The medium is the message so Obey!

Hint: he's half Polish.

Second hint: he became famous, and lived, in Montreal though he is originally from Grenoble, France.

The answer is André René Roussimoff though he is better known as André the Giant.

the Obey Giant

  

Born to Jewish parents of Polish and Bulgarian ancestry in 1946, André the Giant suffered from acromegaly, better known as gigantism. Due to his incredible size, and strength, AG became a wrestler at the age of 17 but only achieved worldwide fame in the early seventies, when he moved to Montreal and began wrestling at the Forum. 

The Obey Giant, a huge skater community symbol, was created in 1989 by Shepard Fairey as a street art and viral marketing campaign. It eventually became known as the Obey Giant though it was first called André the Giant has a Posse.

  
So how, exactly, does a gigantic wrestler became a skateboarding symbol?

And how many skateboarders even know that the face on their shirt, or hat, actually belongs to André René Roussimoff?

I'm guessing very few!    

Which got me thinking... how does a symbol become a symbol when it loses its meaning or message?

Which then got me thinking about this.

 
Marshall McLuhan.

The term "the medium is the message," originally coined by MM (a Canadian "philosopher" widely regarded as the father of communications and media studies) in 1964, refers to the fact that in the age of communications the medium influences the message, sometimes even overriding it, becoming the message in itself or altering how it is perceived.

Other McLuhanisms include "the future of the book is the blurb," "all advertising advertises advertising," and "money is the poor man's credit card."

Well said Mister McLuhan.

I remember asking an acquaintance of mine, many moons ago, what made her buy the shirt she was wearing. It featured the likeness of a well-known activist. She answered that she agreed with his principles. Gandhi's I mean.

Except the guy on her shirt was Che Guevara.

The medium is the message, y'all.

While there is literally a world of difference between the Indian leader of nationalism and the Argentinian Marxist revolutionary - one believed in peace the other in radical guerrilla tactics - both have become ubiquitous commercial successes for representing... something. 

But what exactly?

The medium is the message.

Here are a few pics I took this week while ruminating on McLuhan's most famous McLuhanism...