Visual Text -TOW #15

This political cartoon depicts a huge crowd of people rallying with a banner that has “save the twinkie” on it. Meanwhile, two people, one holding a sign that says “save the earth” look on to the crowd, and the man wearing blue jeans part of the twosome says, “we're doomed”. It is a critique of the causes people choose to rally around. Also noted should be the fact that the people holding the save the twinkie sign are seemingly overweight, or close to it. They are also white and middle aged. Then, the people holding the save the earth sign are younger, thin, and looking on with disapproving faces. The people holding the sign save the twinkie are aggressive in their manner, not even taking notice of the save the earth people. This points out the fact that many of the people rallying around twinkies would not even take a second glance at save the earth posters, or the whole cause in general.

The author of this piece is trying to say that people rally for dumb causes much of the time bypassing more important ones, like saving the earth. One example of this is the potato salad guy, who on kickstarter, raised a couple hundred thousand bucks just to make a potato salad. While these people could have been giving to worthwhile charities, they instead chose to help someone make a 1 dollar potato salad. His cause was dumb, but people still gave to it, thinking it was funny. The author is pointing out the shallowness in society, and how we get numb to causes that are important but seemingly overexposed. This is what sucks in society because we need to learn more to not overlook things we have seen before, like save the earth posters.