Photoshop Terrorism

Terrorists have long been able to use Photoshop, but I don't think they're very good at it. You'd think, if they insist on using it so much, they'd take a class at the community college or something. The latest bit of Al Qaeda graphic design was reported by Sky News this morning, and I'm unimpressed.

I remember when there used to be real skill involved in propaganda. Paintings that were at least well crafted, despite their obvious terrible imagery. I think back to my Russian history class, when I wrote a paper on the art movements in the U.S.S.R. They at least had some talented artists working on that stuff. And over here in America, we didn't settle for any less: we pulled out guys like Norman Rockwell. The purpose of each country's respective propaganda was to build themselves up... Russia was trying to convince us, and it's own people, through art, that they were doing great and that everyone was happy over there. We, of course, were doing great (and still are) so Norman didn't have to make up too much.

Looking at today's propaganda coming from the Middle East, it's hard to feel the same way. Firstly, it's pretty ugly. I'm guessing it's because the Al Qaeda graphic designer can't find a place to use his optical mouse inside of that cave. Or maybe he just doesn't have an art director to push him a little harder. Whatever the reason, Al Qaeda and insurgent posters suck. I mean, the ones they posted on Sky News are supposed to scare us because they chose titles of movies that suck (with the exception of the "...of the Dead" ones, but then again they didn't change those too much). Did they do that on purpose? Or didn't they know that everyone over here pretty much hated those films? They should subscribe to Variety or something. And if they really wanted to scare us, they should have left Rob Schneider's face on "The Animal" poster.

Technical aspects aside, the message of these posters is pretty muddled: An army of terrorists are coming to get us; soldiers are dying; they have a really big banner, probably printed at Kinkos. None of it's really positive, because they aren't trying to convince anyone that they're doing okay over there. They're not trying to tell us that they have a better life than ours. Nope, all they want to communicate with their propaganda is "We've seen your Hollywood movies... and we can make better versions of them!"

Sorry terrorists... not only are you losing popularity on a global level, but your propaganda is pretty freaking lame. Maybe start with some thumbnail sketches next time.