I recently saw this image at Graph Jam:
What I found interesting about the image is its ambivalence—it’s genuinely unclear to me how this image is supposed to be read. Consider these two options:
- The image is recommending that we avoid bottled water, but in a tongue-in-cheek manner. Perhaps we shouldn’t drink bottled water because tap water is just is good and less wasteful or less harmful on the environment, but it’s funny to joke around by suggesting bottled water is from (*gasp*) hell.
- The image is making fun of the sincerity and seriousness of those who criticize bottled water—perhaps they are just as absurd as the people who say gays are going to hell.
I imagine that the image may be read according to the way the reader wants it to read—because of my sympathies, my first read was along the lines of #1 rather than #2, although upon reflection I realized my interpretation could go either way. Interpretation is in they eye of the beholder, it seems.
I would not rule out the possibility that the image was intended in an entirely sincere manner. Nearly every time I think, “surely, no one would really build a religion in that way, around that, I’m wrong.
Graphjam is a humor site. It seems they are making fun of those who believe things as absurd as water pumped from hell, speaking serpents, adam and eve and a man who manages to open the sea with a magic staff.
Most of the water of the rivers come from springs. Is this water tears of the dammed too? I think we shoud drink only water collected from the rain. If you open your mouth towards the sky when it rains, you will be drinkink directly from heaven.
I interpreted it as straight up satire of religion using bottled water as the absurdist vehicle for the satire.