This piece of shit was installed in 2017 and it still occasionally catches my ire. And not for the reasons you’d expect and think me a bigot for. No, my reasons are much more pretentious. I’m sure most people know by know, but for those who don’t, this is an ad. It is not art masquerading as an ad like Warhol; this is an ad masquerading as art. And these days I’m starting to think that’s one of the most disgusting things to come about this decade, permission-less covert advertising.

At the bottom of the statue is a plaque that reads, “Know the power of women in leadership. SHE makes a difference.” Which you may read that and say, “Hey, that’s not so bad. Its an advertisement for women’s empowerment, which isn’t really advertising at all since there’s no product.” But the truth is that this was commissioned by State Street Global Advisors, an asset management company, that just so happens to run an index fund with a high percentage of women in senior leadership roles with the ticker SHE. Don’t get me wrong; I support women in leadership roles and even work at a company with a female CEO. And it’s not like its an advertisement for Roundup. There’s a slew of reprehensible products in the world you can choose to advertise for.

Do you not realize how fucked that is though? Corporations and advertising companies think so little of how much your attention is worth that they think they can just take it whenever they want it. They see nothing wrong with tricking you into being advertised at. This isn’t the same as consuming free media, looking at a billboard, or attending sponsored events. In all these situations, you are willingly and knowingly entering into a pseudo-contract that in exchange for entertainment (or in the case of billboards, even just a break from the monotony of driving) you will be advertised at. And you know you’re doing this because these are common venues where people know advertisements exist. Art is not one of these venues where people can expect to be advertised at. And more importantly, we cannot let it become that.

Advertising permeates the fabric of our lives like oil. And I just get the feeling that this is one of those first forays into a world where anything of any interest at all at any time in a given day has an advertisement tied to it. How long is it before your alphabet soup comes pre-arranged into a short ad for fucking SquareSpace or Liberty Mutual?

There’s also a smaller issue in that this appropriates the bull into a piece of art that the artist objected to. What was once a symbol of the American economy and capitalism is now something dangerous and about to mow down a little girl. Which is kind of fucked considering that he gifted it to the city. “Not so fast! They’ve moved the statue to another spot,” you may say. While true, they still left a plaque of her footprints there so while the image may not exist in the real world anymore, it still exists in your mind. It would be hard to go to that spot and just appreciate the bull as art without roping that piece of shit into your headspace. And I think that was the point of them pushing for that in the settlement, that you cannot appreciate the bull without subliminally advertising to yourself. Fuck that.

To most people, the girl symbolizes bravery in the face of the patriarchy. To me, her stance reminds me of how entitled corporations feel to our thoughts and our lives. And I wish they would just fuck off.