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An anonymous tagger has affixed Diesel price stickers to every single one of the denim company's "Be Stupid" ads in the West 4th Street subway station. On some, the price ($330 for men's jeans) has been circled and the words "Stupid, no?" scrawled in red pen. Of course, the diabolical thing about the campaign is that this response fits in perfectly. Smart complains about ads; stupid defaces them.
Meanwhile, Diesel is holding a contest on Twitter through Friday. Submit a photo of yourself doing something amusing in front of "Be stupid" signage, and you could win a "Be stupid" poster of your very own. They're also offering tickets to the Fader's One Step Beyond party at the American Museum of Natural History on Friday night.
Ironically, one photographer took to the West 4th Street station to try to win the prize. He writes, "We headed to a tunnel covered in Diesel ads over at the West 4th subway station but vandals hit it pretty hard. There were all kinds of markings, rips, stickers and stencils and I just shot around it." Stupid ruins it for everyone else? Honestly, at this point we have lost the ability to parse what counts as smart and what counts as stupid, but we do think this photo from the shoot is pretty amazing.
· diesel don’t be stupid [Bowery Boogie]
· Bugging Out With Steph and Chris [AF27]
· Diesel's "Be Stupid" Campaign: A Point-Counterpoint [Racked NY]