Canadian Urbanism Uncovered
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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47LCLoidJh4[/youtube]
Keeping with today’s British theme, Transport for London has a great public service video that highlights the need for drivers to be aware of cyclists. It may also have one of the best punchlines ever.
Thanks for Leah Rajesky for the tip
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8 comments
It’s a brilliant ad, but it’s totally ripped off of a famous 1999 video produced by the Visual Cognition Lab of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I first saw it about three years ago at a U of T talk given by psychologist and memeticist (to borrow Google’s descriptor) Dr. Susan Blackmore. It was mindblowing, and the room (populated largely by professors) burst into applause, as she tried to make it clear that she was not the one who had produced the video.
Thanks for the tip, Jonathan! Let’s hope it’s more of an “homage” than a rip-off, but in any case it’s a great concept to use for a safety awareness campaign.
I’m going to go read about “memes” now, which I have never heard of. Always something to learn here on Spacing…
aren’t the “memes” the people who are always pushing themselves into holes in traffic “me first me firsts” – and yes, maybe some are cyclists?…
hamish, a meme (pronounced “meem”) is the informational equivalent of a gene.
It’s a fragment of an idea that manages to multiply throughout the consciousness of a population. Like a gene, a meme gets passed from person to person provided it seems fresh and relevant.
Thanks Diane, but I have repungnant habits. This may be genetic, or at least I got much of it from my dad…
As for fresh and relevant, some may appreciate less focus on efFrontery…
I’d heard of the original video and figured that this would be in the same vein. And even though I was expecting some trickery I still didn’t catch it on first viewing. But I did count the number of passes correctly.
Cute video, but I only saw people passing a basketball and a moonwalking bear…
Where was the mention of cyclists?
And don’t tell me it was there and I just wasn’t looking for it, because I was, and it wasn’t.
At the end it says “its easy to miss something if you’re not looking for it.” And fades to “Look out for cyclists”.
Sometimes it gets cut off in the You Tibe version, so follow the link in the text to the original video.