While carving up the information superhighway on my digital surfboard recently, the following image jumped out at me:
I stared at it for more than a few seconds before realizing that’s actually not supposed be the shadow of Satan behind this orange-jacketed man. It’s also not supposed to be an artsy indication that the man himself is evil. You see, that picture is part of a banner ad for Merrill Lynch:
Rather than considering sinning with a smirk on his face, this man is apparently navigating life’s turns with the bull at his back. Sure.
I get it, Merrill Lynch’s logo is a bull. I can understand why one random designer at the company would think “Yup, a bull shadow, that’s us!”. But surely this ad was reviewed by others. Not a single person spoke up to say “Uh, that looks like the devil”?
Hell1, even the tail isn’t helping. Everyone knows that to tell a bull apart from Lucifer himself, you check the tail. Lucifer, of course, has a pointed tail, while a bull does not. And yet here, the tail’s end is partially obscured by the man’s head.
Thus, even now when I know exactly what this is supposed to be showing, the prince of darkness is all I can see.
Footnotes:
Ha! ↩︎
