Colour advertising

Skin colour is one of the most variable external traits in the human race. But it says very little about who you are, except to reveal whether your ancestors needed protection from tropical sun damage or whether they needed to synthesize more vitamin D in the dark north.

So why are we still obsessed with it? And more importantly, why are our ads?

This first one, via Copyranter, is from Spain:

The headline (translated for international awards show judges, I presume) is "Don't let your colours mix". And the outdated joke about sleeping with the gardener (who is, of course, "ethnic") is played out for laughs. I'm not amused.

This next one, also from Copyranter, is an instalment from Johannesburg:

The bench says "non-whites" and is a throwback to the days of Apartheid. Underneath is a guerilla ad for Tropitone sunless bronzing cream. That's right — 46 years of massive human degradation and suffering harnessed to make a joke about fake 'n' baking. Not cool.

Meanwhile, as white south Africans are bronzing, Vaseline is helping men in India lighten their skin colour on Facebook:

I realize that there is a lot of complicated sociology behind cultural interpretations of skin colour, but in my opinion we just need to get the hell over it. This is the 21st Century, a diverse, connected global community. And we don't ever want to go back to the racist world of our great-grandparents:

(via boredpanda)