On Pigeons
As seen in the GDP newsletter.
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“Give me the freedom of a tight brief.”
Would I even be a copywriter if I didn’t lead with a quote from a dead ad legend?
Well, with respect to Mr. Ogilvy, there was no brief for this. I am paralyzed with possibilities. And feeling backed into a corner.
So, welcome to Zoey’s Corner.
Know who else is famous for getting backed into corners? Rats. This month’s topic is their winged cousins, a.k.a. pigeons, and all the ways we as a society have failed them.
Sky rats. Vermin. Disease-riddled pests that clog up our city streets and eat out of our trash cans. Always on the periphery, always scrabbling for crumbs, often missing a few toes.
Why do you never see a pigeon in the forest? I’ll tell you why.
Several thousand years before the invention of radio and telephones, we used homing pigeons to form an essential web of communication around the globe. Our problematic friend Genghis Khan even had his own system of pigeons arrayed from Eastern Europe through Asia.
More recently they were war heroes, risking life and feather during both world wars to deliver messages to the front and saving numerous lives in the process. Bred for their beauty, pigeons were eventually brought into cities where they thrived as beloved pets.
Until they didn’t. Because in the ’60s, Pigeon Perception began to change.
Cities had expanded postwar, causing pigeons to explode out of high rises and onto the streets. As concerns about droppings, property damage, and disease increased, the media started referring to them as “rats with wings.” The final nail in their tiny proverbial coffins.
No longer considered pets, yet unable to survive without the humans who’d abandoned them.
They live off of our garbage and struggle even to build nests. Ten thousand years of utility and companionship followed by nothing but systemic neglect.
Are you sufficiently bummed out? Same.
As humans, we have a proven history of celebrating innovation without taking responsibility for what it replaces. What happens when the message no longer needs a messenger?
Hmmm. Maybe I’ll ask AI.
