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30 Honest Illustrations About The Things That Are Wrong With Today’s Society By John Holcroft
There's something very disturbing about John Holcroft's work, but in a very good way. Checking out his cool drawings, you can't help but feel as if you're seeing something forbidden. The fragility of the system, the obscurity of your career; the lack of romance in today's world. The characters' passions are their torture and there's only one way out - embracing the absurdity of the modern world. Working from a studio near Sheffield, UK, Holcroft manages to connect two completely different eras. Drawing inspiration from 1950s screen print posters, he creates satirical illustrations that deliver a great social commentary on the things that are wrong with our society.
More info: johnholcroft.com | Facebook | society6
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"My work is concept rather than character based," Holcroft told Bored Panda after being asked if he ever feels like a character in one of his pieces. "However, when working on an illustration whether it's a commission for a publication or a self-promotional piece I imagine what it's like to be in the situation of the concept. It helps to communicate to the reader more if they can related to the person in the image."
It shows that us women work a lot harder then men but get lower respect
"My biggest concerns about society are that we are too reliant on devices to the extent of obsession," the artist said. "There is also a large proportion of young people that have 'dumbed down' and see platforms like YouTube as a new standard in entertainment, watching mindless drivel by people who either just want to be famous or want to viewing figures for ad revenue. This has become acceptable and the norm."
"How some people can be easily lead to believe things that the media tell them, whether it be about elections or referendums some people believe what they read on social media and tabloid newspapers instead of seeking out the facts."
I love this one because this is exactly how it feels. Like of course women can say whatever we want and we can land jobs in any profession, but it doesn’t mean people take you seriously. It doesn’t mean the boys in the room don’t treat each other with higher regard.
I agree, that evil clown really dislikes women and their opinions =p
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I have never understood this IT divide between men and women. I have worked in the IT world for over 20 years and I have always valued and respected my female colleagues contributions, ideas, and decision making.
I've just replied to another comment, I didn't felt this divide. Been working in more than a dozen of IT work places and gladly saw no one daring to hint that gender (m/f/o), ethnic race, color or age as a differentiating issue. There are surely plenty of sexist/segregating places but believe it or not in this field people are generally more open towards diversity. To Amber, thanks for femsplaining.
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My personal favourite was when I literally copied and pasted an email previously received by a male superior and just re-wrote the dates, location and name. Got a bunch of angry emails by male co-workers about how disrespectful and aggressive I sounded in my email...
When a man mansplains why mansplaining doesn't exist. Thanks. Because now I get it.
Hopefully you never have to look that hard for one
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I'm glad men are working hard to do the bare minimum and trying to respect their conversational partner and trying to not sexually harass someone, well done, the achievement of the year
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it does, but everyone is guilty of it too, so nobody can exactly complain about it.
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Despite all the grim colors in his creative drawings, Holcroft likes to think he's optimistic, believing that everything's gonna be OK regarding such social problems like climate change. "But the pessimistic side of me gets restless when I don't see very much movement politically. My biggest frustration is that little people like me and you don’t have a voice, we are shouting at the governments of the world to do something, millions of us with out metaphoric megaphones shouting ‘the world is in crisis, what are you doing about it?’. All while large corporations are profiting on the pollution without a care in the world."
Tony’s Chocolonely. Slave-free chocolat and really delicious. Just look it up. It is great.
The artist also tries not to get involved in anything religious or something that may offend others, unless it's for a really good cause. "The reason being, primarily this is how I make my living and I produce show pieces to attract work and I don’t thing I will be very popular if I alienate my potential clients. Although magazine articles tend to cover interesting subject matters they don’t like to upset their readership."
an economy based solely on sales (and not service or production) will fall like a row of dominoes
My opinion is that he’s looking to pills to fix his problem and not finding the answers there. Maybe it’s not about modern medicine as much as it is about people expecting pills to cure-all for certain things but not putting in the real world work. The pill is empty because it didn’t solve their problem. Maybe?
This is the unintended consequence of the Genome Project on the nature vs nurture argument. Suddenly everyone started thinking “There’s a gene for that” about every aspect of human variation, including those that are shaped more by environment. Therefore, if someone is deemed aberrant, it’s automatically attributed to genetics, rather than the neglect and/or brutality they may have had to survive from childhood. This, in turn, can lead to labeling, which means society automatically writes them off as not worthy of our time and attention, and basically disposes of them through the school to prison pipeline—-strong and immobilizing shackles, indeed.
Not sure exactly what the commentary is supposed to be here, but this is a pretty accurate depiction of the way economies work... Like how people are surprised when the stock market doesn’t continue to go up (or down) forever, it’s like, yeah, that’s how it works...
