SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE OUTRAGE MACHINE

A short video recently circulating on social media shows Adolf Hitler drinking from a can of Fanta while angrily proclaiming, “I hate juice.” Though millions mistook it for an authentic commercial, sparking fierce online debate, it is actually an AI-generated meme. Its artificial nature is fairly obvious, given that the colour, fonts and logo on the can look nothing like actual Fanta packaging. So why did so many people fall for it? The answer lies in our current media topography, where “shockvertising” has been methodically normalised. The term ‘shockvertising’ emerged in the early 1990s, though the practice dates back to public health campaigns in the late 1960s, and describes a marketing…