Today’s Bloganuary prompt asks “If you had a freeway billboard, what would it say?”.
Let’s start by railing against the question. The term “freeway” only exists in North America as far as I’m aware, and “billboards” are only really common in the Americas, and India (almost unbelievably, I checked before making this claim - to defend against the army of mansplainers that I suspect may be waiting for just such a claim from me).
If you’re wondering if I have a chip on my shoulder about certain countries imagining that “they are the world”, then yes. And then some.
So… you see… I don’t really have any experience of freeway billboards other than the ones I have seen in movies, or when visiting my cousin in California. The only ones that come to mind in movies are in “Field of Dreams”, and “L A Story”. In real life, I have ridiculously clear memories of the iMac adverts above the freeway through Marin in 1999. Yes, I know that’s very specific.
So. Given that my knowledge of movie billboards are when they communicate subliminal messages, that would seem to be the thing I would want them to do. To give people cryptic comments to help them through the day - in the same ways that astrologers use cold-reading techniques to write open-statements that might apply to anybody.
Perhaps the billboard should say something insufferably abstract that means nothing to anybody in particular, but the gullible might interpret as being about themselves.
Something like “it’s turtles, all the way down.”
Oh look - that’s the tagline of my blog. How long did it take me to go round the houses before suggesting that? I’m almost impressed at my own ability to waste my own time. And yours. I’ll do better tomorrow, honest.
As an aside, if you’ve not seen L A Story, or Field of Dreams, you need to. Both great movies.