In December 2022, Internet users reported that an advertising poster appeared in Brazil with an image of the President of Ukraine inside a contraceptive. We have verified the accuracy of such publications.
On December 7 and 8, more than 300 Telegram channels shared a picture showing Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky inside a condom. “Some people should never have been born,” reads the English-language caption for the drawing. The authors of similar posts also claim that this image is used in condom advertising in Brazil. Among the largest channels in which posts appeared about Zelensky, who became the face of an unusual advertising campaign, are: Voblya (1.31 million subscribers at the time of writing this analysis), “Russia now" (1.24 million), "Observer🇷🇺🇺🇦" (1.13 million), "🔥 Army 🅉 18+ 🔥" (1.02 million), "Bullet"(838,000), "First People's"(796,000), "Federation"(789,000), "What happened?"(590,000), "Special Operation Z"(467,000), "Tynu40k Goblina (oper.ru)" (462,000), "Sheikh Tamir"(388,000), "Ostashko! Important» (338,000) and Putin TG Team (314,000). The news was also shared in Facebook*, Twitter, "VKontakte"and other social networks.
Just three years ago, Internet users actively published very similar posts: supposedly in Brazil they released an advertisement with exactly the same slogan and concept, only US President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the head of the DPRK Kim Jong-un were placed inside condoms. All three images are authentic, they were posted on the social network for designers Behance, with Trump and Kim still in May 2017. The authors of the pictures are the project designers Platinum FMD, which is based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and works in computer graphics.
At the same time, Platinum FMD’s publications on Behance do not indicate the condom manufacturing company that ordered such advertising. No brands are mentioned either in the pictures themselves or in the description of the project. At the end of the presentation of his first part (pictures with Trump and Kim) it is indicated that this is a “private project” - therefore, apparently, the designer published not only the final image, but also numerous sketches and screenshots of intermediate stages of work on the pictures.
When images of world leaders (and especially Putin) inside condoms went viral in late 2019, Platinum FMD decided to clear the air on its Facebook page. “We discovered that our original series “Some People Should Never Be Born” appeared on a humor page on 9gag and became popular, haha. Thanks guys, and just to be clear, this is not an advertisement for condoms, this is just our creative imagination for a personal project." reported designers.
Neither on the website of the Brazilian agency, nor on its social networks, we found any confirmation that the series “Some People Should Never Be Born” had a continuation with the participation of the President of Ukraine. Moreover, if you look closely at the picture with Vladimir Zelensky, you will notice that this is just a poster with the image of Donald Trump, processed in a photo editor, which appeared five years ago. The image was mirrored along the vertical axis, the “hostage” became slimmer, the color of the tie was changed from red to blue, and the face of the former US President, carefully drawn by Brazilian designers, was replaced with a simple photograph of the President of Ukraine.
The earliest post using this “advertising” that we could find was published on VKontakte. On December 6 at 15:13 Moscow time, the image was posted by the public “Ooo, sir!"(2.1 million subscribers). “The community was created for entertainment purposes and publishes humorous content,” its description says. At the same time, “Whoop, sir!” tells about how “Wagner PMC pilots” repeated the feat Nikolai Gastello"near Bakhmut, posts memes about Zelensky the drug addict (“Checked” earlier sorted it out similar statements) and publishes a photograph of a nuclear missile with the caption: “Here the guys propose not to refuse uranium supplies to the United States, but simply change the delivery method... Do you support it?”
Thus, recent messages on social networks refer to publications three years ago, when Internet users misinterpreted the work of designers from Brazil, mistaking their drawings for real advertising. The image featuring the President of Ukraine is not just a misinterpretation of a real image, but the result of work in a photo editor, created far beyond the borders of Brazil.
*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social networks Facebook and Instagram, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Cover photo: Twitter
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