This isn’t about him wanting to take it or not. It’s about the fact that he’s literally tethered to it forever. If he wants to keep living, he is stuck dragging around this ball and chain. Yeah it keeps him alive but let’s not act like it’s not a burden. Especially if the price on that medicine goes up. He’s STILL going to be tethered to it if he wants to live.
"Would you like paper, plastic, or lettuce leaf to carry your groceries?"
With the right amount of drive, determination and stamina, you too can be a star!
Being part of the mundane workforce has sadly removed his drive and ambition...
Wondering if it's about a house that pollutes the environment seeing the amount of smoke going out of the chimney
I think the issue may be that Mavis toothpaste is marketed as a premium product with exotic flavors (in this case, licorice) but testing has shown a number of bottom of the barrel, less-than- good for you ingredients.
Like Dad use to say "money doesn't grow on trees", well neither does any of that stuff.
Austerity turned into Prosperity...the way government fools us
Just the usual stuffs we see in every other "what's the problem with the world from my armchair" post.
Yes and no. The messages might be the same, but the manner of relaying it seems quite unusual to me.
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We get it. Technology bad, phones bad, social media bad. I've seen this a million times before. It would be nice to see other issues than technology portrayed in these sort of things.
Yes and how about all of the good things technology / social media has enabled us to do and create? Why does everything have to be so sad and depressing?
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Another moderately talented graphic designer with the world outlook of a 13 year-old. Trite and boring.
they are so true. some of them have the same message, but its good because people keep trying to get the message through but it won't work, so if the message is everywhere it might work. i appreciate this page
Two things stand out to me - the person who drew these pictures is probably American and a feminist. Yes, it's the same things over and over again but a minority of people mention that a lot of these things can be good if you have balace.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say this artist leans to the left on the political spectrum....
I felt they were more like "old man yels at cloud".
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Thing is ... technology is always depicted as a problem ALONE. No one ever thought about the importance of, let's say, safe and clean water, delivered to your house anytime in any amount you might want? Safe food, as major urban areas can't really provide locally, rely on transportation of a lot of stuff - even if any unneeded or preventable waste of food is taken out of the examination. Technology actually enables stuff like basic human rights to be relevant and put in power, and much, much more. It's the human's relation to it, the strictly economy-based decision made about technologie's use and scale, and that this is made above the engineer's heads that, what causes major problems.
hey, the illustrations are good. food for thought, but i couldn't browse through them all. people who think everybody else need every single panel to be thoroughly explained by their smartass minds are way too annoying.
There's also the argument that this is just how society has evolved. Are there problems, absolutely! But nagging about social media and technology is pointless. When I was younger, I had better toys than my parents and their parents. We're constantly evolving. That's my take on the technology aspect of it.
Why were most of my comments deleted? They don't even show being there at all as if I never made a post.
Just the usual stuffs we see in every other "what's the problem with the world from my armchair" post.
Yes and no. The messages might be the same, but the manner of relaying it seems quite unusual to me.
Load More Replies... We get it. Technology bad, phones bad, social media bad. I've seen this a million times before. It would be nice to see other issues than technology portrayed in these sort of things.
Yes and how about all of the good things technology / social media has enabled us to do and create? Why does everything have to be so sad and depressing?
Load More Replies... Another moderately talented graphic designer with the world outlook of a 13 year-old. Trite and boring.
they are so true. some of them have the same message, but its good because people keep trying to get the message through but it won't work, so if the message is everywhere it might work. i appreciate this page
Two things stand out to me - the person who drew these pictures is probably American and a feminist. Yes, it's the same things over and over again but a minority of people mention that a lot of these things can be good if you have balace.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say this artist leans to the left on the political spectrum....
I felt they were more like "old man yels at cloud".
Load More Replies... Thing is ... technology is always depicted as a problem ALONE. No one ever thought about the importance of, let's say, safe and clean water, delivered to your house anytime in any amount you might want? Safe food, as major urban areas can't really provide locally, rely on transportation of a lot of stuff - even if any unneeded or preventable waste of food is taken out of the examination. Technology actually enables stuff like basic human rights to be relevant and put in power, and much, much more. It's the human's relation to it, the strictly economy-based decision made about technologie's use and scale, and that this is made above the engineer's heads that, what causes major problems.
hey, the illustrations are good. food for thought, but i couldn't browse through them all. people who think everybody else need every single panel to be thoroughly explained by their smartass minds are way too annoying.
There's also the argument that this is just how society has evolved. Are there problems, absolutely! But nagging about social media and technology is pointless. When I was younger, I had better toys than my parents and their parents. We're constantly evolving. That's my take on the technology aspect of it.
Why were most of my comments deleted? They don't even show being there at all as if I never made a post.
