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A marketing and advertising company in Waco, Tex. really wanted to drum up some new business, you know, make a splash. Most likely, there was a strategy meeting at which Hornet Signs’ owner, Brad Kolb, petitioned his crack creative team for some ideas. Maybe someone said tentatively, “We should all wear funny hats, like, everywhere,” but that idea was roundly rejected. Maybe some other someone then said, “Let’s use the INTERNET to, you know, make gifs of cats holding up our signs.” No, no — Hornet Signs needed to show the public how realistic its signs are, how they have depth, contour. Hornet needed to not just interest or entertain people — the company needed to alarm them, to spread panic across the Texas highways, which is how the “woman bounded in the bed of a truck” pickup truck tailgate decal was born.
The decal has attracted nothing but negative attention since local media got wind of it earlier in the week, though Kolb insisted to KWTX, “I wasn't expecting the reactions we got, nor do we condone this by any means. It was more or less something we put out there to see who noticed it.” Condone what, exactly? Violence against women? Kidnap? Rape? Wait, so you’re saying that this tailgate decal — that an employee had to slap on a truck and drive around with to “gauge how realistic [Hornet Signs’] decals are” — isn’t somehow an ad encouraging people to go forth, kidnap, and be prosperous? What you’re really saying, then, is that Kolb is just a sensationalistic asshole who mistakenly believes an image like the one on his company’s tailgate decals is provocative when, really, it’s just a graphic testament to the casual, callous misogyny that tries to assert some kind of ownership over women’s bodies.
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