Like lisa* at Sociological Images, I have long been familiar with the phrase "don't mess with Texas" (living in a New Mexico tourist town, one becomes familiar with many things Texas) but I wasn't aware that it was an anti-littering campaign.
I must say I regard it somewhat more kindly now, since I am in favor of not littering. It comes across as a sort of tough, "don't try to push me around" statement, which would appeal to people with a sense of themselves as rugged outdoorsy types. Pretty clever, really.
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My sisters and I used to take the phrase for a challenge, and talk about how we would totally mess with Texas, but we always meant hassle it, not litter in it. 'Cause we were raised better than that, I hope.
New Mexico's anti-litter campaign was something like "be kind, don't litter," which always struck us as somewhat uninspired. Maybe, being rugged outdoorsy types, we would have responded better to a tougher slogan. (I mean, we didn't litter, so our response was technically correct, but then, we weren't planning on littering anyway, so I can't completely credit the campaign.)
Unfortunately, I can't think of any tough slogan phrases that have any rhyme or assonance with 'New Mexico.' Probably something the sloganeers also noticed.
*I am assuming that blog etiquette calls for listing someone's name the way they give it, and am therefore eschewing capitalization.
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1 comment:
I didn't realize it as a anti-litter campaign, but it is a good idea. I still miss the crying Indian chief from the 70's after watching stupid people polluting - but ya know, somehow an Indian chief crying doesn't seem macho in the 21st century
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