advertisements—or subway cards as they’re better known—are what I term subway reading, as they offer us a uniquely democratic example of what passengers were actually reading rather than what they read voluntarily. It is in this unprecedented breadth of viewership that we can dig deeper into how these subway cards shaped social reproduction in the form of “good behavior” on the subway. Specifically, this subway reading invites us to question how we can read the Subway Sun as a reaction to the threat of a radically unclassed and unprecedentedly diverse space. from Advertising Etiquette: On Shaping the New York City Subway

Subway reading, previously

posted by chavenet (8 comments total)

We watch screens fixed on desks or in our hands, physically isolated
Subway riders are surrounded by signs, physically packed together.
Either way, information highway or information subway, captive in informaton bubbles, surrounded by curated corporate messages designed to shape group behavior.
posted by otherchaz at 2:10 AM on November 26 [1 favorite]

Never forget Dr. Zizmor!
posted by grumpybear69 at 5:58 AM on November 26 [4 favorites]

The Miss Subway of (whatever year) were fun.
posted by Czjewel at 6:24 AM on November 26 [1 favorite]

Toronto has (had?) Poetry on the Way, and from that, I learned by heart (except that in my mind it is always a pyramid of black glass not crystal) the Alden Nowlan poem Canadian January Night.

Toronto also had subway ads that were literally for subway ads, like, the company that sells advertising in the subway was advertising how good it is to advertise in the subway and one series of ads they ran included some little word puzzles or rebuses and the tagline was 'See? Subway posters are so captivating you'll even read one ...' with the ending being something like 'written by a cat' or similar. I figured them all out except the one that said something like 'ternaitn a ticpave' and it still haunts me. I even tried emailing the company that ran the ad campaign and no one ever answered me.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:38 AM on November 26 [2 favorites]

For an Anglo kid like me riding the subways to school in the 90s, "La Decisión" was my introduction to (a) telenovelas, and (b) safe-sex education.

A follow-up from 2012.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 6:54 AM on November 26 [1 favorite]

I love the poetry in the subway cars in NYC. However, walking through the 42nd St. station where the Shuttle is right now is one giant immersive Wicked ad which I find repulsive and kind of aggressive. That whole station is just a billboard to the highest bidder now.
posted by archimago at 8:42 AM on November 26 [1 favorite]

That’s kind of in the La Decisión followup —

After six years, though, a new MTA ad policy torpedoed the soap opera. It was then, 17 years ago, that the MTA announced a new policy that would see the vast majority of subway car ads limited to one major advertiser per side. The MTA figured to earn an extra $3 million per year, but the DOH wouldn’t be a part of it.

I’m guessing partly the whammy effect of a whole wall and mostly the “don’t want to be next to” pusillanimity of marketing.
posted by clew at 10:16 AM on November 26 [1 favorite]

Those who have lived in cities with an underground transit system will already have some sense of these rules: no loud music, give up your seats to those who need them, let people off before you get on. But where do these ideas of “correct” behavior on public transport come from?

They aren't ideas of "correct" behavior on public transport. They're ideas of correct behavior on public transport. We need to coexist in a crowded common space. Don't block the stairs or clip your nails on the subway.

It's obnoxious to break these social norms on the subway. It can be obnoxious when someone personally takes it upon themselves to enforce these norms on the subway.

This blog post author personally taking it upon themselves to criticize silent PSA signs with 2000 words of cliche leftist academic-speak is definitely obnoxious.
posted by AlSweigart at 7:52 AM on November 29