in a recent post i mentioned the "yarra trams BEWARE rhino" which, in hindsight is obviously is a pretty niche reference, but i promise you it's 100% a real thing and, as i have discovered, also super bizarre if you don't know the context.
see, the greater metropolitan area of Melbourne, Australia has one of the more extensive tram networks relative to size in the world, linking large parts of the city with ground level electrified light rail, mostly embedded into major roads; and the whole CBD is so tram-full that many thoroughfares share a pretty equal mass of tram to pedestrian traffic. (it's honestly great and they should massively expand it everywhere to make cars extinct imho and also make all dedicated tram stops level platforms so they're mobility accessible but also especially the royal park one it's right next to the physical rehab clinic you guys butthatsnotthepointhere)
meanwhile, the Melburnian people have reputation for being a bunch of cafe-going, self-absorbed, snobby music-loving hipsters, glued to their phones at all times. this reputation is, alas, rightly earned. "I'm from Melbourne!" is setup and punchline in and of itself around regional Victoria.
you may think that these above two facts wouldn't intersect with each other in the best way during peak hour, and you'd be right. it's not a big secret among locals that "unexpected interruptions" on a tram line almost always means a bunch of people in hi-vis vests putting tarps over tracks and waiting for the coroner to show up.
so Yarra Trams, the company that runs the network, regularly runs advertising campaigns desperately trying to get the public to activate their most basic survival instincts around trams, and, well, in the early 2010's...
...i honestly think it's amazing and wonderful and would be an eternal pillar of melbourne culture if it were up to me, but the response of seeming everyone at the time was.... WTF mate?
see the logic behind the campaign was that people have a disproportionate risk assessment response about trams; they're such a common and intrinsic part of the city, that people don't really think about their presence unless they're impatiently waiting for one, let alone the danger - trams are massive heavy lumps of metal and at full cruising speed takes a significant amount of time to come to a stop, much longer than required to respond to a sudden idiot in the way... but people just aren't scared enough of them.
but you know what people are scared of? large beasts. people are absolutely terrified of large beasts! you know, sharks, crocodiles, lions.... rhinos. people are scared of rhinos, right? rhinos are big and slow, and probably take a while to come to a stop when something's in their way, even if they want to. people are terrified of rhinos right? and a tram can weight as much as 30 rhinos!! well what if a rhino had... a skateboard?!? you'd be fucken terrified of that then, wouldn't ya, ya cunts!!!
this is not entirely out of nowhere, australian public advertising campaigns are often noted for their "cheeky irreverence", as part of the prescribed national identity, so a rhino on a skateboard isn't necessarily that weird, it doesn't even swear at you or anything. the whole campaign lasted for quite a while and the company that put it together apparently won awards for it, so it presumably did well, and it clearly left a permanent mark on me to be casually dropping it in a 2am mental health breakdown rant.
however. one of the funniest details to me that i haven't mentioned yet, is that... well, this is australia. this is melbourne! outsiders and some country folk might not realise this, but as much as the ruling class wants to project the image of australia as a homogeneous white anglo population deeply culturally tied to the USA/UK... it is very much not that in reality! especially melbourne, which ranks 10th globally in proportion of immigrant population, in 2016 over half of all melburnians were born overseas, and less than 40% speak exclusively english at home. if you're doing an ad campaign about safety anywhere in australia, you absolutely have to translate and distribute that information in multiple languages! *cough*cough*pandemic*cough*
except that for this ad campaign...
they only translated the BEWARE part of it.
to my knowledge, none of the other advertising material was presented in any language other than english. i can't find demograpic numbers on what percentage of the population is unable to read english, but it's not trivial - never mind immigration and foriegn students, i lived near a budget holiday park popular with european tourists for over 10 years, i am intimately familiar with how many people struggle daily to navigate the english-heavy melbourne public transport network!
so if you think the whole "BEWARE RHINO ON A SKATEBOARD" thing is a stretch, just imagine being someone going about their routine in this beautiful publicly accessible city of ours, when suddenly you are cofronted with this dramatic, scary, hazard-colour-coded signage all over the trams and tram stops, and literally the only part of it written in a language you can read is a rhino on a skateboard that says BEWARE
beware what??? you might think
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