TOW #26: "One dies, million cry" (nonfiction, visual text)

This advertisement juxtaposes the death of Steve Jobs with millions of people dying in Africa due to poverty, famine, and water depletion. Steve Jobs died because of Pancreatic cancer, a irreversible disease that cannot be altered and is beyond human hands. However, the death of millions in Africa is something that people can ameliorate with their will and conservation. The author of this photo wants to show the audience and criticize the public that even when there are thousands of people dying everyday due to famine which is partly due to our fault. However, we overlook that very fact. In contrast, when Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple died, millions of people cried and were grieving. Here, the author presents the hypocrisy. Obviously, people dying in Africa is much greater problem because it is millions of people compared to the death of one single man. However, I do not think the author’s argument is very strong. Steve Jobs is someone who changed millions of people’s lives and brought a new innovation to the world. I am not saying that Steve Jobs’s life is much more important than millions of people’s lives. Everyone’s life is equally important. However, Steve Jobs is someone that most of the people in first world countries know. In contrast to millions of people dying in Africa, who people consider and group as one and do not identify individually as one by one. The photo itself tries to mimic how the world equalizes the death of one single notable person to millions of people in Africa by replacing the Apple logo with African continent. Also, the color of black and white represents the colors used by the company Apple for their advertisements and perhaps to mourn the death of not just Steve Jobs but also the millions of lives in Africa. I think the advertisement could have been more effective if the author did not minimize the death of Steve Jobs. If the author acknowledged the deaths of both groups, Steve Jobs and impoverished African Americans, it could have been more effective and would have to deal with less controversy.