What is this an ad for?!?

The purpose of a billboard, as I understand it, is to convey a message, usually commercial in nature. EAT AT JOE’S, and the like. But I’ve been noticing the trend that billboards in my neighborhoods are increasingly, well, ineffective on me. The simple reason being that I have no idea what COMA A JOSE’S means.

It’s like, I look up in the sky, and I see a tasty burger. I’m sold. Please. Let me buy your burger. But unfortunately, the sign has no subtitles, and I am left to starve another day.

Most billboards in my neighborhood are in Spanish or Korean. Now, let me be clear, I’m not some jingoist xenophobe here, I’m just making an observation. The billboards wouldn’t be in other languages if they weren’t reaching an audience. In fact, they must be reaching a larger audience than they would be if they were in English. That’s how advertising works.

Lately, I’ve even been noticing that the two groups are teaming up. Kogi Korean BBQ taco trucks patrolling the street, La Taquiza is serving kimchi and short ribs… the advertisements, it seems, are really secret messages, coded to instill peaceful relations that begins with the merging of cuisines. Just like Louisiana Famous Fried Chicken, Chinese Food and Donuts.

And seriously, have you seen written Korean? That shit looks complicated. I read online that it’s actually a phonetic language, and that each ‘character’ is actually a consonant-vowel combination. And now you know!

So what does that mean for you and me, babe? You are reading this English language blog, so I will (illogically) assume that you are a native English speaker, and therefore are also in this predicament. Basically nothing, except that we can assume we are vastly outnumbered in this crazy world, and if you want any hints as to what to buy, what to eat, etc., you’d better fend for yourself, or learn Chinese.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 9:39 pm and is filed under LA Rant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.