Billboards talk at us all day. Every so often, somebody talks back.
Altering an advert so it says something its owners never intended has a name: subvertising. It is the tradition our Shits & Giggles T-shirts borrow from, with one important difference. Our billboards are invented, and the vandalism happens on a T-shirt rather than on somebody else’s property.
What is subvertising?
Subvertising is a mix of “subvert” and “advertising”. It means taking the look, language and confidence of an advert and turning them against the original message, usually to make a joke, a political point or both. It belongs to a wider idea often called culture jamming: using the visual language of mass media to comment on mass media.
The best examples are small interventions. A few changed letters, a speech bubble or a scrawled reply can make a polished advert say something completely different, and the original design does most of the work.
A short history of vandalised billboards
San Francisco, 1977: the Billboard Liberation Front
The Billboard Liberation Front formed in San Francisco after its first “hit” in 1977. Its members described their work as “improving” billboards rather than defacing them. They were known for carefully matched lettering and overlays, so the altered message looked as if it belonged to the original campaign.
Sydney, 1979: BUGA UP
In October 1979, a group in Sydney started BUGA UP, short for Billboard Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions. They targeted tobacco and alcohol adverts with spray-painted rewrites. Anyone could join by signing “BUGA UP” on an altered billboard. Australia’s Cancer Council later credited the movement with helping to radicalise the debate about tobacco advertising, most of which Australia banned in 1992.
Paris, 2015: Brandalism
Brandalism, founded in 2012, took the idea to a larger scale. In November 2015, before the COP21 climate talks, the group placed around 600 artist-made spoof adverts in advertising spaces across Paris.
Why it still works
Adverts are designed to sound certain. They promise that you will win, that your opinion matters and that a simple conversation can change your day. A single handwritten reply punctures that certainty immediately, which is why a defaced billboard can be funnier than a joke written from scratch.
The joke also depends on recognition. If you know the tone being mocked, whether it is a wartime recruitment poster, a crisp-packet competition or a workplace wellbeing campaign, you get the joke before you have finished reading.
Meet the POOR FORM graffiti bandit
Every Shits & Giggles design starts with a serious-looking, weathered poster or billboard that we have made up. Then an anonymous hooded graffiti bandit arrives with a can of fluorescent pink paint and adds the reply that polite society was thinking but would never write down.
- Your Country Needs You answers a classic pointing recruitment poster. Read the history of the 1914 original.
- It’s Good to Talk interrupts a cheerful workplace wellbeing poster.
- Win Big takes on a “5,000 prizes inside” promotion.
- Your Opinion Matters has some feedback of its own.
- A Question for God, Lucky Guess and Sex Is Good But… complete the current set.
Every design is printed as a large back artwork on a garment-dyed Comfort Colors 1717 T-shirt, with a small PF identifier on the front. They are adult humour tees and most contain explicit language.
Our bandit only paints on T-shirts. If you want to join in, wearing one is the legal option.
Shop the Shits & Giggles collection of funny adult T-shirts.